The Drive to the ruins of Shettihalli

"A structure that stays submerged for a few months in a year"

I had heard of Shettihalli a few years back. It intrigued me. I was wondering what could make a structure submerged for a few months a year.

Did any thing happen that scarred this structure with river flow coming? I had a bunch of questions, after seeing images from social media. Year after year, I continued to make trips on the Bangalore-Mangalore highway from 2016, but going to Shettihalli eluded me, since it required a 10 kilometre detour from the highway.

But recently, a few friends of mine, decided to take a short trip from Bangalore wanting to just listen to music and practice drone flying. We decided that we should drive to the ruins of Shettihalli, and boy did we enjoy our drive!

Here is a vlog of some of the scenery we encountered.

When we started we proceeded on the Bangalore-Mangalore highway. We agreed to meet up at the Nelamangala junction at 930 am. We proceeded to have our breakfast at 'Sambrama' on the highway. Thatte Idli and Vada with good thick Pudina chutney

We stopped at a couple of places which had railway tracks running parallel to the highway. We even followed a goods train deep into the woods, before we gave up as the train was faster than my drone.

We took a left before Hassan, taking a state highway road into the woods. We passed by a bridge on a river, before realising that we had over run the place that we were meant to stop at

There was one small cafe before the mud road that goes to the submerged church structure. A little cafe serves Omlettes and retailed drinks (Lassi, Buttermilk, Juices).

We crossed that and reached the Church structure. Apparently sometime back when the dam was built, the Hemawati river started to bulge when the monsoons came calling. As a result this structure became abandoned. Over time, it became an attraction for people to park their vehicles nearby and spend a day picnic at this place.

We put our foldable chairs on the grass, felt the lovely wind, stared at the calm waters of the river. We had made a great choice for a day picnic. We saw kids climbing the structure and jumping into the river. A sugarcane seller made hay while the sun shone, as we went and drank glassfuls of juices and basked in the beautiful evening glow of the sun. A trip 200 kilometres away from home, just felt like a light conversation on the move, all along.