A Day Trip to Sravanabelagola, Halebid, and Belur

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On the way to Sravanabelagola

Sravanabelagola has the statue of Gomateshwara, another name for Mahavira, the founding saint of Jainism. We set off for about 3 hours and arrived there at around 11 a.m. What we did not know is that the statue of Gomateshwara is at the top of a veeeryyyyy steep mountain. It is 800 steps to the first temple and then another 60 or so steps to the actual statue.

The kicker is you have to take your shoes off and climb the 860 steps on the side off the mountain BAREFOOT!!! Ma and Mish said "no way." Ashish and I felt that since we had come 8800 miles for this vacation, we should make the most of it. So we paid 10 rupees for shoe check-in, got our stubs and off we went. The first 200 steps were OK. Then we were completely out of breath.

And so we trudged on and on:



until we got to the top and rested:


The Brothers Tonse summit the mountain!

And then take another rest

After dodging some red worms on the steps, we finally got to the statue of Gomateshwara.

This is the temple in which the statue is housed

I thought this was a great shot of priest high atop the mountain:
Then it was off to Halebid. That's Ma and me in front of the Nandi statue. In Hindu mythology, Nandi was Shiva's vehicle.

The columns you see in this picture were carved out of a single piece of rock. The craftsman held the chisel straight while an elephant tied to the rock rotated it, creating the designs.