A day visit to Murudeshwara and Idagunji

This year end shutdown 2012 I had planned to visit nearby places. Consequently ended up in Murudeshwara and Idagunji. The journey was just for a day. It is hardly 2:30hrs journey from our place. We started at 8:30 AM and reached 11:30 AM. The heavy traffic between Kaup and Kundapur put breaks on our smooth journey. Since father was recovering from illness only me and mother traveled. This time it is Maruti Ritz VDi which was our transport :-). One never get strained driving this car and experience with CRDi engines is really awesome!

As always I mention in my previous posts, the travel between Mangalore and Karwar is real heaven with beautiful landscape, rivers, konkan railway tunnels, western ghats and sometimes beaches. As usual we stopped in Maravanthe beach for some time before proceeding further. The day was bit hazy so not the best time for photography unless you have ND or CPL filters. Still I captured some pictures of Souparnika River and Arabian Sea. There are some marine drive videos too ;-). I will upload sometimes later. Here are some pictures!

SOUPARNIKA RIVER NEAR MARAVANTHE BEACH

Around 11:30AM we reached Murudeshwara. We could get darshan of Lord Murudeshwara and had lunch in temple itself. Lunch was very good. Later we went to see Lord Shiva statue atop of hill. Also we went to beach. The sea was pretty much rough. There was huge crowd too! I wanted to have boat ride along sea but we did not have backup clothes. One had to walk for certain distance in sea water to have boat ride. We stayed till 4PM before leaving to Idagunji. Idagunji is only 20 minute drive from Murudeshwara. We had darshan and left from there. It was only 30 minute stay. I wanted to visit Honnavar to have look at majestic Sharavati river basin. However due to lack of time we dropped that plan. Here are pictures from Murudeshwara and Idagunji.

MURUDESHWARA TEMPLE

VIEW FROM ENTRANCE

VIEW FROM TEMPLE PREMISES - 1

VIEW FROM TEMPLE PREMISES -2

THE 117 FEET HIGH PINNACLE

THE MURUDESHWARA BEACH

SHIVA STATUE ATOP HILL

OM NAMO BHAGAVATHE RUDRAYA!

SHIVALINGA INSIDE HILL TEMPLE

MAJESTIC SHIVA FACING PINNACLE

IDAGUNJI VINAYAKA TEMPLE

TASTY CUCUMBER FOR HUMID WEATHER

We started around 5PM from Idagunji and again stopped at Maravanthe beach. There was really beautiful sky waiting for us there :-). I captured photos and video of the sky. Around 8:30PM we reached Kaup again. Here is one snap of evening sky in Maravanthe Beach

BEAUTIFUL SKY, MARAVANTHE BEACH

We chose Murudeshwara specifically for long time stay since we could not spend time during our last visits. Uttara Kannada district is the beautiful district in Karnataka in my opinion. During Monsoon, the district is simply awesome place to visit! I can never forget 4km scenic journey from Manki to Idagunji.

The videos!

Here I am back with boring videos ;). Please watch and comment for improvements. The video editor is the KDENLIVE under Linux, magnificent open source software. Watch the video of Murudeshwara and beautiful sky of Maravanthe beach!

Amazing ghat journey in Karwar-Yeshwantpur day train

Finally my day had arrived to travel in KAWR-YPR day train to enjoy the beautiful shiraadi ghat. I had the tickets booked way back 2 months from day of travel. So it was first day of new year when I travelled. The new day after the journey had really become so much memorable. So here are excerpts from journey.

I had to really rush to Udupi station since I started around 8:00AM and train was scheduled to depart from Udupi station at 8:40AM. The early morning truck traffic made the things miserable. Also the railway station of Udupi is near to manipal and not in heart of town. Somehow managed to reach by 8:40. LOL :D the announcement came that train will arrive around 9:20AM. I had no choice and sit idle for sometime with other waiting passengers. Finally train arrived around 9:40AM an hour late than schedule. The train started chugging towards Mangalore. It was around 1:30PM when the train reached Subramanya Road station. There was not so much rush until train reached Subramanya Road. I had booked Chair Car so that I do not get distracted by crowd ;). Eventually as expected the CC was 25% empty! There are some reasons which delays the train

1) The engine reversal has to happen in Mangalore junction and Arasikere junction
2) An extra engine has to be fit at the back in Subramanya Road to power the train up the ghats

These procedures add cumulative delay of around 1hr. That is the pain point. Anyways there is no work around even.

The train started moving slowly towards the ghat from Subramanya Road station. It does not cross 25kmph in ghats. The automatic break systems make sure that train speed is within limits. I was really excited when the train enetered first tunnel. People were whistling and screaming with joy. Some people like me were silently enjoying while others were sleeping ;). It is just amazing to see the western ghats throughout the journey. It is almost 2:30hrs journey for 55kms. Still you never feel journey to be such long. There are approximately 50 tunnels in the stretch which makes it nearly a tunnel/km. The same scenes are rarely visible along road i.e. the field of landscape. On road, you see hills at some places however the field of landscape is not vast and ofcourse no tunnels! I captured around 20GB of 1080p video and at the end battery drained. I had no backup battery even. Nevertheless I caught most of the journey. I did not capture any pictures since it requires time for focussing (I do not own Fast lens). No manual video mode since I did not wanted to spoil my maiden journey through ghats in train. May be next time I will try since it is no more maiden. I want to travel again in this train through the ghats during peak monsoon season. However would prefer from Sakaleshpur rather than Subramanya.

Overall the journey through ghats was wonderful and breath-taking. However it is really not worth travelling till Bangalore since it takes around 12 hrs and reaches bangalore around 10PM. It is difficult to commute at that time within city. Some non-exhaustive tips from my side

1) If you want to travel uphill, travel till Sakaleshpur and have some alternative
2) If you want to travel downhill, start from Sakaleshpur and travel till Mangalore since it reaches by 8
3) July Monsoon season is the best time to have journey provided there are no landslips in ghat.
4) Have sufficient food. In between Subramanya-Sakaleshapura no rail vendors can be seen.
5) Have backup battery if you are shooting videos extensively.
6) If you are travelling from Subramanya to Sakaleshpur, sit on left side footboard (and vice versa). The left part has most of the scenic view.

As always, the video was composed in KDENLIVE under Linux Mint 14. Enjoy 25 minute scenic journey through dense rain forest. Please watch full length if possible :-).
Watch all my channel videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/nakumar85/videos

Here is write-up of journey during peak monsoon season: http://paadooru.blogspot.com/2013/11/enchanting-train-journey-along.html

A year of youtube activity

It has been one year since I have started uploading videos onto YouTube (Even though I joined around 5 years ago). Since then I have uploaded around 33 videos and more to come. Initial days I did not knew about video editing and HD. That is the reason initial videos have no wide screen capture [even if my camera supports it :-)]. Once I could realize this, it has been all HD widescreen except for few old videos. Since I started uploading, the channel has seen considerable views but not much. In-spite of less views, I will continue uploading many videos. All videos are captured by me with no duplicates and wherever required suitable credit has been given to the audio used.

All of my videos (barring initial 4) are created using KDENLIVE, free open source non linear Video Editor. It has got great capabilities and my experience so far has been excellent. I have not yet enabled Adsense in YouTube. I will definitely donate  to the open source project if I enable AdSense and earn some money :-).

On this day, I am sharing 1080p video of my hometown kaup beach. This time there are clips with view from atop of light house. It is breath taking view from the top. The clips were shot with Canon EOS 550D with 18-55mm kit lens. I used 1080p, 25fps PAL encoding. The video was composed with 1080p, 25fps and h.264 encoding. Watch and enjoy. Please share if it is worth :-)

Severe traffic jam at shiraadi ghat near Sakaleshpur

This was taken during wee hours of Saturday morning 24-Nov-2012. Something familiar from past many years. Only difference was that I captured it for first time in camera. A truck accident took toll on the travelers on this way as the traffic remained stagnant for more than 3 hours. Even though huge trucks are not allowed during night, some sneak in after having understanding with security personnel and create such kind of havoc. It is difficult to clear the jam in such terrains and there are no emergency team here as of now. Even mobile network is inaccessible which creates more problem. Fortunately the incident happened somewhat near to Sakaleshpur so the traffic people could clear things at the earliest. It has been almost 5 years since the government officials kept on saying about concretion of shiraadi ghat road. However no progress has been made so far and not sure it will make any. It is believed that local contractors are major hurdle for improving the ghat road since it may block their maintenance money flow.

Unfortunately I did not see the news in newspapers at-least I see :(. The media which craves in to get garbage news out of mangalore never bothers to report such incidents. This would at-least help many people who suffer in such traffic jams. As somebody said world is full of contradictions :(.

The video was taken with canonSX210IS and edited using KDENLIVE under linux. Since it was dark, the video has come out bit noisier. Watch the short video. I create videos not only to show something but also to test my skills. Leave a comment if you have any improvement points.

Deepavali gift to myself

This deepavali I gifted a weird stuff [relatively ;)] to myself. It is quite unusual too. So what was it? I was scratching my head so much from many days that why my camera does not see like my eye. After so much R&D around net, I finally understood that I need a 50mm lens :D. The search was ON. First 50mm/f1.2 IS USM lens. I was shocked at its price and immediately went to 50mm/f1.4 IS USM lens. Its cost was also very high :(. The only option was 50mm/f1.8 EF II lens. It was relatively cheap than rest two. However the major drawback is no IS :(. The lack of IS could be felt sometimes. Nevertheless it is quite good for a beginner though. So I tested some captures and videos in my hometown and it came quite nice. I could achieve very nice shallow depth of field. The best thing about the lens is that it can maintain f/1.8 even at high shutter speeds. At nights it can grab more light so that you can capture very good image. I also captured some videos+images in beach side. I know it is not meant for landscape but still wanted to have a try ;). Overall it is good buy for money.

So here is the compilation of images and videos I took in my 50mm lens. All of them [Images+Videos] were taken in Manual Mode with lens in Manual Focus.

As every-time please comment on video so that I can improve further.

Music: Rank 1 - Airwave (Aaron static 2009 remix)

ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ

ಇಂದಿನ ತಿಂಡಿ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ! ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು ಇದ್ದರೆ 15 ನಿಮಿಷದ ಕೆಲಸ ಅಷ್ಟೇ ;). ನಾನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ವಿಧಾನವನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಮಹಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದನ್ನು ವಿಭಿನ್ನ ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ತಯಾರಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಬೇಕಾಗುವ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು:

1) ದಪ್ಪ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ - 3/4 ಲೋಟೆ
2) ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ ಸಾಮಾಗ್ರಿಗಳು (ಎಣ್ಣೆ, ಸಾಸಿವೆ, ಕಡಲೆ ಬೇಳೆ, ಶೇಂಗಾ, ಘಾಟಿ ಮೆಣಸು, ಕರಿಬೇವು ಸೊಪ್ಪು)
3) ಹುಣಸೆ ಹಣ್ಣಿನ ನೀರು
4) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬೆಲ್ಲ
5) ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ

ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆ

ಮೊದಲು ದಪ್ಪ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ತೊಳೆದು 5 ನಿಮಿಷ ನೆನೆಯಲು ಬಿಡಿ. ನಂತರ ನೀರನ್ನು ಚೆಲ್ಲಿ ಸೋಸಲು ಇಡಿ (ಒಣಗಲಿಕ್ಕಾಗಿ). ಇದೆ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಣಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಇಡಿ. ತುಪ್ಪದ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಯಾದರೆ ರುಚಿ ವೃದ್ಧಿಸುವುದು. ಸಾಸಿವೆ, ಕಡಲೆ ಬೇಳೆ, ಶೇಂಗಾ, ಮೆಣಸು, ಕರಿಬೇವು ಸೊಪ್ಪು ಸರಿಯಾದ ಸಮಯಕ್ಕೆ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕಿ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ಫ್ರೈ ಮಾಡಿ. ತದನಂತರ ಹುಣಸೆ ಹಣ್ಣಿನ ನೀರನ್ನು ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರನ್ನು ಬಿಸಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಗೆ ಹಾಕುವುದರಿಂದ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮೆಲ್ಲನೆ ಜಾಗರೂಕತೆಯಿಂದ ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರಿನ ಮಿಶ್ರಣಕ್ಕೆ ತುಂಡು ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಕಡೆಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಉಪ್ಪು ಹಾಗು ಚಿಟಿಕೆ ಅರಿಶಿನ ಪುಡಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಕುದಿಯಲು ಬಿಡಿ. ಸಿಮ್ಮಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಕುದಿಸಿ. ನೀರಿನ ರುಚಿಯನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಿ ಬೇಕಾದನ್ನು ಹಾಕಿ. ನೀರು ದಪ್ಪ ದ್ರವವಾಗುವವರೆಗೆ ಕುದಿಸಿ . ತದನಂತರ ಸೋಸಿದ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ಬಾಣಲಿಗೆ ಸುರಿದು ಮಿಶ್ರಣವನ್ನು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಕಲಸಿ. ನೀರು  ಆವಿಯಾದ ಮೇಲೆ ಗ್ಯಾಸ್ ಬಂದು ಮಾಡಿ. ನಂತರ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿದರೆ ರುಚಿಯಾದ ತಿಂಡಿ ತಯಾರು :-).

ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಒಗ್ಗರಣೆಯನ್ನು ಚಿಪ್ಸ್ ಅಥವಾ ಮಿಕ್ಷರ್ ಜೊತೆ ತಿನ್ನಬಹುದು. ಕಡೆಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಮೊಸರಿನ ಜೊತೆ ತಿನ್ನಿ. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಪೇಪರ್ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿ ಕೂಡ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬಹುದು. ಇದನ್ನು ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಲು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಅಭ್ಯಾಸ ಇರಬೇಕು. ಇಲ್ಲವಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುದ್ದೆಯಾಗಿಬಿಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಯಾಕೆಂದರೆ ಪೇಪರ್ ಅವಲಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ನೀರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ತೊಳೆದ ತಕ್ಷಣವೇ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬೇಕು, ನೆನೆಸಿಡಬಾರದು.ಈ ತಿಂಡಿಗೆ ಕೆಲವರು ಈರುಳ್ಳಿ ಮತ್ತು ಬಟಾಟೆಯಯನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಚಿತ್ರ: ನಾನು ಮಾಡಿದ ತಿಂಡಿ :-)

ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ

ಇವತ್ತು ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ ತಯಾರಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ತಯಾರಿನ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಸಣ್ಣ ಬರಹ. ಕರಾವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಕಂಡು ಬರುವ ದೋಸೆ ಇದು. ಇದನ್ನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವುದು ಬಹಳ ಸುಲಭ ಆದರೆ ಕಾವಲಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಯಿಸುವುದು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕಷ್ಟ (ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿ ಮಾತ್ರ). ಇದನ್ನು ತಯಾರಿಸುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಈ ದೋಸೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನವರು (ನನ್ನಂತವರು) ಕನಿಷ್ಠ ೭ ರವರೆಗೆ ತಿನ್ನುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಆದರೆ ಇದು ಬೇಗ ಕರಗುವುದರಿಂದ, ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನದ ವೇಳೆಗೆ ಬಹಳ ಬೇಗ ಹಸಿವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ

ಮೊದಲು ಊಟದ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ಸುಮಾರು ೫-೬ ಘಂಟೆ ನೆನೆಸಿಡಿ. ನಂತರ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯನ್ನು ರುಬ್ಬಿ. ರುಬ್ಬುವಾಗ ನೀರು ಹದವಾಗಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ತುಂಬಾ ನೀರಾದರೆ ದೋಸೆ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟವಾಗುವುದು. ರುಬ್ಬುವ ಮಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ಇದು ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ಬಹಳ ಮೆದುವಾಗಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಹಾಕಿದರೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ದೋಸೆ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಸುಮಾರು ೪೫ ನಿಮಿಷ ರುಬ್ಬಿದ ನಂತರ ಬೇಕಾದಷ್ಟು ನೀರು ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ರುಚಿಗೆ ತಕ್ಕ ಉಪ್ಪು ಹಾಕಿ. ಇದನ್ನು ತಕ್ಷಣವೇ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಬಹುದು. ನಾನ್-ಸ್ಟಿಕ್ ಕಾವಲಿ ಬಳಸಿದರೆ ಉತ್ತಮ. ದೋಸೆ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಎಬ್ಬಿಸಲು ಬರುತ್ತದೆ. ಬ್ಯಾಚುಲರ್ ಆದ ನನಗೆ ೧ ಲೋಟೆ ಅಕ್ಕಿಯ ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ಸುಮಾರು ಮೂರು ಹೊತ್ತಿಗೆ ಸಾಕಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ತಯಾರಾದ ನಂತರ, ಕಾವಲಿ ಬಿಸಿಯಾಗುವ ತನಕ ಕಾಯಿರಿ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಎಣ್ಣೆಯನ್ನು ಹರಡಿ. ಸಣ್ಣಗೆ ತೆಳುವಾಗಿ ದೋಸೆ ಹಾಯಿಸಿ. ನಂತರ ಕಾವಲಿಯನ್ನು ಮುಚ್ಚಬೇಕು. ಸುಮಾರು ೨೦ ಸೆಕಂಡಿನ ನಂತರ ಮುಚ್ಚಳ ತೆಗೆದು ಮೆಲ್ಲನೆ ದೋಸೆ ತೆಗೆಯಿರಿ. ಗ್ಯಾಸ್ ನ ಬೆಂಕಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಇದ್ದರೆ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು. ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ತುರಿದ ತೆಂಗಿನಕಾಯಿ ಮತ್ತು ಬೆಲ್ಲದ ಮಿಶ್ರಣದ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ತಿಂದರೆ ಬಹಳ ರುಚಿ. ಅದರ ಜೊತೆ ಮಾವಿನಹಣ್ಣು ರಸಾಯನ, ಬೆಣ್ಣೆ ಕೂಡ ಉತ್ತಮ ಕಾಂಬಿನೇಶನ್. ಕಡೆಗೆ 2 ದೋಸೆಯನ್ನು ಮೊಸರಿನೊಂದಿಗೆ ತಿನ್ನಿ. ಇದರ ಒಂದೆ ತೊಂದರೆಯೆಂದರೆ, ದೋಸೆ ಹಾಯಿಸುವಾಗ ಸುತ್ತಲೂ ಅದರ ಮಿಶ್ರಣ ಹರಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಪದೇ ಪದೇ ಕ್ಲೀನ್ ಮಾಡುವುದೇ ಕೆಲಸವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

ಚಿತ್ರ: ನಾನು ತಯಾರು ಮಾಡಿದ ನೀರು ದೋಸೆ :-)

Prominent Ganapathy temples of Coastal Karnataka

Here are some of the prominent Ganapathy temples of coastal Karnataka. It is non-exhaustive list. The mentioning is based on frequently visited temples and other places I have visited. I have given brief details of the temples. If you observe, most of the beautiful temples are situated in Kundapur taluk of Udupi district with awesome nature cover. All pictures are self taken.

1) Sri Sharavu Mahaganapathy Temple, Mangalore, Dakshina Kannada District

Situated in heart of Mangalore city, the temple attracts huge crowd during Ganesha Chaturthy. It has mythological importance too! Even though Shiva is present, the many deity is Mahaganapthy. It is udbhava ganapathy as per records and has trunk twisted towards right (Balamuri)

SHARAVU MAHAGANAPATHY

2) Sri Vinayaka Temple, ANEGUDDE (kumbhashi), Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District

Situated close to NH-66 and in mid of beautiful nature, this temple also attracts many devotees all through the year. It is situated near Kundapur taluk of Udupi district. The place also has shiva temple near by.

ANEGUDDE VINAYAKA TEMPLE

3) Sri Siddhi-Vinayaka Temple, Hattiyangadi, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District

Situated close to Kundapur, this temple also attracts many devotees throughout the year. The temple can be spotted on the way to Kollur from Kundapur (Just 4kms from Kundapur).

HATTIYANGADI SIDDHIVINAYAKA

4) Sri Ganapathy temple, Idagunji, Honnavar, Uttara Kannada District

This is the most beautiful temple since it is situated in mid of wondeful nature. Uttara kannada is blessed with good natural beauty. This is reason why Idagunji is so special. It is the highest visited in coast of all the temples. There is queue for darshan spanning more than 2kms during sankashti and ganesha chaturthi. The temple is very close to Honnavar town.

IDAGUNJI

5) Sri Maha Ganapathy temple, Gokarna, Uttara Kannada District

Gokarna is famous for Mahabaleshwara temple. However the importance is equal to Ganapathy situated nearby due to well known mythological reasons. As said earlier, Gokarna is also covered with beautiful nature with great beaches and rivulets. Also Gokarna is the highest raining place in coastal Karnataka (around 5000mm).

GOKARNA MAHA GANAPATHY

6) Sri Mahaganapathy temple, Southadka, Kokkada, Dakshina Kannada district

This is peculiar temple since it has no roof. Quite natural Ganapathy :) (Watch small video here). It seems all efforts to build permanent structure have gone in vain. Hence nowadays there are no plans to develop any sort of protection cover for the temple. Situated in mid of forest area, this temple attracts many devotees. Most of the devotees who visit dharmasthala do visit this temple too. The appa prasada and avalakki panchakajjaya prepared here with ghee is the yummiest.

SOUTHADKA MAHAGANAPATHY

7) Sri vinayaka temple, Guddattu, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District

This one I recently discovered via my uncle. This is becoming famous nowadays. The speciality is udbhava ganapathy on the huge boulder. The pooje is done to the stone ganapathy itself. The ganapathy is filled with water till its neck and there is space to hold water. Mythology says Ganapathy consumed too much honey which resulted in body heat. Shiva as a result filled ganapathy with water till neck. The famous offering here is ayirkoda seve (1000 koda water seve to ganapathy). This is done only twice a day since it is tidious task. There are dedicated members who assist in seve. During the offering the water is taken out and panchamrutha abhisheka is done to stone idle. After that water is filled till neck and the stone idol is cleaned not to leave any oily surfaces. Then again water is removed and filled back to neck portion. This is repeated again for second time. This offering is done along with vedic chanting of Rudradhyaya. Even though abshisheka is done to Ganesha idol, it is called as Rudrabhisheka since shiva has prominence of filling water. As of now many people are registering for offering and the new ones will get date only after 2013 mid! The pradakshine to temple is the big boulder itself. It is around 500m in perimeter.

GUDDATTU VINAYAKA TEMPLE

ROCK FROM WHERE GANAPATHY IS ORIGINATED

BEAUTIFUL NATURE NEAR-BY

The temple can be spotted on the way from Brahmavar towards Kollur. There is small town called shiriyaara. From here you need to take 1km inner route to reach temple. Watch a small video here

8) Stone Ganapathy temple, Padumundu, Kundapur Taluk, Udupi District

This was old temple however due to lack of roads, never was in picture. Now small road is built and one can visit the temple. This temple is nearby Guddattu temple surrounded by beautiful nature and stream. The temple is made of stone and the deity sits in middle of huge boulders. Besides ganapathy, one can find parvathy and ishwara idols too. The real attraction is the beautiful nature surrounding the temple.

STONE GANAPATHY

ENTRANCE

SCENE NEAR-BY TEMPLE

9) Sri Anantheshwara Siddhi-Vinayaka temple, Madhur, Kasaragod district

Even though this temple is not part of Karnataka, people of coastal Karnataka have close affiliation with the temple. The main attraction is its architecture. Please read complete blog on the temple here. Watch small video here

SIDDHI-VINAYAKA TEMPLE

Heavy Monsoon Rain [Yenchina Barsa Maarayre] [26-08-2012]

This was the scene on Saturday morning. The same sort of scene could be seen even during afternoon. There was no cloud build up at all till 4PM. It was hot and humid throughout the day and previous day too! [It was sweating like hell]. We had been to temple near Kundapur to attend a function. There was no sign of rain.

SUNNY SATURDAY MORNING

Around 4PM clouds started hovering around Udupi region and at about 6PM stage was set. It did not even start with drizzle. The rains started pouring with full intensity and it did not stop until next day 11AM. The scene was completely opposite to what was observed earlier. From 6:30AM to 9:30AM, it was like a cloudburst with fierceful rain. The speciality was just intense rain, no lightning, no thunder, no gusty wind!

SUNDAY MORNING DELUGE

STREAM AND FARM LAND UNIFIED

OVERFLOWING STREAM

Even though rains receded after 11AM, the floods did not until Monday morning. This was the high intensity rain of the season. Even the upper region like ours were under water for sometime. The stream was overflowing and entire village was under watery gravy.

We had to leave for one more temple on Sunday and here is the video taken during our travel. Watch the scenes of flooding and overflowing stream. There is no Met Observatory in Kaup. The nearest one is Udupi and Mulki which recorded 15 and 19 cms of rain respectively during the deluge day. Most probably Kaup would have recorded more than that.

The video!

Watch the video taken in Canon EOS-550D with 1080 progressive scan and 25fps frame rate. The pictures were taken with Canon SX210IS barring the first one. The video was composed and transformed to MP4 (H.264) format using KDENLIVE. This time I used video bitrate of 18Kbps while still maintaining 384kbps AAC audio

Clubbing all the Monsoon videos, I created small documentary on the Indian Monsoon [even though videos are only from my place :-)]. Nevertheless, you see the same scenes across west coast of India. The video is inspired from one of the videos in youtube (watch it here). Same music used too! Since the videos were shot in Canon SX210IS, there is no 1080p version. I used same encoding as before except for 720p 30fps and 12kbps video bitrate. Please watch and comment for improvements.

Music: Wonderful chillout music Lagoona mana by Christian Rusch

Kotilingeshwara temple near KGF

March 14, 2010 was Sunday.

I was planning for long time to visit kotilinga temple. This day I made up my mind to visit the deity at KGF. Since my house was near to Old Madras Road, I started to wait for a bus towards KGF. However I could not get even a single one. I had to reach Majestic to catch a bus. Since it was express, it will not stop even in my place. I caught up with a passenger who was also travelling to Kotilinga. The co-passenger had to get down at Kolar due to some reasons. As soon bus reached Kolar bypass, the beautiful stone hills attracted me. I did hear that there are so many beautiful spots here.

I reached KGF around 11:30AM. Apparently it is under-developed town. There are no proper facilities. The MPP of this region is Railway Minister of state also. Bus stand looks to be garbage dump. But the irony was it was gold field some time back. People are really good. One person told me that buses towards vellore, gudiyattam, v.kote go via Kammasandra where temple is located. I caught up a private bus for Rs.5 and got down at Kammasandra. A boy was also travelling to the same place and he guided me to the stop. Apart from temple it is just like an under developed indian village :(.

Temple has wide area. Not many people were seen at that day. Apart from that I was getting too hungry. What a co-incidence. Free meals are served every day here. I enjoyed anna saaru and mosaranna. The food was very good and tasty. I donated some amount for annadaana too. Free meals are served from 12:30PM to 2:00PM. The entrance fee to temple is Rs.5 while Rs.100 for camera. I paid the money since this was first time I was visiting. Temple is covered with bountiful of shivalingas. You are tempted to take more and more snaps. Inside the temple you find many other temples too! The main deity is Manjunatha Swamy. Apart from that, one can find Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara temple, Venkatesha temple, Annapoorneshwari temple, Santoshi Maata temple. In between one can also spot Ganapthy idols too. Temple has around 82lakhs shivalingas. The target is to reach 1-crore as per the boards. You can install shiva lingas too! One needs to contact temple administration regarding this. Moving forward, the huge shivalinga with Nandi facing is very attractive. People who do not carry camera have to pay Rs.40 to take photo beside huge Shivalinga. Exclusive camera persons are present to take photos and print them.

NANDI FACING SHIVALINGA

I took around 150 photos to compensate the camera fee :). Later I travelled back towards Bangalore. Despite of huge number buses, the roads are completely pot-holed. I took government bus towards KGF which costed Rs.7. That is the reason private buses were crowded. I took express bus from KGF to bangalore. It started around 4:15PM. The tiredness made me to sleep till Hosakote. I reached home around 6:30PM.

See my blog on Kolar