Halebid and Belur Ratings & Reviews

Fine art and Architecture lovers a must! Architecture, dance forms and art of living are depicted by sculptors. Must watch Pooja rituals of Lord Channakeshava on a saturday evening (~7pm)

Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Hotel Velapuri (Veg and Non-veg), Vishnu priya for Veg only. Belur temples, Halebid temple and Jain basdhi's, Capture adventure water sports jaunt.

Activities & things to do: Tourist with fine arts interest will need more time than others, adventure water sports

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: Around 220 Kms from Bangalore (Bangalore-Mangalore road) and 150 Kms from Mysore (Mysore-Hassan). with good roads. book hotels in advance. Temples are open from dawn to dusk only. Roads between Belur and Halebid is motorable with lot of rough patches. I would prefer a handy cam along with SLR/digital camera.

Please avoid going to water sports near yagachi dam. we went to the water sports near yagachi dam with family and we found the place very nice. We were very much thrilled to see the water sports in beautiful lake. We took tickets for kaying and others. When we are finished and came we found the worst moment of life, the staff over there are horrible, they teased girls in our family with filthy language and when we started questioning them, suddenly the manager got rude and made some phone calls by threatening us. Then came a group of 30 rowdies armed sticks and others. Those people started beating us, abused girls and it was nightmarish day, we all begged for our life and ran towards bangalore immediately.

Just avoid this place............
these people can do anything over there, nobody can help u there.

Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Horrible placeeee.

Activities & things to do: Do not visit this worst place on earth

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: Avoid this horrible place.......................

The famous Kannada saying which goes like this, 'Belur ola noodu, Halebedu Hora nodu'. meaning - see the beauty of Belur from Inside and that of HalebeDu from outside'.

Hassana district is around 4.5hrs from IT capital Bengaluru.
We were there in July'11 during the Monsoon arrival. One needs to have patience to walk in the premises with spectacular architectural touch. Belur and Halebedu are located around 17kms apart. You need at least 4 hours for a detailed observation of Belur and 5-6hours in HaLebeDu. .

It is an ideal tourist spot for people interested to know more on flourished Kingdoms of South. Raja Vishnuvardhana [got converted from Jainism to Hinduism] made Dwarasamudra [currently HaLebeDu] as the capital of Hoysala empire.

An amazing fact to share is that the carvings done are Three Dimensional.
By inspecting these carvings, you'll get to know the skills that the Architects had in 11-12th centuries! Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata and other mythological stories are sequentially pictorially depicted on the stones.

One can book in advance at Mayura Veelapuri KSTDC hotel at Belur.
Guides: Prasad at Belur and Aslam Shareef at HaLebeDu.

Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Food - Normal!
Sight-seeing - A lot;
Shopping - not really sure.

Activities & things to do: Hoysala Style Architecture, see 3 Dimensional stone carvings;
Jaina basadis; 'Shilabalakis' carved on single slabs!!

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: Located in Hassan district [near western Ghats-
From Bengaluru - around 4.5 hrs road;
From Mangalore - around 3hrs road;

Stayed at Mayura Veelapuri KSTDC at Belur.

We took a KSTDC tour from Bangalore to Halebid, Belur and sravanabelgola on a saturday. The tour started at 7:15 in the morning. At around 10:45 we reached our first stop Sravanabelgola. Its a long hike up the hill and tiring to the bone. We took about 25 mins to get up the 680 odd steps, but once you reach the top the view is breathtaking. Also the 58ft monolithic statue of Lord Gomateshwara or Mahavir is beautiful. Coming back down takes a toll on your knees but its completely worth it.
After 2 hours we reached Belur. The Chennakesava temple is extremely beautiful. the carvings on the temple are extremely intricate. The temple was built by the Hoysala dynasty kings as a memoir of their win over Chola kings. The temple inside is dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Guides are avaialbe here for 15 Rs/person.
Next destination was Halebid. It has similar architecture as Belur but some parts of the temple were never completed. This temple is supported by the archaeological society of India. This temple has two beautiful huge Nandi's.
At every destination. the tour guys give you one hour to see it and come back.
All in all it was a wonderful and enriching experience.

Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Food at the places the tour guy stops is not that great other than the one he stopped at in the evening at Chanarayapatna. At all the other places we just survived on chips, biscuits etc.

Activities & things to do: Main thing to see are the temples. no other major activity to do here though. The temple it self takes up most of your time.

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: Make sure you take a camera. The guides that you get at Halebid and Belur are ok. Some part of what they tell you is made up but the other part is actual history.
If you want to book the KSTDC tour make sure you book on a weekend as the volvo buses are only available on Sat and Sun. On all the other days Non AC buses ply to these places.

The twins towns Halebidu and Belur are quite, non-commercial and secluded unlike other popular tourist places.
The temples, are undoubtedly the best feature of Halebidu & Belur. One can spend a day or two just looking at these monuments and studying the various sculptures. Taking a guide helps understand the story behind many cravings.
Not to be missed - In Belur temple, Apsaras or dasis in different poses, lord Shiva dancing inside an elephant, a disappointed lady, the feeling portrayed by a monkey sucking her hand when he cannot reach a bunch of grapes.

In Halebidu tempe, the most decorated Nandi in India, different hairdos, the hierarchy where a warrior women dasi has another dasi, removing a thorn from her feet on a hunting expedition.

Apart from these, the temples have several stories from our epics.

Food, sight-seeing and shopping: There are many decent hotels in Hassan or you could choose to stay in Halebidu or Belur itself. Either way, expect decent rooms with basic essentials.
Food and stay at KSTDC Mayura Shantala was good ; with average vegetarian thalis and the Indianised Chinese.
Though shopping was not on my mind at all, I picked quite a few pieces of toys made out of stone, sold outside the temples. Little bargaining and you could get a good deal.

Activities & things to do: Enjoy the country side as you drive in and out of the place. The roads are good and enjoyable. Explore and take in the ancient architecture.

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: If coming from Bangalore, one can take the following route: Bangalore-
Shravanabelagola-Halebidu-Belur-Mysore-Bangalore.