Vinayak Hegde

I and a bunch of friends decided to go on a day trip to Lepakshi at the last minute. Lepakshi is a temple town, north of Bangalore just across the border in Andhra Pradesh at a distance of about 120 kms. You can reach it by going via Doddaballapur – Gauribidanur – Hindupur route or take the NH7 towards Anantapur and then take the internal road from the Kodikonda checkpost at the Andhra border. We took the latter route. We left early at about 7.30am and stopped at Kamat’s Hotel on the way for breakfast. All along the way as we approached Chikkaballapur we saw vineyards growing grapes.

The diversion from the Kodikonda checkpost (on the left if you are coming from Bangalore) towards Lepaksi is unmarked and so hard to find. The road is narrow and just better than a dust road. Lepaski is about 10 kms down this road. Most people are familiar with the word ‘Lepakshi’ as it is the name of the handicrafts division of Andhra Pradesh Government. For example you can find Lepakshi Handicrafts stores allover Hyderabad and other major cities of Andhra Pradesh.

The Virabhadraswamy Temple complex in Lepaksi with it’s principal shrine dedicated to Shiva is of the Vijaynagar times and style. It’s contruction in 1538 AD is attributed to Virupanna – A noble man and merchant prince of the times. The Natyamandapa (Dancehall) supported on 70 pillars is the centre of attraction – the central group having life size forms of dancing shiva, brahma, nandi, tumbhara, rambha and other gods and other celestial playing on the drum, veena and other instruments in accompaniment. The Virabhadraswamy temple ceiling is covered is with murals which depict various scenes from the scriptures. I have made a composite from 8 images of a mural which can be seen here. A little farther down the road from the temple you can see a large Nandi Bull carved from a single monolithic rock. You can see the complete photoset on Flickr.

After the IETF conference I have been travelling around Europe. The backpacking trip across Nordic Europe (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) and the Baltic Countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) took 5 weeks. On this trip I travelled using quite a few modes of travel – air flights (5), ferries across seas and lakes (8), car (2), inter-city bus(11), mini buses, trolley busses, trams (6), domestic trains and intercountry fast trains (total of 11). The map of my travels is below:

Colour Code : Blue – Ferries, Black – Trains, Yellow – Bus and Red – Air Flights. Stockholm was the starting and ending point and it is marked in red on the map. Other cities which I stopped are marked with Blue placemarkers.

View Scandinavia and Baltics Trip in a larger map

The cities visited in order of traversal (can think of a better word were Stockholm (Sweden), Turku, Tampere ,Helsinki (all three in Southern Finland), Tallinn, Parnu (Both in Estonia), Riga, Salaspils and Liepaja (all three in Latvia), Klaipeda, Vilnius, Trakai (all three in Lithuania), Tromso, Narvik, Fauske, Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger (All in Norway from North to the South), Gothenburg (Sweden) and Copenhagen (Denmark).

Along the way I visited 7 World Heritages sites in Europe.

1. Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn — 1997
2. Fortress of Suomenlinna, near Helsinki — 1991
3. Historic Centre of Riga — 1997
4. Vilnius Historic Centre (Old Town) — 1994
5. Drottningholm Palace, Theatre — 1991
6. Bryggen — 1979
7. West Norwegian Fjords – Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord — 2005

The journey took me from the cities to the national parks, from the fjords of Norway to the harsh Russian military prisons of Baltics, from the big industrial towns to small fishing villages. Along the way I met young people who had served in Kosovo, Latvians who had spent most of their life under Russian rule, entrepreneurial Estonians who are rebuilding the their country after the Russian rule (Skype was the product of an Estonian company), environmental scientists who are studying climate change in the arctic circle, Finnish cyclists that undertake cross continental bicycle journeys and the Iraqi immigrants seeking asylum in Denmark. In the process, I took more than 7000 photos of what I saw. Soon I will be posting the photos (with the stories) and the preparation that I needed for making this trip. So subscribe to the feed if you are interested in listening to the stories.

The Hawaiian islands are situated in the middle of the Pacific ocean and were formed by volcanic action. In fact even today new land is being created on the Hawaiian island due to lava flows and it it sno uncommon to see live lava flows “wash away” the ring road that circles the Big Island. The Big Island is actually the biggest island in the US and bigger than all the other islands combined.

This photo was taken in April 2005. More technical details about the photo at my photoblog (click on Image Info).

The Mattupetty Tea Estate is situated between Devikulam and Munnar. The early morning fog in the winter months combined with the rolling green hills covered with tea plantations give this place an ethereal feel to this place. It is situated at a height of 1700m in the Western Ghats, Kerala. The tea gardens around Munnar are owned by the Tata group. This photo was taken in January 2007

More technical details about the photo at my photoblog (click on Image Info).

Swaroop and I had been planning for a trek in mid-February after the Sharavathy valley trek. We looked up a list at Trekwiki (It’ a great resource if you enjoy trekking) and choose Thadiyandamol over Red Hills. We just pinged a few friends and got a good response for the trek. We rented tents and booked tickets and were all set to go. We met each other and took the bus from Mysore bus stand. We did not get much sleep and got down in pitch darkness at 5.00am at Napoklu. We started walking from Napoklu towards Kakkabe which is a small town at the bottom of the trail. Walking in the mist as the sun rose was an amazing experience. We walked about 15 KM from Napoklu to Kakkabe.

Kakkabe is a non-descript town with a main road and a few houses around a small bridge over a stream. This was one of the last places where we could stock up on food (which we did). The first third of the climb was on a shady tar road with trees on both sides. The climb was generally gentle for this part. There are a few stream on this section where you can fill up on water. We rested at one of the streams for a while resting and washing our slightly sore feet. We resumed climbing till we hit a flat place where we could have a great 360-degree of the surrounding landscape. There was a stream nearby and we decided to camp nearby. Putting up the tents was a good team effort and it was great fun especially for those who were doing it for the first time. We had food and some rest at the stream sleeping on the grass and staring at the tree canopies above. After a hour’s sleep, we moved back to the open campsite and started climbing towards the peak. We had setup camp about two-thirds of the way up on the way to the peak. The trail from here on was divided into 3 parts – the first part was a gentle slope with tracks within dead grass. This led to a a trail within a thick evergreen forest where a single person could walk at a time. The third and the final part was steep and the route was slippery. Finally at the top of the peak we were awarded amazing views of the surrounding mountains and the vallley below. The clouds were moving in and obscuring the views creating a surreal experience. It was almost 5.00pm and the sun would start to set. We started the journey downhill.

We walked down the peak and the slope was slippery in places. I slipped and fell forward. To regain my balance I put my foot forward and gained momentum and I was almost running downhill. My left foot hit the rock and I fell on my right hand hitting my head on the rock. I felt a throbbing pain on my forehead and saw blood gushing down the right side of my face. My spectacles were broken and the right side of my face was bruised and had gone completely numb. I slept on the grass and realized that I cannot afford to lose consciousness. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to use my handkerchief as a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood so it could form a clot. I got up to see that Mohan fall in the
same fashion but thankfully he was unhurt. By now my t-shirt was almost completely soaked with blood so was the upper half of my jeans (I did not realize this back then). Since the light had started fading we decided to move downhill to the camp-site. As I got up I realized that my camera was broken into two pieces seprated into lens and body. I carried the pieces when I felt pain in my right wrist while picking them up. With the help of other trek mates we made it through the narrow pathway in the forest down to the camp site.

By now the light was fading fast. At the campsite everyone sprung into action and Vikram gave me first aid. Thankfully there was a clot and the bleeding had stopped. I rested in one of the tents while a couple of fellow trekkers ventured downhill to find transport to get me to the hospital. They found a Jeep owner who came came up the hill on a rocky road. These guys were spooked on seeing and we drove down the hilly trail on th 4×4 to Kakkabe and thereon to Virajpet.

There was no doctor at Virajpet but the nurse volunteered to bandage me. She recoiled in horror as she saw my open wound on my head. She managed to bandage me but refused any money from us even after persisting. She advised the driver to take me to Madikeri where I could get medical attention. The driver was driving like a madman on the narrow road from from Virajpet to Madikeri. We reached Madikeri and a Doctor examined me. I got my wrist X-rayed. While taking the X-ray I had intense pain in my elbow which was swollen so I got it X-rayed as a precautionary measure. After that got the CT scan done. It came clear (It clearly showed a brain so all doubters can now rest I was not so lucky with the X-rays. The orthopaedic surgeon told that I have a fracture in my right wrist and elbow. Another surgeon stitched my wound (totally 12 stitches) and gave me painkillers. We stayed overnight at the hospital.

In the morning, we went to the hotel room to freshen up. As I looked in the mirror I realised why everyone was so horrified. My hair was soaked in blood. My T-shirt was almost completely black from dried blood. We cut the t-shirt away as the plastered hand would create problems in removing it and got a new one. We then moved to Madikeri bus stand and thereon to Virajpet. We got into the bus and had a good time generally. The drama was not yet over as the bus broke down and our trekking gang was broken into two as we tried to get into another bus. Somehow we finally reached Varun’s place and spent the night there.

I am much better now. I got my stiches removed and the swelling on the face is gone. The head wound is slowly healing but the right arm is still in a plaster. It will be 4 weeks before I can remove it. The camera body seems okay but the 18-135mm Zoom-Nikkor lens (which took almost all the pictures on this blog is broken internally and beyond repair)