Saturday, April 5, 2008

Shivagange


The entrance and scenic view from top
The hillock has few temples atop and a statue of Nandi carved out of single stone is a beauty. It is about two kilometers from the bottom of the hillock where there is a village to the top of the hill. There are many temples all along the way.

Nandi
This place is also called as "Dakshina Kaashi" - Kaashi/Varanasi of South India. One strange happening here in Shivagange is, if you do an 'abhishek' of 'ghee' in the temple, the same ghee turns in to 'butter'.
Other places one can visit in the same hill -

* Pathala gange -a a belowground spring, where water level goes down during rainy season and increases during summer!!
* Olakal teertha -- (Olakal = (in Kannada) manual wet-grinder, manual means one has to rotate the top oval shaped stone mannually).
* Nandi on top of the hill
* Shantala drop
* Veerabhadreshwara temple
Other nearest place: Devarayana Durga
The places is mostly crowded all the time. At the same time it because of this number one can find the place very much dirty and full of garbage, plastic being thrown everywhere. Adding to this the shops over here sell water and other beverages in plastic sachets. The monkeys make you scary,they will just attack you if you didn't do anything to stop them. Better hold one stick while going.
Total distance:60kms from B'lore
The route:B'lore-->Tumkur highway(NH-4)-->Dabaspet-->Shivagange