0 Kampli Fort

July 28, 2012

We leave Gangawati after breakfast. On my list of forts was Kampli, I remember locating ruins of the fort on the banks of Tungabhadra. I was glad to see flowing waters of Tungabhadra. We cross over from Koppal district to Bellary district. Looking at Kampli Kote from the bridge; where are the ruins?

No sign of an fort wall. Perhaps, the ruins are hidden in the greenery.

Kampli Kote is a busy place. Fishing and fish trade sustains the economy here. At the village entrance business was in progress; basket full of fresh fish was being auctioned. Close by were half a dozen shops dealing with fishing nets and related accessories. This is actually a port which also serves as a washing ghat.

Regular boats cannot be navigated through the maze of islands in the river. Hence, coracle building is  an important business here. We could see coracles in various stages of production.

Of course these are hybrid coracles. I call them hybrid because lot of plastic wire is used to bind the bamboo strips. Even plastic sheets are used for water-proofing the structure.

I had given up seeing fort ruins. However one of the folks told us go to the other end of the village, there's a dwara-bagilu. We decide to walk since the street was quite narrow and busy with people and two-wheeler traffic. A hero stone under a banyan tree.

Looking back towards the port area. I was at a junction. We turned left and then a immediate right.

One of the houses' outer walls had a row palm prints. I asked a passerby why those hands were painted There's a wedding in that house. A strange custom.

Looks of the houses gave an indication of people's prosperity in this little village. Down the street we could see the fort's gateway and some remaining rampart walls..

Under the  arch was Kannada text in red; Kampli Gandugali Kumara Ramana Kote.

Architecture seems to be Vijayanagara era's.

The outside of the gateway. To my left was Hole Anjaneya Swamy temple which seemed ancient but we did not venture in.

Back at the port area, one of the folks suggested us to check out the Vijayanagara era Pampapathi temple on the other side of the state highway. That's the temple's gateway.

It's a small temple dedicated to Shivalinga. The poojary explained the specialty of the Linga. Normally the 'arm' is on the right but here it is on the left.

Namah Shivaya

The temple is away from the road and surrounded by banana plantation. It had a peaceful ambiance.

A collection of Naga sculptures opposite the temple gateway.

Tekkalakota is about 42km from here but I dropped the trip. Instead we head back towards Gangawati from where we went to Anegundi and then to Shivapura. Between Shivapur and Hosaharalapur there's a granite hill with ruins of a fort on it.

Kampli fort coordinates: 15°25'28"N   76°35'23"E

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Detail: Kampli Fort

0 Bellary Fort

Some time 1999 or 2000

Prasanna of Epoch Instruments, Praveen and I were on a business trip to Bellary. We were here to gather technical information for a ladle weighing system at Bellary Steels and Alloys Limited. We reached the plant by 8 30 am, checked the ladle (which contains molten steel), had a round of discussion with General Manager, Purchase Officer and the production department head. We got the required information and our work was done by noon. We headed to the city, to the Railway Station, booked our tickets to Bangalore. From the station we saw the hill and the fort and decided to explore it.

We walked from the station towards the hill, at the base, we could see ruins of the base fort occupied by people. The entire path to the fort is paved with stone steps and the climb was easy. Now we entered the main fort... in through the main gateway. Most of the ruins are vandalized by treasure hunters, we could see stones displaced and pits dug all over the place. Otherwise the fort is mostly deserted.

The constructions- royal quarters, soldiers quarters, the fort wall, turrets -give an indication of the intelligence of the engineers of those times. We noticed a unique construction... discussed it for quite some time trying to figure out the purpose of it. Our guess was that it's a kind of system to train soldiers. That's the moment I regretted for not carrying the camera. Anyway... we went exploring. Ponds, small to large ones, have been created abundantly to harvest rain water. The fort was designed to be self sufficient for months during a war. As we counted the ponds, Praveen observed a water snake in one of the smaller ponds. Then we saw snakes in almost every pond, in fact one of the larger ones had five of them. Prasanna and Praveen chucked stones in the water to scare them and they enjoyed it!

It was lunch time... our stomachs growling... we decided o head back. Still inside the main fort, we were climbing down the steps... I noticed something interesting and decided to check it out while Praveen and Prasanna continued. Few minutes later I joined them back way down the steps... both had scared looks on their faces... they had seen a huge Cobra just feet away in their path with it's hood open. It was Naga_Panchami that day! Both regretted throwing stones into the pond. We were kind of jumpy for the rest of the way till we got out of the fort.

I was glad to have visited another fort but sad for not bringing the camera. One day, I want to visit the fort again and take lots of pictures and add them to my collection.

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Detail: Bellary Fort

0 Ramagundam to Byadgi

With the experiment not successful, Praveen and me decided to leave Ramagundam. We took an early morning bus to Hyderabad, 300+ kilometers journey... reached Hyderabd afternoon. We alighted and almost immediately boareded the Kurnool bus, 250+ kms to go... reached Kurnool by 5pm. Went to Mourya Inn where we had parked our Omni.

We had to attend a service call at APMC, Byadgi... our route would be Bellary, Sandur, Harihar and Byadgi. We planned to go upto Bellary and break our journey. It was dusk when we started our second part of the journey. As we reached Bellary, I said we'll go upto Hospet, just 40kms more. It was 9-30 or 10pm when we touched Sandur.


We thought we'll have dinner and then look for a hotel. During dinner, I asked Praveen "How about going till Ranebennur?"

We resumed out journey... lonely roads through one of the major mining belts of Karnataka. The roads were not so good, may be that helped me keep awake. Praveen and I had good understanding when it came to driving. He's was a good navigator and I could trust his judgement, he rarely made mistakes. We stopped for tea at a small town, I think Harpanahalli. We reached Harihar by 2-30am. Now, we had to cover a short stretch on NH4, just 22km. Ranebennur at 3AM.

850km in 21 hours!

Exhausted, still I had a bath and hit the sack. Woke up at 10 next morning and went on to Byadgi...

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Detail: Ramagundam to Byadgi