Weekend Trip: Shivasamudra, Talakad & Somanthpur

This was a long waiting post, we went on this one day trip - covering Shivasamudra, Talakad and Somnathpur ,  almost a year back :), but now only got the time to write about it.

1. Shivasamudra
Shivasamudra has two striking falls - Barachukki and Gaganchukki ., situated at Mandya District of the state of Karnataka, India. I would call it as a “Mini-Niagara”!!!. The thunderous flow during the peak monsoon season is so huge as Niagara. Downstream from the falls has Asia's first Hydro – Power Plant, established at Sir M Visvesvaraya in the year 1902. Yeah!, it’s India - You do have a set of ancient temples located in and around Shivasamudram :) .

Total height of the Falls : 98 metres (322 ft)
Watercourse : Kaveri River
Average flow rate : 934 cubic metres/s (33,000 cubic ft/s).

This trip was on a peak monsoon season., when the falls were gushing with water. That’s the best time to visit the falls. Mesmerizing droplets rising in the air about 50 feet high from the falls!!!. It was such a beauty to witness.  But, there was no way to get-in to the waters . Since the water current was more, they did not allow us to get near the water. We clicked a few adventurous pics, spent some time and packed-up.

Straight from Shivasamudra, we headed to Talakad.

2. Talakad:
Talakadu is an ancient town on the banks of river Cauvery, most of its area filled with White Sand. Talakad has an interesting history to read through. It’s believed that entire talakad town was buried under sand  once due to a legendry curse from Alemalamma – the queen of Vijayanagar Empire. They say that, the Queen's curse turned the once flourishing Talakadu into a place like desert. We still can see a number of temples/towers half-sunk under the sand dunes.

We reached there at around 1PM. Had one of the best lunches of my life. The same Veg. Biriyani with set of side dishes, prepared by my wife – but the chilly drizzling at the greeny water front made it magical! , except some disturbance from the monkeys over there. But, fighting with the monkeys and saving our food was itself so much fun :P , me and my daughter enjoyed that part too , very much!

We took the fun coracle ride over the back waters (couldn’t go onto the main river, as the flow was so huge and dangerous). After relaxing for sometime, we packed-up for the next location Somanthpura.

3. Somnathpur:
The Keshava temple at Somnathpur situates at around 35km from Mysore, is an immeasurably beautiful Hoysala temple. It was built in 1268 AD. History says that it took 58 years to complete the construction of the temple, that much stone art carvings it has. It’s well maintained. Truly an amazing piece of human excellence and creativity, but we failed to enter the premises, as we reached there just a few minutes late. (Needless to say,our government officials are so punctual while closing :) ..

It was already 6.30PM and  we were dead tired, so after a tea and snack at Somnathpura we packed our bags to home.

This was one of the best one day trips ever!!!.

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