Samik Road Trip

The car was delivered on 21st August. I was wondering where can I take it for a long drive but that place has to be within 150 kilometers as I wanted to come back by evening. So I thought that I would be going to Lepakshi - about 129 Kms from Bangalore.

Lepakshi is famous for architecture of Vijaynagar style. It is famous for a single stone curved Nandi statue. So I wanted to visit this place.

Mode of transport: My Alto Lxi

Members: Alipta and Me.

We started around 7 am in the Sunday morning, from Bangalore to International Airport the traffic was low but not deserted. There was a constant flow of traffic till the Devanahalli bridge after that the traffic eased out and we were cruising along the NH 7.

We took a detour to goto Airport for a quick breakfast and to see some of the aircraft land and take off as it always amazes me how that big plane can fly and I feel like a child again. Anyway after some "Samosa, Bonda and Chai" we went back to NH 7. I was driving all along during the morning and Alto was performing really nice - as it was expected. I was under 80 Km/Hr all the time so that I do not go into a over speed before the initial servicing of the car.

It was nice drive as NH 7 stretch from Bangalore to Lepakshi crossing is definitely one of most well maintained road in the country. On the way we crossed Chikbalpura and Bagepalli (the last Village of Karnataka before you enter Andhra Pradesh or AP).

There is toll gate after Bagepalli which takes Rs. 80 for a return journey within 24 Hrs. We paid and asked how far is Lepakshi - someone said its about 3 KM from the tollgate but it was around 4 KM as per our trip meter.

Once we reached the Lepakshi crossing we had to take a left and Alipto took the bad road leading up to Lepakshi. There were some children who were blocking the road dangerously with ropes to collect some money for Ganesha Festival. The road was filled with lots of potholes, it was narrow and difficult to drive for the poor road sense of all the people, bikes and even cars.

At last we reached the Nandi statue.

After we saw this awesome structure we felt like spell bound how on earth some one can create a complete statue from a single rock? Wow!!!

After this we needed to go a little further down the same lane to reach to the actual temple to find out what a beautiful place it is. Lots of structure and architecture marvel. Diffidently greate work of art but lots of them has gone bad over the time.

I will let the pictures say the rest of it.