
Our starting time was 6am! We hadthe forethought not to feed Daisy this time and so Lucy, Christopher, Daisy and I set off roughly on time. Our destination was Channekeshava Temple in Belur a mere five hour bus ride from Bangalore! We headed out on the Goa/Mumbai road and saw the western side of the city. It was much more industrial and yet was much more densely occupied than the rest of the city we have seen. The road had lots more lorries and far less sights to see like rice paddies or coconuts plantations. It was at least two hours before we felt we were in the countryside and travelling through small villages. We stopped for coffee at a local bus stop kind of place where we had smoe nasty nasty toast. Unfortunately a lot of effort had been put into our toast as it was layered and cut into fingers and arranged on a plate to a lovely effect but the strawberry jam that it was smeared with left it to be unpalatable so the coffee was to suffice. Daisy had trvelled well so we fed her ome fruit puree and a glass of water. Ten minutes down the road Daisy felt she didn't like this either and so promptly returned it to my lap! A roadside stop, and bottled water bath all round we were on our way again. The road was quite congested with cows, oxen, wagons, lorries and people and so we found that it took 6 hours to arrive and not 5 like the bus. The Channekeshava Temple was quite an impressive site. It was begun in 1116 to commemorate the Hoysalas' victory over the Cholas at Talakad (I am not sure who these people are or where this place is, anyway...) The temple is surrounded by a large courtyard that you can wander around and there are further smaller temples within this.

The temples are carved out of soapstone and they really are impressive with the detail that they managed. The Hoysala style temples are the most elaborately carved of all Indian temples. We arrived here at midday and found wandering around the courtyard and the temples to be incredibly hot! We had to take our shoes off as this temple is still in use so our feet took quite a beating on the hot stones. It was lovely and cool inside. In one temple I left a small donation and got to wave the heat form a candle over my forehead (I had learned this trick from a monk in the Hare Krishna temple in Bangalore) The monk inside the temple then gave me 'mint water' which he said I had to drink so I pretended to and made a hasty exit. The water did smell very minty and refreshing compared to the searing heat in the courtyard. It was an amazing place and we found ourselves sitting in a pavillion and watching the colourful saris and clothing of the Indians wandering around this ancient place. Back in the car, Raj headed off on a mission and we looked at each other and wondered where our next adventure would lead us. To lunch, we were hoping but this was not to be.

Raj, our driver loves backroad and we soon found ourselves on one such road. the sky was filled with heavy black storm clouds that we were begging to drop their rain but this was not to happen while were we still in the safety of the car. Our next destination was Halebid and another Hoysala style temple. this one was much smaller and more beautifully carved. It was quite astonishing, even enough for us to forget our hunger temporarily as by now it was after 2pm. Then the rains came so it was back into our car and in search of food. Raj took us to an lovely vegeatarian Indian resturant that was filled with locals so we thought it must be good. i had a jar of food for Daisy and as she had been able to keep bananas down we fed her this food. Within minutes she had covered the resturant and Christopher. The waiters were very helpful and Daisy was grinning from ear to ear with all the attention. We ordered lunch and let Daisy wander at will and we took it in turns to play with her and eat our meals. Then it was back in the car and heading home. This took five hours but the last two were in Bangalore evening traffic. Raj loves his backstreets so again we saw parts of the city that we would normally never see. It was the tail end of the Ganesh Festival, a week long festival celebrating the elephant god Ganesh and we drove through two small processions of dancing and drums and people carrying statues of the gods. They were very colourful and loud and a pleasure to come across. We arrived home about 9pm and soon found ourselves in bed after a long long but interesting day.
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