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Escapade to a Homestay in a Heritage Mansion

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This year was not the same for me as was earlier. Earlier i used to go for my vacations in the month of December, but this year due to some domestic work my December trip was not done in 2014.As soon as my son’s summer vacation started we started to think there has to be a change from this routine and we decided to go for a relaxed day or two and then for some heritage site which can be covered in a short span of time. This was the month of May 2015 and i started the search for a place to relax first and soon my friends suggested Chikmangalur.Soon i started to look for the places where i will be able to stay comfortably and i soon found this place called Thippanahalli Home stay. As all do, i too visited Trip advisor and other reviews and took advice from some of my friends about the place and i got some good and some average comments. But what made me to think was this was not a hotel but a home stay and i wanted to test this homestay outing and experience it out in this short...

Sanchi - Felt like Meditating

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Living in the backyard and not seeing a place of world importance is like ignoring the place where you live in. In case of Sanchi its like that for me. I lived in Bhopal for 37 years and never visited Sanchi which is one of the World Heritage sites and which was around 45 km from the place i lived in Bhopal.It all took me to think of this journey once i shifted from Bhopal to Bangalore in the year 2007.  It was in the winter of 2009 i decided to go back to my place of birth Bhopal and then visit the famous places Khajuraho and Sanchi. On my way back from Khajuraho and Orcha,we planned to visit Sanchi. In the early morning of December end 2009 we started the trip from Bhopal to Sanchi by hiring a taxi from one of my friends. The journey was of around 45 minutes and we were at the entrance of the Sanchi stupa by 10.30 am. A very sunny morning and the light was ample with a little bit of fog around the place. As we were reaching the place, from the road itself we can see o...

Tipu's Summer Palace : Palace carved out of Wood.

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I have been living in Bangalore for the past nine plus years and i have still not completed visiting the length and breadth of Bangalore. Tipu's Summer palace is one of the iconic places in Bangalore which tourists from India and International places come and visit.This place was always there in my list but time eluded me from going to this place.It was the month of February 2016, when the climate of Bangalore slowly starts changing to hot and one of the Saturdays when i have a weekend holiday, that i thought of why not visit this place and know what the place is all about. I started from my home at around 10.00am and reached the palace at around 11.00 am.The palace is located at the Albert Victor Road which runs towards Mysore.Just in front of the Tipu Palace is the famous Vani Vilas Hospital. Next to this palace stands the Kote Venkataraman Temple.This palace is around half a kilometer from the famous K.R.Market which still is one of the biggest flower markets in Asia. T...

Lepakshi-A blend of History and Architecture

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It was the month of October 2015 ,when my son has winter holidays and we were planning for a trip to a nearby place on a weekday as weekends will be having a lot of rush in heritage sites.The choice to be made was between the Tipu Palace in Bangalore and the place called Lepakshi where i have heard the stories are written on the stones and pillars build in the Veerabhadra Swamy temple.Finally we decided for Lepakshi. The place is around 130 kms from Bangalore and we started the journey on an early morning,so that we reach the place in around 2 hrs time.The approach road towards this place is having tolls and the road is good also,perfect for a road trip. We reached the place at around 11.00 am.This place,Lepakshi, is a small village near Anantpur. This place is built on a low rocky hill called "Kurma Sailam" (meaning tortoise hill in Telugu). History As the history of the place goes this place is famous for the Veerabhadra Swamy temple.This temple was bu...

An afternoon at St.Angelo fort,Kannur,Kerala.

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It was in the month of Sep 2011,we were on a holiday to our home town Payyanur. On holidays if i am in Kerala, i will be the most lazy person to start with an idea of an offbeat destination tour.The idea came from none other than my wife for the tour of the Payyambalam beach.In Kerala touring is always fine but the sweating is something which i hate a lot while touring in Kerala.Even though it was the month of Sep, still the sun god has given a lot of sweating with a cool breeze in the country side.I just asked about what other places other than the beach we can see around.She just mentioned about St.Angelo Fort.I told her lets go to the fort first and then by evening we will have our tour towards the Payyambalam beach. We set out for our destination.The Fort was some 55 km from my place,which is Payyanur. We set out for the journey at 2.00 pm in a hired white ambassador,which was still the pride of taxis in Kerala at that point of time.We reached the destination at around 3.10 pm. ...

Lesser Known Fort at God's Own Country - Tellicherry Fort

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Even though i am a Malayalee,i have never heard of a fort in Thalassery. I came to know about this fort when i first visited the website of Kerala tourism to search for places to visit nearby Kannur as my native is in Kannur. This place is famous for the coastal beaches and fish trading in Kerala.This place is some 22 km south of the Kannur district. In the month of Jan 2012 me and my family planned the visit to this place along with the coast of Thalassery. We drove straight to the fort passing by the long stretch of Thalassery sea shore which runs n parallel to the road.We stopped for some time in a small park which is in the sea shore.We took some snacks took rest for a while. Sea waves on the long stretch of Thalassery Seashore Then we embarked for our onward journey to the fort.Around noon we reached the fort.The fort is simple in the sense it doesn't have the hustle of a tourist center and there is not much tourist who were visiting this place.The fort is at a h...

The less told Hoysala temples of Belavadi

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My May 2015 visit to the Hassan and Chikmangalur belt was an eyeopener for me as an individual to know about the Hoysala architecture and its history.The Belavadi trip was not a planned one and we came to know about this place through Nitin,who is the owner of Thippanahalli Home stay where we stayed for 2 nights in this trip.Once our stay in the home stay was through we were planning to go to Belur and then Halebid. Seeing our ignorance about the place,Nitin came forward and had a word with the driver who was knowing some of those places.He told him why not he drive to Belur through Belavadi and see the Veera Narayana Temple. He agreed and we started our journey towards Belavadi.  As i was reaching Belavadi,one thing which i noticed in this part of the world was,the villages were really prosperous and in the surrounding villages of this place all the basic infra for the villages was available.The Indian villages in it's real glory can be seen in this part of the world.The ride...