Though I have travelled through Andhra several times in train, I haven’t been to any place in Andhra. So, naturally I was eager to visit Lepakshi when my friend suggested this place. Lepakshi is a small village located near Karnataka – Andhra border, and is well known for its Veerabhadra temple which is believed to be constructed in 1538 A.D.
The Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway.
On the 18th of March 2014, we started from Bangalore around 10:30 am in my friend’s bike. We went through the Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway which didn’t have many pot holes and was good enough for out plan. By the time we have reached Yelanka, we started to feel the heat. It was a very sunny day and we had to make our first stop after Nandi hills to get some cool drinks and freshen up a bit.
Our second stop was unexpected as the tyre was punctured. Thankfully, the tyre was punctured near a small village (Doddapyalagurki) which had a puncture shop. The mechanic was very helpful. Though he didn’t have a new tyre, he replaced our punctured tyre with an old one he had. It was amazing to see his very old method of fixing things. Once the bike was back on road, we stopped nearby to have our lunch and hit the road as soon as possible.
We finally reached Lepakshi around 5 pm and was informed that the temple would be closing by 6.30pm. So we started exploring the temple without further delay. The sculptures in the temples were very old and the detailed art work was amazing. We checked out the ‘Hanging pillar’, ‘The Naga’ and the unfinished dancing hall. The mural paintings on the roof of the temple were almost faded. The few parts of the paintings that were still visible showed the excellent works of those period.
Once we came out of the temple, we were lucky enough to see the sunset. The small village made a very beautiful and peaceful horizon for the sunset. We took some more pictures of the sunset and started our return journey. Both of us were little exhausted after the long day and were listening to music in our ear phones on the way back to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore around 11.30 pm. I went straight to bed even without dinner as I was very tired at because of sitting in the bike for long hours. Though it was an exhausting day, the trip was great and worth all the pains.
