Thursday, March 31, 2011

SCRAPBOOK : OUR JOURNEY THROUGH THE LAND OF SAIVITES - I

OUR SCRAPBOOK  of  TRAVEL TO  SRIKAKULAM , BADAMI & AIHOLE


Ruby, me and Aihole. 
The entrance of DurgaGudi with
Aihole Museum's outdoors's displays in the background.

During this February,'11 trip to the land of Saivites, I have  taken just a few photos of people and landscape.What I have in my HDD  to-day are mostly related to Iconography.Looking back, this is a lost opportunity for me.After a few years, I  shall not be having much of a scrapbook from this visit to refer back ! I should have been more conscious about this aspect while moving around.Fortunately, Ruby  has been more methodical and her album  fill in  some of the gaps.

 Sea-shore @ BandarwaniPeta near SriKakulam. Fishermen's boats near the horizon.The stone formation bang on the shore is nice for photography from a distance, specially when waves break into the same.Unfortunately, it is an open-air toilet for the villagers! 
Had to stay quite a distance away from the same.

Catch of fish, lying on sand at the sea-coast.

 These children were playing on the coast - requested me for clicking a photo 
as we were returning to our car.

SriKakulam has a  sea-shore at BandarwaniPeta - accessible by car and bus -  which is very different from the normal   tourist destination. It has a strong presence of fishermen - the seacoast is full of boats and fishing gears like nets. We could see several boats on the prowl in the sea. It is obvious that the main activities take place during the night. The neighbouring  LightHouse/Watchtower was out-of camera's range. The confluence of river Bansadhara and the sea may be a spot where one can sit down and relax - but, the coast where we stood for a while and took photos had an unpleasant stench of fish and open-air toilet around a big mound of stone which was getting splashed by waves at regular intervals !

 The untiring doorman -'DwarPal' - @ Badami caves. 
Looking after thr gods' abode since 534 AD !

Shadow & light - street photography @ Badami

Badami offers two magnificent views to those who care to move around with binocular and/or camera. Once on the top level of the caves  temple, we find the small town around, its sky-line with two near-by mosques from the AdilShahi era of Bijapur, Agastaya Teertha with  sprawling 'ghat' around, Bhoothanatha temple complex  cradled here, a hillock on the other side of Agastaya Teertha with Malegitti  Sivalaya on its top. From the other side of Agastaya Teertha, we can see the hillock with Badami caves and a fort on its top . To serious photographers, 'ghat' is an important subject.But, when I reached a reached Agastaya Teertha's 'ghat' , it was well-past noon, bathers have left for lunch and afternoon siesta.

 Skyline of Badami - photograph taken from platform in front of the caves.

View of  AgastyaTeertha from Badami caves.

Grapes for the hungry & thirsty @ DurgaGudi,Aihole.

Sunflowers , looking away from us, while we were moving towards 
Aihole from Badami on 23/2/2011 .

The roads - we used a detour too - to Aihole/Pattadakal are  picturesque.Specially, the approach road to Aihole. A small hill has RavanaPhadi - the Brhminical cave - and we went round this hill to various locations over which the temples of Aihole are spread around.Along this routes, we found cultivation - specially mentionable are tracts with  sunflowers blooming with direction of their faces changing with sun's movement. River Mahaprabha which flows diagonally from north-west to south-east on the Western side of Aihole is a small one. We can have a good view of the river's course from the 'ghat' beyond Galganatha temple.

 A pavilion at Galganatha temple's courtyard - River Mahaprabha and the hill that houses the ancient cave temples of Aihole in the background.

  The nature as well as the villages, both at SriKakulam and North Karnataka, looks very different from what we find in West Bengal. Later, I plan to post a few more photographs from our HDD for scrap book - II.


1 comment:

Amitabha Gupta said...

Nice travelogue. I specially liked the picture of 'DwarPal' and the mosque.

The Mosque picture has an unique angle which only can be understood by those who have visited Badami