Chasing History | Day 4 Hampi to Badami | Badami cave temples

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1. Recap

We started our day 4 quite early in Hampi. As we did not want to miss some important spots, we decided to cover them in the morning and then proceed further. We first visited the Monolithic bull (Nandi) and then hiked to Matanga hill for sunrise; came down through another side and visited other important temples on the way. We finally visited a Ganesha idol and then left Hampi. Let us now continue our ride from Hampi to Badami.

2. The plan

The time was 11 AM when we left Hampi. We now had three more places to cover on this trip: Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami. When we left Hampi, we were not sure of where we would stay for the night. So, it meant that we did not have a plan. As per the route, Aihole comes first, Pattadakal and Badami last. We were wondering if we should go to Badami or stay at Aihole. The final plan was to ride to Aihole and then decide there.

3. The route ahead

The route that we chose was: Hampi – Hospet – Kushtagi – Ilkal – Hungund – Amingad – Aihole – Pattadakal – Badami; the total distance was 173 km via NH50. There is another route via NH67 which is 30 km less than our chosen one, but the estimated time taken was almost the same. We already came via NH50 and knew of the excellent road condition, so we decided to take the same route albeit a bit longer.

4. Tungabhadra dam

The views from Hampi to Hospet were amazing. We had covered this stretch under darkness on our way in (read Day 1 blog). Most of the route is alongside the river so it was a pleasure riding on this road. The windblast on this route and Hampi, in general, is massive so if you are on a motorcycle take that into account.

We followed the directions on the maps and soon reached Hospet. It is quite a big city with good roads. There was some road construction going on in the city which slowed down our progress but overall, it was nice.

One big point of interest while visiting Hampi is the massive dam built on the Tungabhadra River. Since it was not fitting into our itinerary, we had given it a miss. But fate would have it that we had to cross it on our way out. We were quite happy when the maps showed that we had to cross the dam. Once you approach the area, it is like a picnic spot. There was a proper parking area for visitors and a sizeable crowd. We did not stop as we were already approaching noon and had quite a distance to cover. We crossed the dam at around 11.40 AM and were happy to have not missed seeing it.

We stopped for a fuel break at around noon time and snapped a family of ducks strolling around.

5. Road to Amingad and Lunch break

The weather was quite warm, and we had to take frequent breaks to cool ourselves down. We rode on this highway further till Hungund and then took a left turn onto the Bagalkote road. Another 15 km down, we reached Amingad and decided to break for lunch. Although, we were not very hungry but decided to halt due to the heat. We had lunch at a Udupi hotel and the time was 2.30 PM. There were not many options at the hotel, and we went for the safer choice of masala dosa.

We would have halted for about 45 minutes at the restaurant. The food was decent and more importantly, we wanted to beat the heat.

6. Passing through Aihole and Pattadakal

There are two routes to Badami, the first one goes via Aihole and Pattadakal and the other one goes directly. Since we were not sure of our final destination for the day, we decided the take the first one and see which one was suitable. The total distance from Amingad to Badami is 45 km.

We moved ahead on this route and at the 10 km mark, we reached Aihole. The first impression was underwhelming, a place of historical importance existing alongside human settlement was not what we expected. The historical ruins (many of them) en route were in a neglected state, and we also could not find any place to stay on the main highway. So, we decided to move ahead.

The next place on the route was Pattadakal, 12 km ahead of Aihole. The countryside roads were good, and the sights were incredible. Pattadakal, like Aihole, is a small village and the temple is housed within a single complex. We did not venture away from the main highway. The main temple complex is right on the highway itself and is in a far better state than what we saw at Aihole. But then, the stay options were not there on the highway, and we did not want to veer off to find one. So, off to Badami.

7. Our stay at Badami

22 Km down the road and we reached the town of Badami. The time was roughly around 4 PM. Badami is quite a big and busy town compared to what we saw en route. As with any big town comes the problem of roads being overcrowded and traffic jams. As soon we reached the place, the first thing to do was to find a place to stay.

During this whole trip, we did not make any prior reservations, so the added work of finding a hotel. We would have spent around half an hour searching for one. Finally found decent accommodation at Akshay residency. It had a private parking space, and the property was newly constructed, so everything was spic and span. The checkout was 24 hrs from the time of check-in, which meant we had quite a bit of time the next day to vacate our room. This seemed quite odd as hotels normally have a fixed check-out time, but then we were not complaining.

We decided to cool ourselves for a few minutes, change and then head out to explore the places.

8. Exploring Badami caves

We asked around a few locals and got different information about the closing time of the caves. Some of them mentioned 6 PM as the closing whereas others said it was 5.30 PM. The time was already 5 PM, but we still decided to visit the caves and see for ourselves.

We switched on the walking directions on the map and moved ahead. The caves are quite near the main highway. The maps (as usual) took us into the narrowest lanes of the town and then ditched us at a dead-end. We then had to resort to physical maps (asking people for directions) and were soon at the entry gate. There was still 30 more minutes to explore, and we decided to return if the time proves to be inadequate.

We paid Rs.75 for entry (two tickets plus charges for the camera). A flight of stairs leads you to a series of four cave temples, one after another. There is a proper parking area for visitors near the entry gate.

Badami cave temples are amongst the oldest found in India. The series of four caves dates back to the 5^th – 6^th century AD. The initial three caves are dedicated to the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu and the fourth one is dedicated to Jainism.

9. Cave 1

Cave 1 is dedicated to God Shiva. To the right of the entrance, we can see a carving of dancing Shiva as Nataraja.

The side walls have large size sculptures of Harihara on the left and Ardhnari-Shiva on the right.

10. Cave 2

We moved (rather climbed) ahead to cave number 2.

Cave 2 is dedicated to God Vishnu. The structure is similar to cave 1 with an open porch and pillared hall.

On the two sides of the entrance are the dwarapalas. The sculptures inside on one side depict Trivikrama taking one of the three steps and below shows the Vamana avatar before turning into Trivikrama form.

On the other side, we can see Vishnu in the Varaha avatar rescuing Bhudevi.

We also saw the beautiful Agastya Lake though it is more visible as we go to the upper caves.

11. Cave 3

We moved up further to cave 3 which is dedicated to God Maha-Vishnu. In this cave, Vishnu is presented in many forms.

Standing Vishnu with eight arms.

There are also sculptures of Vishnu as Narasimha, Varaha, Vamana and Harihara.

12. Cave 4

This is the smallest among all the temples at Badami and is dedicated to Tirthankaras, a symbol of Jainism. This was the last one to be created as late as the 8^th century. The carvings inside this cave belong to Bahubali, Mahavira, Parshvanatha and other Tirthankaras.

One can see the full view of the Agastya Lake and the Bhootnath temple at the far end of it.

There is a fort as well at the top of the hill however, it is no longer open to the public, so we just had a glimpse of it from the cave area.

The time was already 5.50 PM which meant it was way past for us to leave. We came down the steps back to the entry gate to view a gang of monkeys wreaking havoc on visitors. After the chaos, we decided to walk on the paved road from where the vehicles enter this place. It was a decent enough road past small settlements to reach the main road.

13. End of Day 4

We got out to the main road at around 6 PM and still had a fair amount of time to call it a day. Spent some time just looking at the busy market area and how people went about their business.

There was no point going back to the hotel and then heading out again for dinner, so we decided to stay out. After a while of roaming around, we thought to have an early dinner. But then, we could not find a decent hotel which had dinner ready. So, we sat down at a small hotel beside the Badami bus stand to have tea and some snacks. We would have spent around half an hour at this hotel and then started walking further looking for a place to have dinner.

We reached a hotel named “Veerabhadreshwar Khanavali” and went inside and found that the food will be available only by 7.30 PM. So, we sat outside by the lawn as we were quite exhausted. As promised, the food was ready at 7.30 PM, we had south Indian thalis. The taste was good, but the price was slightly on the higher side.

We retraced our steps back to the hotel by 8.30 PM.

It was an extremely hectic and physically demanding day for us, and we were quite tired at the end of it. We started the day quite early, hiking up the Matanga hill (click for Matanga hill blog), riding up to Badami and visiting all four caves which again involved climbing. From the boulders of Hampi to the caves of Badami, that was some experience and variety in one single day.

Day 5 coming up….

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