DAY 2: - CHITRADURGA

 MARI KANIVE (VANI VILAS SAGAR)

We Vacated hotel room and started our 2nd days journey to a place called Vani Vilas Sagar also called Mari Kanive (This is in Hiriyur,35 kms from Chitradurga).

 We took a local bus from chitradurga to Hiriyur.From Hiriyur Mari Kanive is around 20mins journey, we took a private bus to reach there. Mari Kanive is one of oldest dams,built around 1907 by the Maharaja of Mysore across the river Vedavathi.The length of the dam is about 400 metres and its height is 49 metres. 

We need to trek about 2kms to reach water. It was around 11:30 a.m, it was tiring to walk 2 kms in hot sun. But once we reached near water, we felt it was worth it...We spent an awesome hour soaking our legs in coool water of dam enjoying the beauty of nature, took some snaps, and started back to chikmagalur. Had lunch and started back to blore..

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DAY 1 - CHITRADURGA

DAY  1:

Chitradurga Fort:

We  started our day with  visit to the famous "Chitradurga Fort" at 8:30AM. The enormous fort is built over a rocky hill. Its advisable to start early to escape from the scorching heat. To go around the whole of fort you would need at least 3-4 hours.We hired a guide at the entrance for 250Rs, its better you hire one, as  you will not understand the significance of the structures in the fort.The guide started with an explanation of the 7 circles (Elu suttina kote) and said that 2 of the circles were lost to the city expansion."Chitradurga"  is named by two kannada words, ‘chitra’ means “picture” and ‘durga’ means “fort”.

As soon as we enter Kote(fort), we can see huge pillars, which are used to tie swings for Utsavas. (Pooja). You can also see a pit, where they used to collect , coloured waters during Holi.

 As you walk along, you find  ‘Yenne Kola’ – a small tank where they used to store oil required to illuminate the fort and a  'Maddu Bisuva Kallu', which means "Gun Powder Grinding stone".

Guide showed us some of the rocks, which forms shapes of animals/things like that of elephant, frog, ship etc. If you are lil innovative, you can find lot of such shapes.

We saw a person called Jyothi-raj a.k.a Kothi raj, who climbs the walls and boulders in fort without a rope.Guide said Kothi-raj has an international reputation in climbing and has 9 gold medals to his credit. & he is third in ranking in the world at present, but now he believes he can beat them without any effort. Jyothi raj  says, "if others can climb the rock in an obverse way, I can do it the reversely," i.e., upside down which is something very arduous and unimaginable, but we witnessed him climbing, 25 feet, 90 degree wall in about 15 seconds. Watch this Video.

jyoti raj climbing  

We then visited Ekanteshwari temple and then Hidembeshwari temple in fort, It is said that Hidimba and his sister hidambi,a giantess, used to live in this temple. Hidimbi, who fell in love with Bhima (the second of the Pandava brothers of Mahabharata) married him and had a child by him named Gatodgaja.

Lastly we visited, Onnake obbavana kindi.  " Onnake Obavva" is a brave women who saved the fort, & the"kindi"(Hole) where Hyder Ali's soldiers tried to enter the fort is called as Obavvana Kindi. Thou i knew this story, was nice to hear again from Local guide. "

This was about 300 yrs back when  Madakari Nayaka ruled fort. Hyder Ali soldiers attacked the fort, by getting information from the women who used enter fort (to sell butter milk) through a crack hole in the rocks.  Hyder Ali led his plan to send his soldiers through this crack hole.

The defence guard, on duty of the port near that crack hole had  gone home for lunch. While serving lunch to her husband(Guard), Obbavva (Guard's wife) realized there was no water @ home, and went out to get water. She noticed the soldiers emerging out of this crack, she ran home and saw her husband still having lunch, she decided not to disturb eating person, and walked out of house slowly with Onnake (a wooden long club meant for pounding paddy grains). She started killing hyder ali's soldiers as and when they entered one by one through that kindi, & quietly moved the dead, so that hundreds of them entered and fell, without raising any suspicion. The guard, Obavva's husband, upon his return from his lunch was shocked to see Obavva standing with a blood stained Onake and hundreds of dead bodies of the enemy fleet around her. Even today anyone speaks of Chitradurga fort first thing comes to mind is  Obavvas bravery..

Chandavalli Kere

Our Second Destination was Chandavalli Lake, this place is around 3Kms from Fort.This place has a Lake,Cave and a hill to trek. As soon u enter Chandavalli , you find a lake. We spent some 30 mins sitting on banks of Lake enjoying the cool breeze, took some snaps and then walked towards cave. Local boys there said, caves are pitch dark at any time of the day & one need to take guides to go inside cave ,or you can easily get lost inside the caves. I doono if its because of week-end or new year, all 3 guides of place where busy inside caves, with other tourists, and we were told to wait till one return. It was  2:00 p.m by then, we were too hungry and was very tired after walking 3 hours in hot sun in the fort. So we decided to skip this place, and Aadumaleshwara temple.Had lunch in near by restaurant and   returned to hotel room..

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CHITRADURGA - HIRIYUR

It was Last week of Dec 2010. Everyone were busy planning for Outing/Party/Get-togethers for  31st Nite. We had plans to go Barbeque on 31st nite for dinner & spend rest of time @ home..

But later realizing the  crowd, and waiting time  in hotels,restaurants,clubs and pubs.  We decided to go somewhere out of  Blore, but failed to get tickets to any place. (It was not only 31st Nite but also an weekend) My colleague was going to his native chitradurga for new year, and suggested, why dont we visit  famous historical place Chitradurga. Immediately called up ramesh and said am booking tickets, to chitradurga. I could only manage to get nite train from Blore to Chitradurga. And  karnataka sarige bus(No AC, no comfy seats) from Chitradurga to Blore..

Dec 31st fri, we both came from office freshened up and started our nite journey in a train.It was not express train, it was stopping every 1 hour on main junctions, Ramesh got angry  for booking this.But was helpless as it was last min plan. We finally reached chitradurga @  5:00a.m. We took an auto and went to Hotel Amogha International, which is 3/4 kms from Chitradurga station. (Had already checked about it in net).

DAY 1 - CHITRADURGA

DAY 2: - MARI KANIVE (VANI VILAS SAGAR)



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