Trip to Hariharapura

I had been to Harihara pura for a weekend trip on Saturday & Sunday. Infact, it was not a trip, but my parents had organized "Chandi homa" at the Hariharapura temple ("matha"). Harihara pura is a place close to Sringeri. It is about 20 kms before Sringeri.

We had booked a tempo traveller for 15 people. We started on Saturday early morning at 5:30 AM. Leaving early has lots of advantages. We reached Chikamaglur within 6 hours, which also included a 30-45 minutes stop for breakfast. But from Chikamagalur, the ghat section starts & hence we had to drive slowly. We reached my uncle's place at around 2 PM, just in time for lunch. My uncle's house is very close to Koppa town (abt 2 kms). We had our lunch & a nap for about an hour. Then at around 4:30 PM, we started for Sringeri. Harihara pura is on the way to Sringeri, abt 20 kms before Sringeri. My relatives wanted to visit Sringeri. So, we first went to Sringeri, spent some time along the banks of the river, some more time in the temples. Then we started towards Hariharapura at 7:30 PM. We reached there at about 8PM. There were 2 huge rooms which could accomodate about 15 people. We all kept our luggage in the rooms & then went to the "matha" (mutt/temple) where dinner was serverd. Dinner was quite good. Then, we went back to the rooms & slept there for the night. The rooms were quite cosy.

Hariharapura is also on the banks of river Tunga (like Sringeri). So, we all went to the river early morning to take bath. The river was really very good. The water was not too deep. At places, it was just about 1.5 to 2 feet deep, which was ideal for small children. Some places it was about 3-4 feel deep. But we did not see water deeper than 4 feet. Maybe because it was summer. Although the water was not much deep, the current was really strong. Everybody enjoyed the water for more than 2 hours. Apart from that, there was nothing much eventful on Sunday morning. It was just the boring "homa". Many of our relatives came from a lot of different places. Lunch, although a bit late, was really very good & tasty. Accomodation & food was provided by "matha" (mutt/temple) authorities themselves. Not many people know about this place. So there are usually very few people. The accomodation is very good, the river is excellent to enjoy & if you are religious, you'll like the "matha".

We started back to Bangalore at 5:30 PM in the evening from Hariharapura. We got the dinner packed by the temple authorities. An uncle of mine, who resides in Hassan had come in his Maruti van. We started together. We went to Hassan at around 10 PM. We had dinner (the same thing that we had got packed) at his place. Then we started back to Bangalore at around 10:45. By the time I reached home, it was 3 AM in the morning.

It was a really good trip. A memorable one since many of our relatives went together.