Saturday, 8 July 2006
I know, you’re thinking those are three dishes from my latest culinary adventure, but no, those are placenames.
On Saturday I went for a long trip out of Bangalore, to visit some ancient temples that are quite a bit off the beaten path. If you have a sufficiently detailed atlas, you might find the area by looking west of Bangalore over halfway to the coast, and north of Mysore, around a place called Hassan. A number of interesting old temples are in the area around Hassan, about 200 km west of Bangalore on National Highway 48. On a good road like that, you can expect to average about 1 km per minute by car, so that’s about 3.5 hours just to get to the general area. We also had a lot of driving to do in that area that wasn’t on major roads.
The plan was to get on the road by 07h00, which meant arranging for the cab to arrive an hour earlier to allow for some tardiness. The driver was to be the same fellow who’d driven for my tour the week before. Sure enough, at 06h15 I had to call him, and by 06h35 we were away from the guest house.
The first stop was the office to pick up my travelling companions for the day, two software developers and a tester from the group I’m training. They’re all from the same state (Andhra Pradesh), newcomers to Bangalore, and have never been to the places I was going, so this was going to to be a treat for them too. They eventually arrived on their motorbikes, helmetless of course. All three of them crammed into the back seat of the car, a Tata Indica (about the size of a Suzuki Swift), so it was cozy back there, but fortunately they aren’t big men.
By 07h25 we were off. At that time of day on a Saturday, the traffic is already starting to pick up, since most people here work at least six days a week; only in the IT industry do people get five-day work weeks.
Our plan was to get some breakfast on the road. Our first try was a dhaba that looked like it was open, but wasn’t, at least not for food, but we were able to get a glass of tea. Forty-five minutes later, we got to a decent-sized town called Kunigal and found a “hotel“. There we had idli (steamed rice cakes) and puri (balloon bread), and of course various sauces.
Back on the road, we had another hour to go before our first destination. The highway wasn’t too congested, but it was slow-going anyway. Everything uses the highway. Cars, motorcycles, ox-carts, herds of cattle, goats, sheep, bicycles, auto-rickshaws, tractors, buses, trucks, pedestrians, almost all of which are carrying enormous loads. It’s amazing what can be carried on a bicycle: huge bundles of tree branches, giant bags of food, a travelling cookware salesman’s entire inventory… you name it. I’m now used to seeing motorcyles carrying three or even four people (mom’s usually sitting side-saddle on the back, often talking on a cellphone), but on one occasion I saw five: three adults and two kids, all on one motorcyle. The three-wheelers also carry unbelievable loads, considering that they’re basically small two-stroke motorcyles: I counted at least a dozen kids crammed into one on its way to school, and eight adults in the back of another, putting along at 50 km/h.
Family of four:
Anyway, 3.5 hours and 150km after leaving Bangalore, we were in Sravanabelgola. This is the location of a famous Jain temple, including an 18 metre statue of Gomateshvara, a Jain saint, carved out of a single stone over 1000 years ago.
The statue is on the top of the hill, reached by about 600 steps carved into the rock, and shoes or socks aren’t allowed. The rock was very smooth, and not difficult to walk on barefoot, though that wouldn’t have been the case if it was wet or very much hotter. It was a warm day, by the way, and we were all sweating by the time we got to the top. After all that walking barefoot, naturally my feet were a bit sore (coming down afterward was worse than going up, with nothing to cushion the pounding on the stairs). Later, I realized that the tops of my feet were sore too, and found that they’d been sunburned.
Gomateshvara is in perfect condition. While we were there, pilgrims were constantly pouring water, milk, and all sorts of other stuff on its head from an overhead scaffolding. For a thousand year-old guy, he’s in great shape. Must be all the milk baths.
At short time after leaving Sravanabelgola, we had to get a flat tire repaired in a little place called Channarayapatna. That took about half an hour, which I spent getting stared at while the other guys went out to forage for snacks. The tire back in one piece, we drove to Hassan for lunch at the Hotel Sri Krishna. According to the guidebooks, this is one of the better places in Hassan. Their rates were posted on a plaque in the lobby: single Rs 325, double Rs 600, Double AC Rs 975. C$1 ~= Rs 40 currently, so that single room is about C$8.00. In the restaurant, we each had a North Indian tray, for Rs 65 each. That’s quite a bit, but it’s a fancy place, and we sat in the small air-conditioned room (that’s extra).
Our next destination was Belur, home of the 990-year-old Chennakeshava temple. This one had very intricate stonework: the buildings are covered with highly detailed carvings of figures. It was raining by now, and of course we were barefoot again, so the footing on the smooth stone was trickier. Inside the temple it was very dim, with only natural lighting, except in the central shrine which had an electric light.
Outside the temple, I had my first real experience with haggling, buying some statues of Ganesha. I wasn’t entirely successful, though; I paid Rs 50 each for two, while my Indian companions got theirs for 30. When they pointed this out to the seller, she threw in another one for me.
Once the souvenir sellers and beggars realized we were buying stuff, they descended en masse. We jumped in the car and barely made our escape. They were very persistent. I asked my companions if this was special treatment for me, but they said no, they get the same thing. It must be the clothes. Before the horde attacked, I managed to get a picture of this cow checking out our car.
Our final destination was the Hosaleshvara temple in Halebeedu, and by now it was raining. Barefoot again, we wandered around the temple grounds, again admiring the 960-year-old and again fantastically detailed stonework. Outside the temple building itself were two statues of bulls (“Nandi”) which are, I’m told, often located near shrines to Shiva.
It was just before 18h00 when we left, and the rain started coming down more heavily. The light was starting to fade, but before it disappeared, we stopped by the side of the road and took some pictures at a flower farm.
As if driving on narrow, pot-holed, Indian secondary highways isn’t exciting enough, we were now doing it in the rain, with the sun going down (that happens fast this close to the equator), so soon we were doing it the dark too. As it went from twilight to pitch-black, I wondered at what point people would start to turn on their headlights. It was sometime long after complete darkness, anyway. Once the headlights go on, though, they tend to stay in the high-beam position. There are signs requesting that drivers use their “dippers” since the high-beams are blinding, but without the high-beams, the reflectorless vehicles, pedestrians, and animals that are still on the highway would be completely invisible. As we passed hay wagons and trucks on a highway wide enough for perhaps two vehicles, there would often be a single headlight headed toward us… is that a motorcycle that will have barely enough room to get around us? Or is it a car with a burned-out light that will kill us all? Whew, just a motorcycle… this time. Also fun is passing a large truck while simultaneously being passed ourselves, with a pair of vehicles racing toward us, also passing each other, everyone’s horns blaring and highbeams flashing. Sleep in the car? Not likely!
We made a couple of stops along the way for snacks, including a tray of something called pani-puri from a sidewalk vendor. So much for sticking to restaurant food! Coming home in the dark was naturally slower than daylight driving, so we didn’t get back until 22h30.