Just one line about this trip: ONE DAY isn't enough to take in the sculpture beauty of Belur and HaLebeedu. Each one of them takes you into a different artistic world, as you would marvel, looking at the intricate details in each sculpture design, carved out of just plain stones. Built by the Hoysala kings and further developed by the kings of the Vijayanagar empire, the temples at Belur and HaLebeedu just stand great.I owe this tour to my mom, who was on a trip to Bangalore, on the last leg of her yearly visit to South India this summer vacation. I had guessed she would be tired enough and would be left with little enthusiasm !! Much against my expectations, my ever energetic mom forced me into this trip.
Off we were in the KSTDC package tour, starting @ 07:15 morning. The bus had just 16 members. One less and KSTDC would have cancelled the trip, as per rules. We also had
a pretty French lady, Mary with us too. I saw that she had seen much of India, and also seemed interested in Indian epics !!! Take this: "Oh, as the wife of Lord Vishnu??", was her first reaction on hearing my mother's name (Lakshmi) :-)
Our first place was at SravanabelogoLa, familiar to most of us with the statue of Bahubali atop a rocky hillock. The view from the top of the hill was great. We had to hurry here, climbing up and down the steps, to cover each detail in the one hour allotted. 
After having a quick - "come within half-n-hour" - meal at the KSTDC hotel, we were off to the 'Chennakesava' temple at Belur. You know how these package tour guys hurry us :-)
The Chennakesava temple, gets its name from the most-beautiful statue of Lord Vishnu here. It WAS indeed a beauty, as I saw inside. Most of all, the temple is an architectural museum in itself, with innumerable sculptures. There are around 600 odd elephants carved out of stone as the bottom most line of the walls surrounding the temple: "NO TWO elephants are alike" And in fact, at some places, if you follow each of the statues one by one, you would feel like the these are of an elephant walking !!
Below you can see the dome inside the temple, with the middle keystone holding the whole structure. Carved on the keystone was the Narasimha avata
r. Amazing it was I must say.Wait till my next blog, wherein I intend to write in detail about each one of the sculptures, I am sure you would love to read it.
Out next halt was 'HaLebeedu'. The place gets its name from the literal translation into 'destroyed town'. The temple, in fact a set of two here, seem to be not yet completed, with stones left without carvings or little work done on them. We were informed that this was after the attack on this town by Delhi sultans and consequent weakening of the kingdom. The sculptures here depict most of the Indian epics. The Nandi statue here is the most beautiful one, indeed it was as you can see here.
I must say this HaLebeedu temple has been maintained very well, with a green garden surrounding the monument.
We started this place around 5 o clk in the evening. It was a long 5 hourney back to Bangalore. Altogethe, a wonderful trip again, of course, my mother was very happy... :-)
