Another almost aimless drive

It had been quite some time since I went on a long drive on my bike. So I decided rain or shine, I would go somewhere this weekend. Despite having been in Bangalore for more than three years, I still hadn't visited Mysore and Srirangapatna. It was time to correct this aberration on my resume, so it would be Srirangapatna. Given that there are only a couple of forts/palaces/mosques and one temple to visit, starting around 8 from home would be enough to return by 7.

So I started off. Decided to take the BMIC expressway out of the city. Caught it on Hosur Road. But just a little before Gottigere on Bannerghatta Road, thanks to some land allotment issue, this expressway suddenly stops. Had to do a little searching around to find the continuation of the road. No issues after this though. The road is pretty nice. (sorry, couldn't avoid the pun) But I don't understand why someone would pay to take this road to Mysore, when the existing State Highway itself is already four laned and in pretty good shape.

Breakfast was at Maddur. One plate Maddur vadas and a plate idly vada. Due to the Sunday rush, sambar was over, so had to have idly vada with sagu. As I was having breakfast, the dark clouds that loomed threateningly over since I started finally acted. It started drizzling. As a result I chose to take the route that I thought took me away from the rain, back towards Bangalore.

Somewhere between Doddamallur and Maddur, there is an anonymous arch adorned with an idol of Lakshmi Narasimha. I decided to check out this road that obviously had a temple. The road kept deteriorating as I went. It went past a village that had a Kali temple. A little after that, there was an untarred road that diverged and in the corner stood a very missable board indicating that the Narasimha temple was 3km along this untarred road.

I am sure this road was never laid.(tempting to add "me" and "like" somewhere in this sentence, but I refrain) Just a combination of mud and stones and wild growth on the sides, a jungle it was. In the rain, the stones seemed more confidence inducing that the mud. Initially the road climbed, then it was pretty much on the same level. A km or two this continued.

The suddenly out of nowhere, a concrete road sprang up. And I was also climbing a hill rapidly. At the end of the road, on the hill was a small, really small Narasimha temple, showing Narasimha coming out of the Stambha. I learnt from the Bhattar there that this place was called Karunagiri (google later told me it was Kurunagere) One archana, some curd rice and some photos later, I left the temple and returned back.