A day trip to the heritage site of Somanathapura. It is famous for an artistic temple with intricate carvings symbolic of Hoysala dynasty architecture which once ruled this region. The stone work is very fine and treat to watch built by General Somanatha of the hoysala.

Starting at around 7 am we reached the temple by 11:00 am taking approximately 4 hours to reach the place with 2 stops on way for fuel and breakfast. The breakfast was at Kamath yatri niwas which has become quite famous amongst travelers from Bangalore to Mysore. A traditional south Indian cuisine on offer, it was the first time I was visiting this place and found nothing extraordinary.

After continuing further on Mysore highway, a state highway 33 starts and we took that road to reach Malavalli police station on a round about. A right turn from that place sent us closer to Somanathapura. The road condition deteriorates within the last 7 km. the sign boards are present throughout and you will not miss them as they have a stone pole with a yellow sign board signifying tourist location distance information.

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The state of Karnataka is known as the focal point of stone carved architecture. The ruins of Hampi or the remains of Hoysala dynasty are 2 world class citing and now declared as world heritage sites.

A gem of architecture which is still not possible today with the availability of all precision based equipment and tools. The archeological site of Somanathapur is another example of expertize of Hoysala dynasty in stone carvings.

The temple is present in a large compound which has been there for many centuries. It was built by a General of Hoysala dynasty centuries ago.

The carvings can be seen on temple walls, ceilings, exteriors and the idols. Follow the below link to get mesmerized in the beautiful architecture of hoysala era.

SOMANATHAPURA PHOTO GALLERY

In the recent posts of my trip to makedatu I wrote a long enough travelogue for people to use as a guide. The travelogue was written as a web page and hence people might want to keep it as a copy while traveling.

I have created a PDF document from the same travelogue information with a little bit information rephrased and corrected.You can grab a copy of the pdf document by clicking on the screen shot below of the travelogue document opened in Acrobat 9 professional.

The pdf file is about 350Kb in size. The image quality within the travelogue might not be greatest as I have tried to compress the data and keep the file size minimum.

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It was a single day trip, to Makedatu which is located about 80km from Bangalore. We hired a cab for the journey to be undertaken by 3 people including 2 of my friends.

It took us about 2 hours to reach the first destination of the journey called Sangam. We started early from our houses reaching comfortably by 9:30 am. ‘Sangam’ is a Hindi language word meaning meeting place for rivers. It is a place where Cauvery and another river merge. Makedatu is about 5 km from this place. Makedatu is a Kannada language term comprising of “Make” meaning ’sheep’ and “Datu” meaning ‘gorge’. Thus the saying that the gorge was separated so close that even a sheep could cross it.

We got off the cab and had to cross the river. On the other side of river was the starting place for a bus service to Makedatu. The river was knee deep and we enjoyed crossing it. After consulting we got to know that the bus would start at 11:00 am. We had one hour with us to explore the surrounding place.

We could see rocks everywhere and water flowing around it. Since it was not monsoon season water level had receded allowing us to go quite inside the rivers. The rugged natural terrain was also looking good in bright sunlight.

We were done with the exploration in about 30 minutes and inquired again for departure of the bus. The service was now postponed to 1 pm as there were not enough passengers to fill up the rickety bus. We decided to trek the distance of 4 km.

The trek was Read more