Mumbai Trip – Part 1

Seems like a travelling season for me !!. This week we are in Mumbai,the financial capital of India.
It was a business trip for my husband and I thought of accompanying him as well. We booked Service Apartments this time as I was not much interested in staying at the hotel all alone. I also feel service apartments provide a good and cheaper service compared to 5-star hotels.
As this was my first time visit to Mumbai, I was little excited about the city as they show in movies..Mumbai a city of dreams…But as soon as we started entering the city, my excitement levels came down very fast.80% of the city is full of slums and these slums have become a part of the city. People are so used to these slums, they will continue to live like this further 10 more generations and hardly would ever think of removing slums from the city.I remembered Slumdog Millionaire !!

A day evening we went to Gateway Of India. Whole of the Mumbai has been connected by taxis and local trains.Taxis are very costly compared to trains. They have meters for these taxis which starts from 0.When we reached GateWay Of India from Marol the meter showed 22. We had no idea whether the meter shows the kilometers,rupeese nothing. The taxi driver took a card from his pocket and asked us to pay 350. I didn’t understand the logic behind these cards!!.Also these taxi drivers are very smart. If they come to know that you are not from Mumbai they will show one more card which says 500Rs for the same kilometers!!

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Homestays

Recently we had been to coorg and chikmagalur. Both the time we stayed in homestays. Somehow I felt homestays are better choices compared to Hotels as they would be having homely atmosphere and you can have home food which you will miss always :) .
So in Coorg we stayed in a home stay called Palace Estate.Its a pretty nice place in between the woods maintained by a Coorg family. The place is very remote and is entirely sorrounded by greenary and there is no network also.So if you want to spend a weekend without any traffic noise,mobile calls this is the best place to go !!!

HomeStay

HomeStay

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Kallur Mahalakshmi Temple & Manvi jagannatha dasaru

We belong to Kalluraya Family.Dad says because of Kallur Mahalakshmi we got that name and some of our ancestors might had been worshiping there years back. Not sure but we always make it a point to go to this temple when ever we visit Mantralaya.
Kallur Mahalakshmi Temple which is in Manvi Taluk is around 20 kms from Raichur.Kallur is also called as second Kollaphur where Goddess Mahalakshmi dwells.The temple has statues of both Lord Venkateshwara and Mahalakshmi.

Kallur Mahalakshmi

Kallur Mahalakshmi

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Hampi Trip

When ever we go to Mantralaya, we will try to visit Hampi also.Its around 150kms from Mantralaya.
You would need complete 3 days to visit whole Hampi.There are good accommodations available in hospet which is around 12km form hampi.Summers would be very bad here. August – January is the best time to visit Hampi.
Hampi, the capital city of Vijayanagara Empire, was founded by two brothers Harihara and Bukkaraya (more popularly known as Hakka and Bukka), under the guidance of their Guru Vidyaranya. The markets in Hampi were always crowded with merchants from all over the world to barter their goods in exchange of spices and cotton, grown abundantly in the area. Rubies, diamonds and all precious stones were sold on the streets in the scale of seers.

As the saying goes, everything that goes up must come down. It was true in case of Hampi also. After seeing its golden period, Hampi fell down to the attacks of the five Sultans of Deccan – Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmednagar and Berar . The city was looted for a period of 6 months. The temples were destroyed and the markets were plundered. The golden empire had come to an end.

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