[Prithvi Mundur]

Go/No-Go decision:

During recent long weekend(on account of Karnataka Bandh + Prophet's Birthday + Gandhi Jayanti), decided to stay at home, and not to go on a trip to the usual touristy places, as I didn't want to contribute my part to the traffic snarls even over there, and inadvertently jackup the already exorbitant accommodation prices.

Couple of days passed by and the itch to go on a trip returned.

Have learnt a new word - "Mizzle", and the weather in Bangalore on the day resembled the same, which further fanned my desire to go on a long drive out of the city.

Now, the question is where to?

While watching news, had made a mental note of the place - "Bidanagere".
However, it was over a year ago, and I now found it difficult to recollect, but somehow managed to retrieve the name from the archives of my brain memory.

Did a quick search and then a fuzzy search in team-bhp, but was surprised that no result matched my keyword, as I was initially pretty sure that someone by now would have written about the 161' towering Lord Hanuman at Bidanagere.

I now shifted my focus to Google Reviews and found most of the comments highlighted the place to have become commercialized.
I usually take reviews with a grain of salt, and there being a Shaneeshwara temple too, and it being a Saturday, made me arrive at the Go decision easily, and the coordinates of Bidanagere was locked on gmaps.

Bajrang Bali, here we come:

Fork in the road:

A poem about choosing the road less travelled usually lingers on in the back of my mind, and gmaps supported me by estimating that 5 minutes is all the difference if I went on NICE corridor relative to the other route options.
Moreover, I've an aversion towards NICE road as I find it's toll charges to be unreasonably high and I dislike their ramp design too.

As it was an impromptu travel plan, we started late in the day at about 11AM, but we still weren't in a time crunch situation as the distance to cover was near about 85kms only.
Thus, I picked an alternative route, but google kept on chiming in to opt for the NICE road.
I just wished that google could read my mind and stop nagging me about the faster option via NICE.
Passengers in my car started to float conspiracy theories that NICE proprietor might have stuck some deal with Sundar Pichai, and we all had a loud laugh .

Bidanagere:

Quickly zoomed out of Bangalore city, and motored towards Bidanagere.
It was a great sight to see the sky-high Hanumantha while nearing the destination.


We were also joyous to find that there was no parking fees, which I must say is a rare phenomenon nowadays.

Imposing Panchmukhi Hanuman is truly a sight to behold:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yeWRzIsp...P_i-pyB1t1LwVJ

Panchavaktra(Hayagriva, Narasimha, Hanuman, Garuda, Varaha)


Had darshan of Shaneeshwara, and proceeded towards Anjaneya temple, and later climbed the pedestal to touch and bow at the feet of Hanuman.
We at once felt vibrations on the ground and wildly imagined on whether Hanuman started to walk, but soon figured out it to be due to a train chugging along closeby .


One may additionally note that there is a Basavanna temple, Vruddhashrama, Anathashrama and Annadasoham hall.

It was now time to bid adieu to Bidanagere, and must mention that during our brief visit, the atmosphere was pleasantly filled with devotion, and luckily didn't experience any undertones of commercialism in the area as yet.

Janeu Hanuman:

Mandaragiri:

Drove towards Mandaragiri which is around 50kms away from Bidanagere.
Was greeted with a parking fee slip, and was amazed to find so much of information about the place on a small piece of paper:


Peacock Pinchi shaped dome:


A tigress, cub, cow and calf:


It's a serene place with a hillock and a lake.
Low flying black clouds and misty air felt good to feel, and sometimes made us wonder if we are actually touching the cloud .

Mandaragiri aka Panditanahalli aka Besadi Betta:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=5lj7Z4BN...f2cUbNy0uPLLIJ

It was getting dark and time was nigh to return to Bangalore.
So, we conveyed our salutations to Chandraprabha for one last time:


Made a stopover at Khalsa family dhaba for dinner, and the chef over here found us worthy to share the secret recipe of his hot and spicy Punjabi tea

All in all, a memorable and relaxing trip, and hope the travel bug in me would lie low at least for a while from now.

PS:

$0.02 advice for people travelling by car: If you are to leave Mandaragiri and intend to join NH48, and find a factory enroute, please stop and take a U-turn, and instead join the highway by taking the route that passes via a railway crossing gate.
In case you ignore and proceed further down the factory route, you'll encounter an unscientific speed breaker that will most likely scrape the underbody of the car.
If there's a streak of rain, the underpass ahead would be waterlogged.

Until next time!