Sarah in Bangalore

Monday, July 29, 2013

Friday, March 29, 2013

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Sunset over Picchola Lake

Udaipur, traditionally the 'white city', suits leisurely predinner drinks. Just off to the left are the two islands where the rich holiday (Taj hotel) and the tourists play at being mega rich in the beautiful gardens of Jagmandir (a mere £200000 or so to hire for a private party).

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Hampi to Bidar (in about 48 hours)

Hampi is as well known for it's magical landscape of (submarine?) volcano created boulders as the majestic and extensive remains of the palaces and temples of Vijayanagar, the 15th century capital. Having enjoyed both, we're heading North to see some slightly later Muslim architecture.

Inspired by a friend's request to see the countryside and take some trains we're taking a long route round. Not wanting to be held hostage by the specifics of the Indian railway timetable, we drove from Hampi to Bellary and then on to Guntakal the next day.

Leaving Hampi on a well surfaced but narrow country road we looped between hills made of slabs of granite and stacked rocks, and irrigation canals for about an hour - with late afternoon sun giving everything an agreeable glow. Odd patches of sugar cane grow amongst endless tiered paddy fields, before we started to see more and more cotton. I was surprised to see too small fields of knee high chilli plants and miniature sunflowers.

Out of the hills (although not the cotton), the landscape flattened as we went past cement and power plants, arriving at Bellary just before sunset with a great view of the fort towering over the city. The area is most famous for mining and questions over propriety and process of various licences.

I assume for reasons of space, Bellary Fort doesn't feature in any of our UK bought guidebooks, though it's well known in Karnataka and features on wikipedia. Dry stone walls supplement sheer cliff faces and boulder-tunnels across the main route up the hill, before you reach the turreted perimeter wall. Inside there's a further wall and elegantly arched gatehouse to the interior.

After a few hours exploring and debating defensive tactics, we retreated from the midday heat to the nearest purveyors of cold drinks: Jeffs's pet shoppe. Some nice fish tanks.

The drive to Guntakal (in Andhra Pradesh) was less remarkable, though cheerfully punctuated by more sunflowers, failed attempts to photograph be-pompomed tractors and the odd bit of road under resurfacing work. The town itself seems to be principally notable or having a thirty foot statue of Hanuman.

And today we are on a train, back in Karnataka. No palm trees but very flat - odd cotton fields but lots of scrub and small acacia trees.