Trips!

It has been long since I made a post! No time! End sems and then some SoE work and then Mumbai trip and finally the fun trips with mom and dad! :)
Lemme begin with my Mumbai trip.. Went to Mumbai for NIUS exposure camp for 10 days.. The flight was a memorable one.. Not only did I check in at the last moment, thanks to the server failure of Indigo but was also carrying so much baggage that added to the anxiety! In Mumbai I went to the same old HBCSE where I has been for the chemistry OCSC. Stayed this time in the new hostel that was far better than the accommodation at BARC. But the best part about the camp: awesome lectures by a few scientists. The ones I enjoyed the most were by Prof. Simon of IMSc. He spoke quite a lot about Quantum Information and was very bold and confident about his thoughts and opinion. One unforgettable lecture was the 9pm to 10:45pm lecture. No one (according to my information) slept! This camp was different because of the way I utilized the time I had and how much I learnt! It was 'fun-learning' :)
Once back in Bangalore the only thing I did was have fun! My first trip with parents was to Shivagange a rocky hillock in Karnataka. At the foothill there is a Shiva temple which is inside a cave! The speciality of this Linga is that if one smears ghee on it, it turns into butter! I didn't believe it initially but later I had to as I saw that happen. There is one more interesting thing about this temple. Its the water body between two huge rocks known as Patala Gange. This might be the reason it is named Shivagange but I am not quite sure. The most interesting part of the trip is the climbing this whole hill to its topmost point. It was completely rocky and I had to climb it barefooted!! But the presence of so many people there made it quite easy. At the top there is a huge Nandi and again a Shiva temple. The top is also famous for being the suicide place of Rani Shantala wife of the ruler Vishnuvardhan. Climbing down was way more difficult as it was too windy!!! Down there is a Sharada Mutt and we arrived in time for the MahaMangalarathi followed by some yummy food served in the Mutt!
The second trip was a two day trip. We boarded the KSTDC bus to Mantralaya, a pilgrimage place in Andhra Pradesh where the saint Raghavendra is said to be in a Jeeva Samadhi. From there we went to a place called Panchamukhi in Karnataka where saint Raghavendra is said to have had the darshan of Panchamukhi Anjeneya! From there we went to Hospet a place in Karnataka. During the journey "Sivaji. The Boss" was played and I can tell that it was the weirdest movie I have ever seen!!! Hospet is a nice place with a good weather.. we stayed right near the famous Tunga Bhadra Dam and its view was mesmerizing. The next day we went to the world heritage centre of Hampi.. My blood literally boiled when I learnt how it just got destroyed! We saw the Virupaksha temple, Ganesha Images, an awesome 6.7m high Lakshminarasimha monolith seated on a seven hooded serpent, magnificent elephant stables, stepped Pushkarnis, the beautiful Lotus Mahal (a blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture) and the magnificent Vijaya Vitthala Temple with stone chariot! This was a visual delight! A link to its 3-D image: http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/asia/south-asia/india/hampi/vittala-s-temple-stone-chariot/sphere-flash.html . From there we went to the to the TB Dam and had a top view of the dam and the garden. It seemed as if the dam partitioned an ocean and a green stretch of land! Later we saw the most boring musical fountain on earth! And with this ends my trips of the 'summer of 09'! These were definitely some of 'the best days of my life'... (I am a new Bryan Adams fan!)

Will keep blogging (at least will try to :P)
Vasuki :)