Bidar Road Trip

06 July

10:15

Left for Bidar. Good roads until the last 30 km.

12:00

Reached a junction. Pretty bad road till about 10 km, all good after that.

13:00

Reached the Bidar Gurdwara. Very peaceful. There was a beautiful tapestry. Had lunch at langar, then took a slight dip in the kund and headed to the temple. In the langar we had bottleguard curry, a mixed dal, roti, and rice. Last time I went to langar was in Nanded.

14:15

Reached the Shri Kshetra Jharni Narasimha Temple. This one’s unique because it has a 300-meter water-filled cave to reach the deity. Inside the cave there were many excited devotees. Old people backing off after seeing the water, youth and kids trying not to hold the railings, scared they might drown. It was a ~200 m long cave. This was a different experience. The water, I believe, was stagnant for quite a while, so not sure how good it was, but I went in anyway, with my jeans and polo all soaked. Flowing out, I had to go on.

15:45

Reached Bidar Fort. The fort had a large cover, as could be seen by its boundary wall. On the way to the fort saw the Chowbara clock tower and some other fort-like artefacts. The weather was quite pleasant—cloudy, with some signs of rain far away from us. There was a tiny museum displaying artefacts found on the Bidar fort grounds, ranging from the 11th century: idols of Hindu goddesses to Persian calligraphy stones. Then we went to the main foreground of the fort. Dark clouds gathered, so we headed out. Saw a heartful herd of cows grazing on the fort premises—freckled and spotty, not the kind you see elsewhere in India.

It started drizzling and we started moving towards our car. It then started raining heavily, and the rest of the ride till the highway was in zero visibility. After that we stopped for some snacks of chai and samosa and drove back home. (Oh—and I missed our turn on the ORR, which added 20 km to the return journey. Funny thing was there was a car heading on the exact same turn, which I exclaimed at.)

#draft