A few months back, I had been to Chamundi Hills with a friend. It was fun since we did not have any idea about the place as such and how exactly we were going to go there. All I knew was that there is a temple of Chamundeshwari, a huge statue of Nandi and a statue of Mahishasura in Chamundi Hills. It is another fact that it so turned out that those are the only things that are there. 😉

Having heard that there were frequent buses from Mysore city bus stand to Chamundi hills, we reached the bus stand at around 7.15 am or so on a Sunday morning, just in time to see an almost-full KSRTC bus about to start. (I think the bus we took was bus no. 201) After a slow journey spanning more than half an hour on the road having non-scenic scenery without much greenery on both sides, we reached the stop near the temple. The bus stop was near the statue of Mahishasura.

We followed the crowd and reached the temple which already had a long queue of devotees waiting outside.

Gopuram of Sri Chamundeshwari temple:

Only after buying a 20 Rs special ticket did we realize that the long queue was for those with the special ticket.

Another view of the same Gopuram of Sri Chamundeshwari temple:

A good half an hour wait later we got a very good darshan of Chamundeshwari. I was silently humming Harikesanallur Muthaiah Bhagavatar’s composition, sArAsamukhi (rAgA: gauDamalhAr) all the while. 🙂 Chamundeshwari temple is a small one with Ganesha & Hanuman being the only other deities in the temple apart from Chamundeshwari. Prasadams were sold in the temple and we bought some laddus.

After coming out of the temple, we asked a local where the Nandi statue was and he showed us a path which we had to take. Within a few minutes of walking, the path changed to steps and it was only then that we realized that we were walking down the hill.

It seemed to take an eternity to reach the Nandi statue and we had to check with some people if we were on the right way. 😛 It was only after we reached there did we come to know that we had walked down 300 steps and another 700 steps down will lead us to the foot of the hill! We also came to know that the only way to get a bus is to go back to the stop where we got down, which meant climbing those 300 steps.

After pausing long enough to admire the very beautiful, huge, monolithic statue of Nandi, and also visit the small Shiva temple called cave temple that was right next to the Nandi statue, we decided to take the steps down.

Nandi Statue:

Cave Shiva Temple:

With my friend doing a count-up of the steps, we started the downhill walk.

I don’t think I have ever seen a contrasting crowd of this kind climbing a hill housing a temple. There were many ladies who were applying sandal/turmeric (don’t remember what it was) and kumkum on each step. And then there were groups of youngsters happily chatting away loudly including some T-Shirt-jeans-wearing girls who, with their earphones on, were loudly singing ‘Yeh Dilli Hai Mere Yaar’! There were men who seemed to have substituted this climbing for their morning walk what with T-Shirts, shorts and sports shoes being their attire.

Downhill journey ended here:

Downhill walk was a quick and easy one and we managed to get an auto immediately to take us to the city. On the whole, that was a memorable morning. 🙂

Click here for the entire set of photos.