New beginning....

A big HI and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all bloggers and readers.
I been really busy packing, un packing from back to back trip one in the year end and one in the long weekend of Sankranti.
First one was the normal one where we visited our native, second one was the long waited Chennai Trip.
It was wonderful drive down to the sizzling metro Chennai.
If I ask my kids what they liked a lot in the trip they would first say their stay in the HOTEL, MARINA BEACH and lastly CROCODILE BANK. If you ask me what I liked the most, I would definitely tell beautiful old temples and the sarees that I picked -:)

The half of the first day was spent in driving to Chennai, the second half in sight seeing in Chennai which included the visit to San Thome church, Mylapore tank, Kapaleeshwar temple, roaming around the east Mada st.

The second day was for the trip to Mahabalipuram and on the way back a visit to the crocodile bank of Madras. What was exciting was that we decided to drive in the streets of Chennai, thoroughly checking the GPS instructions and asking around. A strange feeling was always in the back of my mind that we would loose our way somewhere and struck in the traffic. But nothing that sort happened.

The third day we wanted to leave back to B'lore ASP but before that we wanted to do a little shopping. So we left for famous T.Nagar of Chennai. Roaming in T.Nagar in the early morning we looked like fools. All you could see was the closed shutters and workers in the shops waiting for the shops to open(may be because it was PONGAL in Tamilnadu).  But luckily even at 9:30AM few famous saree shops had opened. We entered the famous Sri Kumarans and  headed directly to the floor selling Kanchipuram sarees which I am a ardent fan of. The last time I shopped heavvily for Kanchi sarees was during the joint celebration of our Graha Pravesha and my brothers wedding. But back then the sarees was a bit cheaper.
I was so tempted seeing woven beauties one after the other, I finally settled for 4. My H had a big hole in the Credit card. But after buying them, marvelling them, I slowly wonder where will I ever where them? Aren't they beautiful?..

Weekend Drive to Lepakshi..

Bangalore has a lot of places around for sight seeing, picnic spots, most of them usually crowded on the weekends. We wanted some place which would definitely appeal, calm and a enjoyable long drive from home. So we set in to drive to Lepakshi, a beautiful temple situated near the Karnataka-Andhra border in our brand new Renault-Duster..
Lepakshi is situated about 120 KMS from B'lore. The route we took was an excellent one, there was hardly any traffic as it was Sunday. After the Kodikonda  Check post you have to drive approximately 4 KMs and take a left towards Lepakshi.
We left home early morning around 6:30 AM and reached Lepakshi around 9:30 AM breaking in between for a quick breakfast.
As I told you earlier since it was Sunday we were the first ones to arrive to the temple. All I was expecting was some crowd but I was surprised to see the place was devoid of any visitors.

The temple is built by the brothers Viranna and Virupanna, during Vijayanagar empire.  The main deity of the temple is Virupaksh, the main Gana of Lord Shiva and on the right side of the temple we have Devi Parvati. We could not have a good look inside the main shrine as the power was off as soon we entered the temple -:(.

Don't miss beautiful statues surrounding the temple, murals on the ceilings..







While coming back we saw the giant Nandi(situated less than a KM from the main temple) carved from a single granite stone.

This place is worth visiting and you can easily make it in a day.

For more information on Lepakshi..

Neelavara Temple

Last week I visited the 'Mahisha Mardini Temple of Neelavara' for a family function. This temple is usually crowded during the last of monsoon season. 'Neelavara' means surronded by water. The river Seetha flows by this temple. It was total calm and peaceful here. Sharing few pics.