Its been exactly two years since my last post here, sometime during the summers of 2020, the era of pandemic. I am very glad to write this blog on a happier note because its very very close to my heart as its about my first one with the family. My family has been deciding from years, on going together to some place, where we just can relax and spend some time together and trust me it never had materialized till sometime in April 2022 when we grand kids decided to finally go somewhere. Just to give an insight to my FAMILY…the one I am referring to is from my maternal side. My mom (Rama) being the eldest daughter I become the first grand daughter of the family and then are three sisters (Suma, Veena & Karuna) and a brother (Nagaraj). It all started when Kavya (Veena’s daughter) initiated the thought of going sometime in May. Myself, Kavya and Narun (Karuna’s son) started exploring places that can be visited in 3 days time. Since, in our family most of them are elders, we didn’t wanted to spend too much of time, traveling in the vehicle and were conscious enough to visit some place that has less amount of commuting time. It took almost two weeks for us to finalize a place and a date to visit. We were visiting this place called, Hoyasala Village Resort in Hassan, around 194kms from Bangalore on the 20th of May, 2022. The weather gods had been blessing Bangalore and many parts in Karnataka the entire 5 days before our travel so we were just praying and hoping that the climate should be at least bit better during our staycation.
We were totally 12 on board and all excited to travel. With all excitement, we left on a Friday at around 5.30am. First pick up was mine and then we picked each one of them from their houses by traveling in almost all parts of Bangalore. The last pick up was at 7.30am, on time as planned and we finally hit the Nice road (exit from the city) after that. After almost traveling for an hour we decided to stop somewhere for our morning breakfast. There is this place called Paakashala, Solur in Bangalore Mangalore NH 48, a descent, well maintained restaurant that serves good food. After a quick breakfast, we left that place by 9.30am and headed towards our destination.
On the way, my uncle Gangadhar (Suma’s husband) suggested that we can visit Adichunchungiri temple if we could. So we decided and took a deviation of 6km northerly to Belur cross to visit this temple that sits on a rocky hill at an altitude of about 3,300 ft. Lord Gangadhareshwara is the presiding deity here. We spent around 30-45 mins here before just few of us came down through steps. The next pit stop was our final destination, the Hoysala Village Resort.
We reached the resort at around 1.30pm in the afternoon and we were welcomed by the resort staff with Kumkuma (red ‘tika’ between the eyebrows is said to retain energy in the human body and control the various levels of concentration) and flowers. Then we were served with Malnad Kashaya (the most popular herbal beverage of Malnad region) as our welcome drink. With some fresh aroma of Indian spices, this drink was hot, good, healthy and different (at least for people living in cities don’t get this one…often). Parallelly, we finished our check-in formalities into our Superior Cottages. Hoysala Village Resort is a beautiful botanical widespread that takes us back to the realms of bygone era. The resort is unique in terms of its architecture, truly vintage style, as its usage of tall wooden ceilings and poster beds gives the true experience of life in the Malnad region. This was one of the factors that attracted us to select this resort for our family staycation as it was unique. This resort succeeds in retaining the local flavor of the region and enhances the rustic feel. There is no single place in the resort where you cannot find the flora & fauna. It is heavily loaded with greenery everywhere.
We then checked in our rooms with our luggage at around 2pm and quickly got freshened up. We all were dead hungry by then and headed straight to our dining area. Here, there were two dinning areas, one that is in open area for the lunch and dinner, and the other one that is an indoor one for breakfast and evening snacks. Now, the outdoor one was in the middle of a garden that’s covered by thatched roof which are naturally water proof and had a cow dung flooring. One of the main benefits of having this kind of flooring is loads of good bacteria that helps keeping the insects away. The food was served in banana leaves and once the items started getting served onto the leaves we were just speechless. Firstly, because of each of the items were so delicious and secondly by seeing the amount of varieties served. It was just a long long list. Trust me, it was a feast for our palates.
Once we finished our lunch, we thought of exploring the resort as we had no plans to go anywhere for the rest of the day. The first thing that came to our site was the swimming pool. The weather was not sunny but it was not raining too. The water was cold and the one’s who wanted to get into the water decided to get inside and the rest tried their hands in some indoor games like TT and carrom. But I must tell you all that, the little one Sia (Kavya’s daughter) just took everyone’s attention in the pool. She was fearless, playful and enjoyed her entire duration in the pool though the water was so cold.
We then had a tour to the reception area and the place where the bullock cart was kept, doing loads of photo sessions everywhere. They have these bullock cart rides for the guests who wants to take it.
We ventured then towards the Jacuzzi villas and the Massage room. By then it was already 5.30 pm and it was evening snack time. On day one, there was some sandwich’s and vada along with tea & coffee. This resort is one such place where you can just sit in any of the corner for hours together sipping on something and chatting. Perfect place for a weekend getaway. After our snacks time, all of us gathered in my cottage to play Dumb charades. Most of us knew what it was but just for the benefit of elders, we explained the rules for the game and made two teams with myself and Kavya, being the captains. I must tell you, given the fact that the elders were playing it for the first time, they were just awesome. They were just at their best. Since it was our first day at the resort and everyone had traveled from early morning, we called it a day off just after we had our dinner so that everyone takes proper rest and can enjoy the next day even better.
Day two, few started their day with some bird watching and visiting to the cow shed and the rest had plans to go to near by places. Lakshmi, the cow, here comes everyday to the reception area and the hotel staff does pooja for it. Now, this resort is a convenient base to explore historical temples like Belur, Halebidu and Shravanabelgola. After finishing our breakfast we decided to visit Belur & Halebidu. Most of us had seen both of these and so, many decided to stay back and relax. Myself, mom, Narun, Kavya and Sanjitha (Nagraj’s daughter) left at around 10am to see these heritage sites and it took exactly 30 mins for us to reach our first pit stop, Belur.
Belur is famous for Chennakeshava Temple and it is based on the Hoysala architecture. The temple is dedicated to lord Vishnu and it took almost three generations to built this in 103 years all together. It was repeatedly damaged in wars and rebuilt, and the scars still remains fresh in many parts of the temple. The Chennakeshava temple is an artistic testimony to the cultural perspectives in 12th century South India and the Hoysala Empire rule. The main temple has 48 pillars and all of them except the central 4 have been carved in a unique way. The 4 unique ones were added later to support the internal structure of the damaged temple.
Once we finished Belur, we headed to Halebidu, around 16kms far, to visit the Hoysaleswara temple. This one is dedicated to lord Shiva and is a twin temple dedicated to Hoysaleswara (the King) and Santaleswara (the Queen) Shiva lingas, named after the masculine and feminine aspects. It has two Nandi shrines also one referred as North and the other South. It is the largest temple built by the Hoysalas that is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva in South India. There is lot of landscape around this heritage site and is well maintained.
We left the place at around 1.30 pm heading back towards our resort. We reached right on time for our lunch and directly headed towards the dinning area. In lunch, as usual as the previous day, they served us with around 25 plus varieties of delicacies and trust me it was yummy! We finished our lunch by 3 pm and thought of relaxing for an hour before we could head to the Lakshmi Devi temple. Myself and mom were the only ones who had visited this temple earlier, so mom decided to be in the resort and rest all of us left. We reached the place in say 30 mins.
This Lakshmi Devi temple in Doddagaddavalli village is around 900 plus years old and the main deity here is Goddess Lakshmi unlike all other Hoysala temples that are dedicated to either Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva and in some cases to Jains. The temple has four shrines. Goddess Lakshmi and lord Shiva opposite to each other and Goddess Mahakali and lord Vishnu opposite to each other. The temple complex is very calm, well maintained and empty most of the times. After spending some good amount of time in this temple we left back for our resort.
Once we reached back to the resort, it was already snacks time so we just went to the dinning area and this time it was veg sandwich’s with some capsicum pakoda’s. The pakoda’s was just out of this world. While heading back towards our cottages, myself and Kavya thought of pampering ourselves as we knew that there was an in house spa in the resort. So we headed towards the reception area to inquire about the slots. Unfortunately, there was no slot available for that evening and we were left with the only option of next day morning. So we booked an appointment for a body massage in the next day morning slot.
Then all of us gathered again in my cottage to play housie this time. We started the stakes with 20rs per person, then 40rs and finally 50rs. It was absolute fun playing with family after a long long time. Since its an era of digitization, all the transactions was done online so we were actually missing the crispness of a 50rupee or a 20rupee note when someone won đŸ™‚ . The winner who won the maximum amount from all the games was Suresh’s family (Veena’s husband). By the time we finished 3 sets of housie, it was already 8.45 pm so we went in for dinner. We finished our dinner in an hours time and were chit chatting about the IPL match between DC & MI and were just hoping that MI defeats DC and RCB enters quarter finals. We continued to play another game of dumb charades along with our anticipation of MI winning the match. Never was a time that we have had cheered any other team to win…and especially in the last 5 overs. Every shot was cheered equally along with recognizing every single movie from the opposite team. Oh boy, it was actually fun! This eventually went on till RCB was up in the play-offs (now that we know we lost against RR in qualifier 2…nevertheless I would still remain a loyal RCB fan irrespective of their losses). Dumb charades this time was up with one level of difficulty, with the toughest movies specially given by my mom and we had more fun in recognizing it. Let me give you some examples, 36 Chowrangi Lane, Insaniyat, Teen Bati Chaar Rasta, Sharapanjara…lol…you are right, we actually guessed all of these đŸ™‚ . Finally, just before it could turn 12 am, we all dispersed into our respective cottages as it was our last night in the resort. We had to check out the next day morning by 11.
On the last day, myself and Kavya got up a little early as we had our spa booking. We were told that the ones who give massage’s were basically from Kerala. And i had always some great experience from the Kerala ones, many years ago. And as expected, experience was truly relaxing and rejuvenating. The in house Spa is one of the highlights of the resort, provided you should have time for the same and do an advance booking. By 10, we all were ready for our breakfast with our luggage’s packed in our cottages. We were exactly on time for check out and before heading out from the resort, took some more group snaps to cherish our memories for a long long time to come.
Before our stop for lunch, few of us (myself, Kavya, Narun, Sanjitha, Karuna and her husband Sunil) wanted to climb the Vindhyagiri hill in Sharavanbelagola. But when we actually reached the place, Kavya had to drop out as Sia was sleeping and so we remaining 5 decided to climb. Kavya, really wanted to climb up with all of us but couldn’t. But don’t worry there’s always next time for it, sissy. The rest of us left the base at 1.01pm and it took almost 20 mins for us to reach the summit (covering 650-700 steps). We didn’t sit anywhere while climbing but just took few seconds of break on the entire way. The best part of the climb was the climate as it was neither sunny nor it was raining. So, the cool breeze on and off was actually a soothing experience while our ascend. The 58 feet tall monolithic statue of lord Bahubali located here in the Vindhyagiri hills is considered to be the world’s largest. The Gommateshwara Bahubali statue is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Jainism. Once we reached the summit, we did the Gommateshwara darshan and sat there for 10 mins in the outskirts. We started the descend then at 1.40 and were back down at the base in 15 mins. Got back in our TT and did some munching as we were really hungry and also our next stop for lunch was still 45 mins away.
We stopped at Dhruvathare hotel on the way back to Bangalore for our lunch. After our climb in Sharavanbelagola, I was really hungry. By 4 pm, all were done with filling their tummies and we were back in our vehicle to leave to Bangalore. Given the fact that it was a Sunday evening, we knew the traffic would be more once we hit the city. So, though reaching Bangalore at around 6.30 pm and dropping Suma’s family first, by the time we did the last drop it was 9.30 pm and it was mine. It was finally the end of a weekend family vacation which was thought so many times in the past but came into reality only now. The memories of it would be cherished for years to come before we go on to our next trip with the entire family including the ones who were missed out in this one.
Ditaaa's Travel Tales 
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