Following up to my posts on Hoysaleswara and Chennakeshava Temples in Karnataka, this post follows my journey east from Bangalore to Chennai in the state of Tamil Nadu. Unlike the former posts, this is a travelogue not attempting to get at history.

We arrived in Chennai in the late afternoon and headed straight toward Elliot’s Beach along the waterfront just south of the city center. Fully named as Edward Elliot’s beach, it is named after a former superintendent of police.

We arrived just at sunset. Chennai is on the east coast of India, so the sunset set the mood rather than impressed. There were quite a number of people of all ages walking along the beach enjoying the pleasant weather.

Elliot’s Beach in Chennai just after sunset

The scaffolding and lights made an interesting geometric sight against the twilight sky.

Silhouette of construction along the waterfront

As a teaser to get you to click through to “more”, here is a picture from the marketplace we visited a short walk down the beach.

As it darkens the lights take over

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This is the second of two posts about visits to beautiful temples in Karnataka in March, 2018. The first post covered our visit to Hoysaleswara Temple in Halebeedu. This post will document our visit to Chennakeshava Temple in Belur. Belur is a short 10 mile (16 km) drive to the west of Halebeedu. As soon as we finished our visit at Hoysaleswara Temple we headed out to Belur and the Chennakeshava Temple.

The Chennakeshava Temple was built over 103 years starting in 1117 AD, when it was commissioned by King Vishnuvardhana. Like Hosaleswara Temple, it was damaged in wars and fighting while and has been continually repaired, even to today. It has functioned as an active Hindu temple since it was founded. (Wikipedia)

You enter the temple through an ornate gate, known as a Gopuram. The gopuram and surrounding walls were added in the 14th century. The lighter colored material on the gopuram is recent reconstruction. Wikipedia mentions extensive repairs performed in the 1930s financed by the Mysore government and Wadiyar dynasty but is not clear on whether this particular repair was part of that work. As an active temple, there is quite a lot of activity outside the temple complex.

The entrance to the Chennakeshava Temple complex. The lighter colored material is a restoration.

There are many structures within the temple complex. The pillar on the left is said to stand without any support but the carefully balanced weight of the pillar itself. The main Chennakeshava Temple, also known as Kesava temple, is in the center. It had an extensive wood and stone tower instead of a flat roof when it was built, but the tower was removed in the late 19th century. I am not clear on what the structure on the left is.

The temple grounds are extensive, with many structures.

This is looking directly into the main entrance of the Chennakeshava Temple. You must leave your shoes outside, so it is nice that there are rugs laid out to help prevent burnt feet.

This is the entrance to Chennakeshava Temple. This is the main temple, also known as the Kesava temple.

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I had the opportunity to visit some very beautiful temples in Karnataka, India in March, 2018. This is the first of two posts and it will focus on the Hoysaleswara Temple in Halebeedu (also spelled Halebidu). Having arrived in Bangalore around 1:00 am and finally turned off the light at 3:00 am, we got up at 7:00 to head off to Halebeedu and Belur, a three and a half hour, 140 mile (226 mk) drive. A subsequent post will discuss the visit at Belur.

We stopped on the way at Hotel Mayura, a nice restaurant, and had a traditional Indian breakfast of dosa and another deep fried bread that was all puffed, served with a variety of curries. I had stopped at this restaurant in October, 2016 on the way to visit Shravanabelagola, a Jain shrine with a massive statue. I wrote about that trip in March, 2017.

The Hoysaleswara Temple was built from 1160 to 1121 AD. In the 14th century, Halebeedu was twice sacked by invading Muslim armies, and the temple was damaged during these conflicts. The temple today is largely intact. We arrived just before mid-day and there was a good crowd at the temple, busy but not too busy. This is the walkway from the north parking area to the temple.

Entry walkway at Hoysaleswara temple

Even from a distance you can see the intricate detail of the carvings on the temple. The temple is made from soapstone. Soapstone is soft when quarried, making it suitable for carving and decoration, but it hardens over time, so the carvings are durable. This is the north entrance to the temple.

The entrance to the Hoysaleswara Temple

Visitors to the temple were very colorfully dressed. As with most historical temple sites in India, this is not just an historical site, it is an active place of worship.

Colorful clothing outside the temple

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Having covered October visits to Bangalore, Mount Abu, and Udaipur in earlier posts, I will step back to an earlier trip and a visit to the Golden Temple in Bylakuppe, Karnataka in March 2017.

The Golden Temple, also known as Namdroling Monastery, is a Buddhist monastery located in western Karnataka about 153 mile (247) kilometers from Bangalore. Established in 1963, it is one of the largest teaching centers of Tibetan Buddhism in the world (per Wikipedia). It is an impressive and beautiful facility.

We visited in the morning on our drive back from a work event at Club Mahindra Virajpet Coorg. After parking, we walked past the living facilities into the temple / monastery area. The first notable building we saw was the Zangdog Palri Temple, which is quite an impressive facility. We were unable to go inside.

Zangdog Palri Temple seen from the entrance path

It is impressive from the back as well as the front.

A view of the back of the Zangdog Palri Temple

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A couple of months back, I wrote about a trip to Mount Abu. This post takes up the story the next day, when we drove to Udaipur, a city in southern Rajasthan, to catch our flight to Mumbai. This is a shorter drive (three hours rather than five hours) than a return trip to Ahmadabad and, as a bonus, we got to see more sights.

We left at a comfortable time in the morning. At the 3,900 feet / 1,200 meter altitude of Mount Abu, the weather was clear and pleasant. We set off in a caravan of cars and headed towards Udaipur. Udaipur is known as the “City of Lakes” and is a very popular tourist destination. There are many palaces in the city and on the lakes. The palaces are considered of the Rajput era and were built from the 16th to 19th century.

Our first, and only palace visit, was to the see the Monsoon Palace on the western outskirts of Udaipur. Built in 1884, the palace is high on the Aravalli Hills, just outside Udaipur. According to Wikipedia, it was planned to be a large astronomical observatory, but upon the premature death of the builder, Maharana Sajjan Singh, it was turned into a hunting lodge and a place to observe the monsoon clouds. It has a fantastic view of Udaipur, its lakes, and the palaces. This first picture is of Lake Pichola taken from the Monsoon Palace.

Lake Pichola in Udaipur from the Monsoon Palace

This next picture is the only one that includes any part of the Monsoon Palace. It is a rather plain palace and most of the pictures I took there were of our traveling group. As a policy, I don’t include people pictures in these public blog posts. Here you can see the wall of the palace with Udaipur and its lakes in the distance.

The walls of the Monsoon Palace with Udaipur in the distance

This is a view of another major lake in Udaipur, Fateh Sagar Lake. It has a park and a solar observatory on islands in the lake.

Fateh Sagar Lake from the Monsoon Palace

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On a trip to India last October, our week finished in Ahmedabad, a city in the state of Gujarat. The team planned an excellent team-building event, a trip to the hill station of Mount Abu in Rajasthan.

Before I go into the narrative of the trip, here is a teaser picture to get you interested enough to read and look further. This is a view from Guru Shikhar, the highest point (5,650 ft / 1,722 m) in the Arbuda Mountains where Mount Abu lies.

Looking south from Guru Shikhar, the Mount Abu town is in the distance on the right.

We left after our morning meetings on Friday, setting off on the highway heading northwest from the offices in Gandhinagar. The roads were generally good, but also filled with commercial as well as personal traffic. The drive was about 5 hours.

Trucks on the way from Gujarat to Rajasthan

Large trucks were not the only commercial traffic on the road. We came upon some cattle being herded in this rich agricultural region.

Cattle being herded down the road on the way to Rajasthan

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On our first day in Bangalore in October 2017, we had a chance to go out into the city to see some of the sights. Our flight from Hong Kong was delayed so we did not start at the crack of dawn as planned, but rather at about 10am. The early start had been planned because Bangalore is notorious for its bad traffic. Believe me, it can be really bad. The calendar was on our side as this was Sunday on the tree day weekend of Mahatma Gandhi Day which is celebrated as an Indian national holiday every October 2nd. It being a holiday weekend, traffic was quite light.

We headed off from our hotel, the Park Plaza Bangalore, going to Bangalore Palace and picking up our guide on the way. The palace was built in the 1870s in a tudor style by Maharaja Chamarajendra Wadiyar X, the king of Mysore. It is still being used by the current king of Mysore for his ceremonial duties.

You can get recorded audio tours that describe the features of the palace and its history. One note on the tour — you have to pay extra to be able to take pictures.

An outside view of Bangalore Palace.

There are hunting trophies throughout the palace including this elephant head at the top of the entrance stairs.

This elephant head overlooks the main entrance to the Bangalore Palace

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