One of the best trip experiences we had till now was a trip to Chitradurga. Four of us started for a couple of day’s trip on couple of our Pulsars at 5:30AM on 23-May-2008 from BTM Layout, Bangalore. We filled up petrol for our bikes and started towards NICE road at Kanakapura Road. We warmed up ourselves by having coffee/tea at one of the toll posts of Tumkur road. We had a plan of not crossing 80km/hr at any cost and we did manage our planned speed till Tumkur. And the roads were so tempting that we couldn’t resist accelerating a few more degrees that made us cross 115km/hr a few times. Just before reaching Tumkur, we took a deviation towards right following Bellary road. It was around 10AM, we had crossed Hiriyur, found lots of small/huge wind mills and around 10-20 kms to Chitradurga, we found a Reliance A1 plaza where we had a pretty fair breakfast (the prices are no lesser than Bangalore, might be bit more).
We reached Chitradurga at 11AM, struggled to find a Hotel to stay since it was the same day the election results were supposed to be out and Chitradurga is also a district. We finally found a decent Upadhya Lodge (Rs.300/- per room), dumped our baggage and without wasting any more time biked towards Chitradurga fort. The fort is around 2-3 kms from the city and they charged Rs.5/- as an entry fees to the fort. It gives a great pleasure and experience once you enter the fort, especially if you have seen and/or heard about Onake Obavva, the lady who saved the fort single handedly from the Hyder Ali’s soldiers.
We climbed to the top of the hill to get a beautiful view of the fort and the nature. I have to mention you this. There is couple of ways to reach the top of the hill. One is the tough way without stairs, 45 degrees slant rock and the second is the hard stairs way after akka tangi Honda. On the way, you do find the place where great Kannada movie Nagara Haavu was shot.
Places to watch at chitradurga fort:
Maddu beesuva kallu
Akka tangi honda
Onake Obavva Kindi
Akka tangi honda
Onake Obavva Kindi
Kaashi Vishwanatha temple
Small lake (you can get into water if you wish to)
Prison
Small lake (you can get into water if you wish to)
Prison
We spent around 5-6 hrs at the fort till 6PM and realized that the museum nearby would close quickly.
So, we quickly moved to the museum, which is around 100m from the fort and spent around 20mins there. You find few old equipments used in the battle fields. Once we were out of the museum, one of our biker realized that the fuel tank is completely dried up and pushed his vehicle for around a KM to find a petrol bunk. After all the hard work for the day, we had a heavy dinner to end our first day.
So, we quickly moved to the museum, which is around 100m from the fort and spent around 20mins there. You find few old equipments used in the battle fields. Once we were out of the museum, one of our biker realized that the fuel tank is completely dried up and pushed his vehicle for around a KM to find a petrol bunk. After all the hard work for the day, we had a heavy dinner to end our first day.
Next day, Sunday, 24th May, we checked-out from hotel at 9AM, had our breakfast and moved towards Chandralvalli tota. It’s around 3 kms from town and we initially found it to be like an artificial park with a lake around until we entered the Shiva cave. We entered the cave without a guide (did not find one), with full of josh, through the dark. Found few shiva lingas, graveyard and waked down for around 70-80metres and literally got scared and decided to back-out from the cave and found it hard to find return route. Somehow we managed to get out of the cave safely.
Luckily we had a match box, which was like a life saver inside the dark cave. Once out of the cave, we walked down toward for around a kilometer where we found a peacock around the bushes. Tried to click a snap, but the peacock was fast enough to get out of our digicam’s sight but with some view of it. From there, we started towards Halu Rameshwara, around 40 kms from the cave, a miracle place with wishing well. People here believe that if one wishes good with good heart, the wish would come true. We did not try any of our wish as there were lots of people trying their luck ;)
Luckily we had a match box, which was like a life saver inside the dark cave. Once out of the cave, we walked down toward for around a kilometer where we found a peacock around the bushes. Tried to click a snap, but the peacock was fast enough to get out of our digicam’s sight but with some view of it. From there, we started towards Halu Rameshwara, around 40 kms from the cave, a miracle place with wishing well. People here believe that if one wishes good with good heart, the wish would come true. We did not try any of our wish as there were lots of people trying their luck ;)
After spending around half an hour at halu rameshwar, we started towards one of the beautiful, very well engineered dam, Vani vilasa sagar (Mari kanive) dam. Please do visit this dam if you get a chance. It is around 40kms from Chitradurga and if moving towards Chitradurga from Bangalore, take a right turn after Hiriyur. The dam is very well engineered and is built across river Vedavati.
We planned to get into water once we reached the dam around 3PM. There were huge bunch of people celebrating the victory of an independent candidate of Hosadurga of 2008 elections. They offered us chicken biriyani and since were tired too, we accepted their offer and had our lunch there. After that we got into water, had a coracle ride (chagred Rs10/- head for a 6 mins ride). We got out of water at 4:30PM and decided to leave to Bangalore as the clouds were getting dark and dense. We reached Nelamangala toll post and it started raining heaving. It was a heavy rain with huge wind that I had never seen in the lifetime. All the vehicles respected the rain, and none of the vehicles moved until the rain and the wind breeze calmed down. It was around 10PM and we started again from Nelamangala to BTM Bangalore through NICE road and the rain stuck heavily again and we had to halt at one of the NICE toll post. We somehow managed to reach home at 11:30PM after a perfect, successful 2 day trip.
