Now that I have gotten a little more comfortable with the driving, I am slowly easing into making weekend trips near Bangalore. Having read about the Chikka Tirupathi temple in a blog and having gone across a couple of times in bike rides, I thought it is a convenient place to take the family as is only about 35 Kms from home. After having to cancel a couple of times, we finally made the trip last sunday 8th November.
From Kundalahalli, there are two routes, one via Whitefield - Channasandra on NH 207 and other from the other side of NH 207 via Varthur - Sarjapur. The latter was reported to have better roads and so we took the same. All was going well until Sarjapur town except for a few speed breakeers. A very narrow stretch in Sarjapur town followed by 2-3 Kms of very bad road surface, then it got better. Road was being retarred and was good enough except again one or 2 small patches. The temple was reached in less than a hour from home at a distance of 31 Kms. The name of the lord is Prasanna Venkateshwara standing in a posture similar to the lot more famous one in Tirupathi . There was some rain and a temple was being conducted within the temple premises making the environs dirty. However, the darshan was good and we completed our Archanais relatively peacefully. It was then time for some photos a couple of which can be seen here
Chikka Tirupathi Gopuram
Chikka Tirupathi Temple
I wanted to try out the return journey on the NH 207. As mentioned that roads were not good with lot of rough patches and potholes. Going slowly we reached a village called Kalkunte. I had read about the temple here too in a blog and could see the gopuram. This temple was a typical village agraharam type. The lord is Ranganatha Swamy in a lying down pose (as is typical). We had initially gone past it then decided to turn around and visit it as we had lots of time. There was a big crowd in the temple and we came to know that an annual Garudothsavam festival was being held that day and hence lots of the village natives had come. They offered free food for all the visitors that day which was initmated by a very helpful uncle and we had a filling Pongal for breakfast. Then spent some time in the temple as special alankarams were being done and the screen was closed on the sannathi. After one alankaram, the screen was opened and we could have a very good darshan. The main procession was planned a little later that afternoon but as we were getting late had to leave.
Kalkunte Ranganatha Swamy Temple
The rest of the road was equally bad and at a T junction we had to take a left to reach Whitefield, the right going to Hoskete. This left road passed thru’ Channasandra, the land of sky-high speed breakers on one of which I scraped the car even going at the minimum possible speed. This was followed by a dozen more milder speedbreakers between ITPL to Kundalahalli, but we reached home safe and pleased with the temple visits. The return was a little shorter at only 27 Kms.
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on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Bengalooru, Photo, Temple.
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