A brief visit to Teerthahalli, Chibbalagudde and Shringeri

03 May 2013,

Finally time to visit some places in Malnad region! I had to attend friend's marriage on this day and it was pre-planned visit to Teerthahalli and Sringeri. Surprisingly we visited one more place called Chibbalagudde unplanned :-) (Read blog post further to see how we ended up to that place). It was around 4AM we reached Teerthahalli and the lodge was nearby bus stop. The marriage hall was near Tunga River bridge ;-). Nice place to take some photos. However due to summer, not much water in river. But nice place to enjoy landscape with considerable amount of water. Around 9:30AM after finishing breakfast we went for a short visit to bridge.

We took some snaps near by river basin and also ventured into river. The bridge also has danger level marking for monitoring during monsoon season. I took many snaps here are few.

Bridge over Tunga River

Tunga River Basin

Landscape of Tunga River basin

After spending some time here, we went back to marriage hall. There was a petty shop near by. I wanted to buy a gift envelope which I could get it from the shop. A colleague of groom also was with me. So I had nice company. In the shop we met beautiful little girl and hungry cow :D. I guess little girl was daughter of some construction worker. She was buying some snacks from shop. Also we fed cow with bananas. Some pictures!

Little girl!

Hungry Cow!

Friend who was with me asked shop owner if we could see good places near by. The owner [who was knowing Tulu ;-)] pointed out to Chibbalagudde Siddhivinayak temple. He also guided that there is bus around 10AM which we could take and after pooja in temple the bus would be ready to return back to Teerthahalli. We were really excited and took that 10AM bus to Chibbalagudde. Its name was Gurushakti Travels. The temple is around 9kms from Teerthahalli town. The way is like ghat section with curvy and up/down roads. We enjoyed the beautiful malnad region along the journey whilst hot-humid weather. We had friendship with bus conductor who was courteous to us and guided us to alight at right stop. He also mentioned that he had worked in Udupi-Mangalore region too!

It was around 10:20AM we reached the temple. A simple but beautiful temple. The main attraction here is fishes in Tunga River! The Tunga River also flows here. People feed fish here as an offering. The house near by temple sell rice,puffed rice to feed to fishes. We went to banks of Tunga River which was really cool. There are benches too to enjoy cool weather under trees and nearby water. The fishes were rushing to grab puffed rice :-). Someone was quoting that due to these fishes, the water is so clean here and also water is always clean where you find many fishes. This place is declared as fishing free zone by fisheries department of Karnataka. Really the water was so cool, fresh and sweet. We had 3 glasses of cool water nearby temple ;-). After enjoying near the banks of river, we returned back to temple. The deity is udbhava ganapathy i.e. naturally arose. At around 11AM, the Mahapooje concludes. Exactly around 11:20AM the same bus returned with same conductor ;-). Again we had nice time with conductor and he reduced price of ticket too on return, as a signal of gesture. We shook hands with him when we got down but forgot to ask his name :-(. Here are some pictures!

Siddhi Vinayak Temple, Chibbalagudde

Cool Tunga River Basin

One More view!

Rushing Fishes (Enlarge and view)

Temple Premises

Temple Mythology

Cool and sweet drinking water!

This was really candid visit and we enjoyed the cool sheds nearby Tunga river. It was like natural AC. We thanked shop owner for guiding us to nice place. At marriage place, we had lunch around 1:10PM and reached the lodge. There was a bus destined to Sringeri around 1:30PM. We had to rush immediately since next bus was only around 3:15PM. Fortunately we got seat too! Sringeri is around 60kms from Teerthahalli. We enjoyed again beautiful malnad region en-route [except for 30 minutes when I had brief nap ;-)]. It takes 2 hours to reach Sringeri due to frequent stoppages and hilly route.

It was 3:30PM when we reached Sringeri bus stop. One has to walk for 10 mins or take an auto to reach temple. Even though it was Friday, there was not much crowd. The temple was closed at that time. It was scheduled to open at 4PM. For small amount of time we wandered around temple premises and also Tunga river. I took snaps also. The main temple is where the deity Sharadadevi resides. There is also one temple nearby which is old architecture and preserved by archaeological department. This has been declared as protected monument. Inside this temple you can find idols of deities shiva, parvathi and ganapathy. They were very well decorated. Once Sharada temple was opened, we had full hearted darshan of deity Sri Sharada. The deity was very well decorated and we had ample time to see her. Few minutes after, my friend left for his hometown since it was only 2 hrs journey for him. Even for me it was hardly 4 hour journey but I refrained from traveling since I had to leave again next week. Free afternoon and evening meals are served in temple. Here are pictures!

Sri Sharada Temple, Sringeri

Tunga River, Sringeri

Not sure, I guess Yagashaale

Preserved monument

Close up view

After 5PM, I went to a place which was maintained my Sringeri Math authorities. There were some centers maintained by Math authorities and variety of trees. One of them was NagaSampige tree which was smelling too good :-). I took many snaps nearby the area. They also foster cows and elephants, however public is not allowed to visit them. There are also vedic centers for students of Math. Overall nice place to roam around and enjoy with nature. After sometime I returned back to temple premises. In middle of bridge I took some sunset snaps also. Here are pictures!

En-route to centers maintained by Math

Fragrance of Nagasampige Tree!

Beautiful Tunga River in midst of Rain Forest

Sunset from bridge

In temple premises, I had some compliments from elderly women showing appreciation for visiting temple. She taught me never to lose faith in God. After some time, I left to bus stop and boarded 10PM bus to Bangalore. I wanted to stay back and visit Horanaadu next day. Finally I decided to visit the place along with my parents.

No videos this time but a trial HDR of Sringeri Math. Please view full size to feel it ;-)

HDR!

This is 3 exposure bracketed HDR created using Magic Lantern Firmware for Canon cameras. The people movement has mis-aligned them in the composed image. The images were put together in Luminance HDR and slightly edited with GIMP.

My camera was in M mode instead of Av but software makes sure that it varies shutter speeds but maintains constant DOF and ISO. Fatal operator in Luminance HDR did most of work except I manually increased saturation a bit.