DAY 2: ANEGUNDI & HAMPI

DAY 2: ANEGUNDI & HAMPI

Anegundi is a village situated on northern bank of Thungabhadra, which is around 40kms from Hampi.  Anegundi  is believed to be much older than Hampi, with dates back to Epic of Ramyana. (Believed to be kishkinda kingdom of Vanara's(Monkey)....Below are the Places we visited on 2nd day...
1 Nava brindavana 
2 Lord ranganatha
3 Gagan palace 
4  Durga temple
5 Laxmi temple & Papma sarovara
6 Anjaneya hills
7 Vitalla temple complex
8 Kamalapura museum  T.B Dam


DESTINATION 1 :NAVA BRINDAVANA 

Nava Brindavan is  nine tombs of saints who were predecessors of Sri Raghavendra. The brindavans are situated in a small island like thing in the middle of Tungabadra river. One has to travel in a boat (10mins) to reach  Nava brindavan from adjacent village.. We reached there around 9:00 am. We had to wait for boat (there is only one boat). Once you reach other side of the river , you  have to walk around 5 mins, in between the small paths of rocks, its really scary and steep. This 9 tombs are built adjacent to each other.  Places was full of cowdung, feel bad that such a holy place is not maintained properly.. But still we saw some people doing some rituals.. We took some snaps,  and  rushed out from there before we  could feel any worse. And  spent some time in river banks, while waiting for the boat.  Once we reached the village, we headed to next destination.

DESTINATION 2 LORD RANGANATHA
Our next stop was  Ranganatha swamy temple. Here  lord is in a reclining position over the celestial serpent Adisesha.. We had darshan, took some snaps, and started to next destination.. Temple is quite big and  beautiful with Colurful paintings on walls of temple...

 

 
DESTINATION 3 GAGAN PALACE  

The old broken palace of the king/queen of the Vijayanagara Empire.  There was no much information about this..(Even localites dint knew much abt it..)

 
DESTINATION 4  DURGA TEMPLE
This temple is situated on small hillock.  We need to  take  few steps to reach the temple.  Though we could climb in 10 mins, the scorching heat of sun,made us tired.  We saw a small temple of Durga devi, took snaps of  beautiful paintings of god/godess on walls of temple. 

There is a small house, opposite to the temple. (May be for priest of temple ). We saw a group of  old  people sitting and chatting there.. After darshan when we were heading back, one of the older person, said there is a fort on top of the hills, and offered to guide us.. We started walking trekking the hill,  along with that older person,  his name was Madappa... We were welcomed by a huge door way,  may be this is  entrance for the fort. Further we saw   few  tombs belonging to those of vijayanagar dynasty, Madappa told  one of the tomb belongs to krishnadevaraya's  son-in-law.  We thoughtt this is it, and wanted to return back, as we had few more places to visit and return back to hampi... But madappa insisted that if  we walked lil further, we  can find good  view of entire Anegundi.  

 
We agreed and walked with him, next stretch was really steepy and was astonished to know that madappa was 70 yrs old, and still was walking faster than all four of us. No wonder  Village people and older generation are strong than us....  We saw some caves, and  temples inside few caves.. He also showed us Uttha(Snake's house) deep  Inside caves in hills, which has direct entrace from base of the hill. He said people offer pooja here... And finally when we reached top of the fill, as madappa said, we could see beautiful view of entire anegundi, and could see Anjanadri hills also... We took some snaps, gave some money to madappa, and left to our next destination....

DESTINATION 5 LAXMI TEMPLE & PAMPA SAROVARA     

Our next stop was Laxmi temple, & Shiva & pama temple. This temple has  Pampa sarovara, which  is one among the five holy Sarovars installed by Brahma where Shiva and Parvati are worshipped. We first visited Vijayalakshmi temple, where we see  main idol of Lakshmi and  statues of Ganesha and Hanuman on sides of the main structure. Adjacent to  laxmi temple, we can find Shiva temple and pampa devi temple. There is a small passage linking both the temples. Laxmi temple is installed by some Baba, the things that were used by him are still maintained well. 

 
DESTINATION 6 ANJANEYA HILL

Anjanadri parvatha (hill). This is where Lord Hanuman was born according to Ramayana. In one of the caves of this hill, Anjana gave birth to Hanuman as per the epic.  We decided to skip this, as it was already 1:30 pm by then, and we had to go back to Hampi to see Vittalla complex, also we were too tired to climb other hill after Durga temple hills.. ( I suggest to have 1 complete day for Anegundi,  we had to skip Anjanadri hill, Gavi ranganatha temple, and huciappan mutt. as we had to reach Hampi by noon for Vittala complex).



DESTINATION 7  VITTALA TEMPLE COMPLEX

Vittala Temple  and stone chariot is the prime attraction of Hampi. We need to park the cars around 2 kms away from Vittala temple. From there on, one could either walk or take these battery powered carts.  We reached there around 3:30 pm, we saw a huge crowd of people waiting for this powered carts, we literally had to struggle to get 4 seats in single battery cart,  ultimately mom/dad ended up going in 1 cart, and we both went in other cart... Once you reach the complex, you can see a small gopuram making u feel its just other runied temple, but once u go inside its totally different feeling.. 

Stone chariot:We can find the most famous, Stone Chariot  at the entrance of the main temple. The Stone Chariot is built on a rectangular stone platform and its inner chamber once enshrined a garuda idol. The stone wheels could move earlier, but restrained now, to avoid damage by tourists. The Stone Chariot was originally drawn by 2 stone horses (now destroyed), and are currently drawn by 2 stone elephants brought from some other place.  We took some snaps here and walked around. 

Kalayana Mandapa (Marriage hall):There is a kalyana mantapa (marriage hall) inside Vittala temple - it was used for the marriages in the vijaya nagara royal family. The pillars and ceiling in this mantapa  are beautifully carved  with excellent various stories from epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Main Mandapa with Musical pillars:The temple pillars are composite pillars, with each individual pillar made up of many smaller and slender pillars . The Eastern Hall of the Mahamandapa is the Hall of Musical Pillars. Each of  these pillars are carved with figures of musicians, musical instruments,and dancers. There are much more mantapas and amazing carvings on each walls and roofs... You could easily spend 1/2 hours to watch completely.. We came out of complex and was waiting for battery operated cars, and noticed there is few more things adjacent to vittala complex, we decided to explore that soon, as we had only  Kamalapura musuem left for the day... 

Tula Bhara or Kings Balance:The King's balance consists of 2 carved granite pillar. This   is located near (southwest of) the Vittala temple. The king was  weighed with gold, gems, silver, precious stones etc and  was  distributed to the poor. It’s believed that this had been done during the special ceremonies. 


Tungabhadra River BanksFurther when you walk from Kings balance you can find thungabhadra river banks...River is spread across lot of places in hampi, and you come across it while visiting Hampi bazzar, Vittalla complex, Anegundi, near Mango tree restarant.. 

DESTINATION 8:  KAMALAPURA MUSEUM
The broken idols from various temples of Hampi  can be seen here, it also has a collection of    weapons, coins and utensils  of the era and beautiful sculptures. There are photographs of the important places in Hampi taken before and after excavation. It needs atleast 45 mins to see this...( It closes by 5:30 pm, ensure you are there atleast by  4:30 pm...)

DESTINATION 9:  HOSPET DAM OR T.B DAM

It was around 6:00 pm. We decided to head back to Hospet, and visit  T.B dam on the way...  We reached Hospet by 7:00 pm, Driver told we will pass by Hotel on the way(The one we were staying) so we decided to stop by and freshen up. We all got down @ the hotel, freshened up, had coffee and started to T.B dam @ 7:30.  Dam/Park closes by 8:30 pm..

T.B dam has a big garden, something similar to  K.R.S garden in mysore(I  i liked this more than KRS).  Once you buy ticket, you need to walk almost 2 kms,  Its a beautiful view all-along with cool breeze, i really enjoyed this evening walk:). After walking about an km,  we  will find 2 routes. One leads to Musical fountains, colurful lights, Aquarium, deer park, and other leads to river side..

We decided to first go near river. On the way we saw  an idol of Bharat mata with Indian flag, further we saw river, with dam constructed to 4/5 feet height only. Whenever there was a big wave, water literally used to spill outside the dam, soaking people standing near it... we had fun watching those huge waves....We also got  soaked couple of times... We then headed to  aquarium, deer park, and musical fountain. Took some snaps near fountain and went to Aquarium, where we saw lots of  different   fishes and tortoise..... Around 8:30, we returned back, and had dinner and left to our rooms.  I asked driver to come @ 6:00 am, as were supposed to go to  Koodala Sangama (125kms from Hospet)..

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