Gokak Falls

Before heading to Marriage, plan was to visit Gokak waterfalls on the way (eventhough we knew that this is not the rite time to visit the waterfall). Best time to visit is after Mansoon some where around August & September. 

Tha Gokak waterfalls is around 125Kms from Badami and we may need 3 hours to reach Gokak. Its better to take Bagalkot route instead of Google Map suggested Route :P

The Gokak waterfall is located at a distance of 6 km from Gokak town, in the Belgaum district. It also known as mini Niagara falls among the locals.

The Ghataprabha River separated from the Malaprabha river by the Belgaum hills flows through the black soil plains before it enters the rocky belt of Gokak.

There is a hanging bridge across the river, about 201 meters and its height above the bed rock is measuring about 14 meters. Only 30 people are allowed at a time inside the bridge (as per the notice board near the entrance gate!). Walking down the hanging bridge across the river is a breathtaking experience.

There is an old electricity generation station and electricity was generated here for the first time in the country in 1887.

One interesting feature of this place is the monuments from the Chalukya era that are found on either bank of the rocky gorge. Another attraction of this place is the very old river-front temple dedicated to Lord Mahalingeshwara, built in the Later Chalukyan style of architecture.

There is no view point as such, one should make there own way to capture the waterfall in one frame. Walked around the bridge for some time to find a nice view point to capture the waterfalls in one frame. 

Water level was too less, but i will come back to this place for sure on rite time :)

Pattadakal

After exploring the caves of Badami we headed towards Pattadakal, which is just 22 kms away from Badami. 

Public transport is not frequent on Badami-Pattadakal-Aihole stretch. It’s advised to opt for own transport! Even there are not many options for accommodation as well. It’s better to head back to Badami or Bagalkote.

About Pattadakal: Pattadakal is a small town that is famous for its ancient temples. Owing to its incredible temples, Pattadakal was titled a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.

Pattadakal is a bunch of temples build by the Chalukyan kings. Some of the temples were built in association with military victories. In date these temples come after the Badami caves. Pattadakal was a commercial centre and a meeting place for architects and sculptors from north and south India.  

Most of the temples (idols inside the temples) were damaged, but only undamaged and attractive Nandi statue present inside the temple.

If you are interested to know about the history about this place, It is advisable to hire a guide to take you around these temples.

These monuments are opened to visitors from 9.00AM to 6.00PM all the days. We went there around 4.00PM, initially I thought we reached very late and time is not enough to cover the entire place in my camera. But trust me that is the perfect time to capture this wonderful place in your cameras.  

Spent awesome time @ wonderful place, again we headed back to Badami, since as mentioned earlier there is not much option for accommodation at Pattadakal.

This time got enough time to capture the beauty in my camera. 

Always its better to plan for 2 days to visit these beautiful places. 

Badami

Plan for second day of our trip was to visit Badami and Pattadakallu. Badami is around 40 Kms from Bagelkot and can be reached easily within one hour. After spending memorable time in Aihole it was time to explore Badami.

Need one complete day to explore Badami itself. Last time when we visited this place we missed to explore the other part of Badami (behind museum on the way to Agasthya Lake).  Need more time and stamina to walk across this beautiful place.

About Badami:

Badami was the new capital post Aihole. Its earlier name was Vatapi. Its called Badami because of the red colour of the sand stone used in construction – which looks very much like that of Almonds (Badam).

There are 4 important things to see in Badami – Rock Cut Caves, The Bhootnath Temple and the massive lake adjacent to it, The fort and the Museum.  All 4 are very close to each other.

The Rock Cut caves – are amazing. Its created by scooping out rocks from the gut of the mountain and then finishing them aesthetically with intricate sculpture. There are 4 sets of caves – some dedicated to Vishnu, others to Shiva and the last one to the Jain Guru’s.

Cave 1, dedicated to Shiva, was the first of four caves to be excavated in rock by Chalukya craftsman, circa 550 AD.

The cave has an L-shaped open courtyard in front, an open veranda, a pillared hall and a small sanctum excavated into the centre of its rear wall. 

The cave is famous for its fine sculptures. Three interior walls depict the family of Shiva comprising Durga-Mahaishamardini, Kartikeya and Ganesha. On the west, the rock face houses a small grotto. North of grotto is one of the cave’s most celebrated sculptures, that of an eighteen-armed dancing Siva demonstrating nine Bharata-natya postures.

Another notable sculpture shows Ardhanarishvara flanked by a richly decorated Parvati, Bhringi and Nandi. On the other side is a large Harihara, flanked by consorts Parvati and Lakshmi.

A frieze of dwarf Ganas in various moods and postures adorns the cave’s pedestal while the verandah ceiling shows the five-hooded Nagaraja, king of snakes, flanked by charming celestial couples.

Apart from bead-garlands and other finely-carved decorations, the pillar faces have smaller depictions of dream animals and some deities like Narasimha and Ganesha. The inner face of the front beam of verandah depicts the marriage of Parvati.

Before reaching to this temple it’s advised to visit the caves behind museum. It’s a paradise of photographers and artists. We can see many artists across these caves.     

Other main attraction is temple near Agasthya Lake lies in opposite corner of the main temple.

Need one complete day to visit all the temples in Badami. 

I was very happy since this time visited all the places which i missed last time. After Badami we headed towards Pattadakallu. 

Aihole

This time trip to Badami, Aihole & Pattadakallu was not limited to driver over a long weekend, it was planned on the occasion of Sunil’s marriage. The day he informed about his marriage we planned for this trip and blocked our calendar J   

For a change we decided to start our journey early morning instead of night drive.  It’s around 6 to 7 hours drive considering the number of breaks. We can reach Bagalkot from 2 different ways one is from Hubbali Highway and another one is from Hospete Road.

Bagalkot District of Karnataka is blessed with some amazing historical sites of Ancient Indian History. These include destinations like Badami, Pattadakal and Aihole. These three places are located in the close distance and with can be covered in a single day, but if someone want to enjoy beauty of this historical place its suggested to plan it for 2 days.

Because of last time experience (last time covered all these places on the same day and felt one day is not sufficient to explore this beautiful place) decided to extend the visit for 2 days.

Aihole is around 450KMs from Bangalore, even though the road condition is good it will easily take around 6 to 7 hours due to the traffic around the multiple tolls. We decided to take Hospete road to reach Aihole, even though we knew Hospete route is not good we opted this route since we planned to visit TB dam on the way.

After visiting TB dam and finishing our lunch, it was around 3 o’clock we reached our destination Aihole.

About Aihole: Aihole, a small village in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka, is like any other village in India but there is a major difference – the village has around 125 stone temples dating back to the 5th century! Every corner of the village has a temple. Aihole is a popular tourist destination and is famous for Chalukya architecture. Some pre-Chalukyan structures have also been excavated in the village. Described as the ‘cradle of Hindu temple architecture,’ Aihole holds a significant place in temple history.

Spent almost 3 hours around this place, we were roaming around this place clicking the pics till the closing time J

From Aihole we started towards Bagalkot which is around 40 Kms, booked the rooms “Hotel Hari Priya International” in advance in Bagalkot. 

If some one is planning to visit these places its suggested to stay at Bagalkot.