One Sweet Day

One of the things on my wish list is to see as many places as possible in India. The rich beauty of our monuments always takes my breath away. This Sunday, 50 of us from our apartment condo hired a luxury coach and went on a picnic. See the open flap at the back? That’s where we carried our food and snacks.
Here’s a pic of our bus:

We started at 5.45 am. Our itinerary was to visit three places, with breaks for breakfast and lunch. We planned to return home by dinner time. It was a great trip and a fantastic time was had by all. There were lots of children and adults, mostly women. The majority of women were Grandmas. 
So once we took off, about fifteen minutes later, we had a sandwich as a stopgap snack until breakfast, as we planned to visit the Aprameya temple where Baby Krishna is the deity (hey, I seem obsessed with Krishna, no?) 
Okay, so this is the Lord Navaneetha Krishna Temple, at Dodda Mallur, Channapatna Taluk, Bangalore. The deity, a crawling baby Krishna is very cute. 

Here is a view of the temple from the side

Inside the temple – these are the “vehicles” of the deity
 
 An elephant

Like a little garage no? Ah, there’s also a horse
As soon as we entered the temple, on the right was this solid brass snake – representing Adisesha, Lord Vishnu’s erm….bed. He reclines on the snake with the head of the snake protecting him. Krishna is an avataar of Lord Vishnu.

On the left was this solid brass (or copper?) Garuda – another of Vishnu’s vehicles.

Outside, there were lots of shops selling these. I bought copper and brass bracelets and a set of wood bangles.

I found this very interesting twisted tree trunk outside. 

If you would like a virtual tour of the temple – check it out here!. We left the temple and looked for a place to park and have breakfast. And had it in this lovely coconut grove. We spread our mats. Got the food out and distributed it in paper plates and dug in. 
What fun we had on the bus! En route to the temple, we had a lot of song and dance. I tell you, it is hard to jump and make those dance moves in a moving bus! But the highlight of the morning was playing this song at full blast and dancing to it. I was amazed at the enthusiasm of the Grandmas – they rocked the floor – er.. I mean - the  aisle with their moves. Go on – crank up your own volume and listen to this – it is one of the hottest songs in Bollywood and what is termed as an “item” number.

After breakfast, we set out to visit Somanathapura from where we headed to Talakadu. Very interesting places with a lovely story behind them. I’ll post the next set of pictures on Thursday. So see you then!
And now, I am off to Unknown Mami’s to see where the others linking up to this Sunday In My City  linky are taking me.
Have a great week ahead!