Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) might have found some recent popularity among the youth because of the eponymous blockbuster Kannada movie, but I had long been interested in exploring the now-abandoned mining sites, ever since I learnt that the hotbed of gold mining in India had been shut since 2001. So, on one sunny morning when I was in Bangalore, visiting a friend, we Googled about day trips from the city and to my surprise, I found out that KGF was merely 100 kms away!
But... This day was not about the gold fields - in fact, we never made it to the gold fields as you would see - even though my excitement about a possibility of finally realising a childhood dream drew me and my friend out of Bangalore.
We were on a motorcycle, and the ride from once you struggle your way out of the Bangalore traffic and hit the highway, to all the way till you reach Kolar is just so relaxing. Wide, fine roads with vast grasslands on both sides on a pleasant breezy day just set up the ideal biking mood. Rocky hillocks with palm trees at their feet keep stretching out in front of you, and there are a number of cafes/restaurants spaced out along the 66 km patch for you to stop by.
Some more Googling gave us a reason to make our first stop at Kolar town - Someshwara Temple. You follow the map through the nondescript Kolar, that has every element that makes it just another Indian town - a medley of visions, sounds and smells emanating from streetside shops, traffic snarls, the incomprehensible chatter of human voices in the air... just the overall chaos. All this... until you reach the temple.
There was an expected disbelief on the prospect of finding an ornate 14th century Vijayanagara era Dravidian style construction, right in the middle of this town! And once you enter the temple premises, you are transported to the Vijayanagara era. The temple is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India as a monument of national importance, and I must say they've done a good job of it. Almost the entire original structure stands firm. The temple is noted for its tall gopuram over the main entrance. It also has a large open pillared hall leading to the sanctum, with raised floor surrounding it.
Taking a stroll here, one wonders... that perhaps behind the crisscross streaks of the bustling town outside, there is a sincere, quiet intent to protect the heritage seated at its heart. Can so many other towns all over India learn something from Kolar, in that regard?
Do we continue on our way to KGF? Or...wait a minute!
As I sat on the temple floor, having thoroughly inspected every corner of this magnificent temple, I reckoned me and my friend were looking at our options for our journey onwards. Sure, KGF was still on the list but having been gifted with one such pleasant surprise as this temple, we entrusted Google with one more.
And the beauty that its search engine algorithms are, they pulled out a near-perfect destination for us, lurking barely a few kilometers from where we were! It read, "Dodda Ayur" and "Chhota Ladakh". Intrigued as we were, we looked for pictures. A few seconds later, we wore this awestruck look on the account of some more disbelief. We both thought, "If this place does exist, and just 58 kms from Bangalore, as it says, we need to be there. And we need to be there NOW!"
At about half past 3, we reached Dodda Ayur. The location was, in fact, on our way back to Bangalore from Kolar town. A left turn that could easily be missed takes you on a little off-roading - a narrow muddy lane with cultivated fields on both sides opened into a rockier terrain that sloped upward. At the far end of it, we saw a few motorcycles parked in an open clearing. Our guide for the day, Google Maps, also indicated that we had reached. We made a short hike towards the spot where people were hovering around.
Astonishing would be too simple a word to describe what we then saw...
Dodda Ayur is an abandoned quarry that got filled up with water and this development assigned it a miraculous look. Its unique white sandstone terrain furnishes the walls and the belly of this bowl-shaped landscape. With a clear blue sky above, and white lime walls on all sides of it, the water at the centre glimmers like pearl. A natural assembling of these features perhaps earned it the pseudonym of Chhota Ladakh, on account of its resemblance with the cold desert and its tranquil lakes.
You would be lucky - like us - to make it at the sunset. First we trod on along the periphery of the bowl, above. And later gave in to our explorer selves and descended down below.
Prodding our way through the Martian world that found us entrapped in its beautiful chamber, we climbed small crests, inspected the thin vegetation down there, saw the shimmering - and likely to be poisonous, since it was a mining site once - water closely. Once it started to get dark, we deemed it sensible to avoid the risk of being face-to-face with snakes or other creatures. We decided to leave.
It was, in some strange little way, heartbreaking to leave. Here we were, in the middle of a near-unexplored makeshift paradise that we had literally just stumbled upon, watching the sun go down. Sure, we had other plans on the outset. We had set out on a voyage to find gold digs under shutdown; Through the day, we coursed our way through a small-yet-busy town, touched the echoing walls of history in the middle of an urban hamlet, and ended up at a virgin oasis nestled in a mini white canyon.
We mounted our bike and stayed there for a few more minutes to absorb the last few parting frames of Dodda Ayur in front of us. I reflected on the day went by, and I thought, that we sure did go in search of Gold, but we ended up finding diamonds.
Me and my friend looked at each other and smiled. We had made our day-off worthwhile - we knew it.
Ciao!
#daytripsfrombangalore #placesnearbangalore #biketrip #karnataka
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