A friend of mine had 1st mentioned of this place nestled deep in the jungles of Dandeli and had spoken highly of the place and the view from here. I had forgotten what the name was, but for some reason this place was in the back of my mind. Almost an year later me and my friend had decided on a trip to Om Beach , but we turned back as the weather was turning bad and about to rain. So we returned back to Dharwad from Khalghatagi. We had time to kill and not much to do I decided we visit Handibadangnath Mutt( Monastery) . We called up a friend who had been to the place and got the direction. The route we took was Dharwad to Alnavar to Kumbard. I am not sure how this place is spelled as , On google map it's "Kumbarwad" on the board at the mutt it's "Kumbard". Again on Handibadangnath I tried to research the place but not much was available online, what later popped up though was a misspelled name "Handibadagnath" .
The road from Dharwad to Goa is being re-laid and broadened and the 50Kms from Dharwad took 2 hours to reach Kumbard. But unfortunatley we had to return just a little distance from the mutt as we were running low on Fuel.
I do not like to leave things unfinished.. er most of the times.And specially this place it was like, to quote Pirsig "it's like discovering a tooth with a missing filling. You can never leave it alone. You have to probe it, work around it, push on it, think about it, not because it's enjoyable but because it's on your mind and it won't get off your mind". Two days later convinced my friends to make the trip after filling their heads with all the view and scenery and they finally put a leave on Monday and we headed out. Taking the same route as before. The road is quite bad and has been completed in patches.
There is not much to write about the trip nor the place, let me be a little lazy and let the pics do the talking or writing or whatever.
The road from Kumbard to the Mutt
The view from the top, the picture does not do any justice to the beauty
The entrance to the Mutt
The view from the top
We met a couple of Sadhus inside the Mutt who narrated to story of how the mutt came into being. In Indian culture when feeding religious heads or priests the cook or anyone else must not taste the food before it is served to the priest. Apprently Saint Gorashak nath when cooking tasted the food when the priest or Sadhu in this case came to know about this , he tied a cooking pot called a "Handi" in Kannada to Gorashak naths head and told him to build a Mutt where the pot falls and thus "Handi-Badangnath" came into being.
There are two ways to reach the Handi , one is through a small cave else there is a separate entrance.
This cave leads to another cave entrance which leads up.
There was something painted or rather drawn with charcoal on the entrance of the Mutt , The care taker there said it was drawn by a old guy from Belgaum who was high on Pot!!
Another Sandhu there had these really cool ear rings made of Clay and the opening covered with wax.
As prasad we were given rice and Sambar which we hogged down.
A few more Pics of the place.
This place is also quite famous for another reason, which was the reason my friend had mentioned this place about. More about it next time.
Also another route which can be taken in Dharwad-Haliyal/Alnavar-Kumbard or Belgaum-Ramnagar-Kumbard.
Edit: The place is also spelled as handi bhadangnath , adding it to show in the search.
Google Map to the Mutt
The road from Dharwad to Goa is being re-laid and broadened and the 50Kms from Dharwad took 2 hours to reach Kumbard. But unfortunatley we had to return just a little distance from the mutt as we were running low on Fuel.
I do not like to leave things unfinished.. er most of the times.And specially this place it was like, to quote Pirsig "it's like discovering a tooth with a missing filling. You can never leave it alone. You have to probe it, work around it, push on it, think about it, not because it's enjoyable but because it's on your mind and it won't get off your mind". Two days later convinced my friends to make the trip after filling their heads with all the view and scenery and they finally put a leave on Monday and we headed out. Taking the same route as before. The road is quite bad and has been completed in patches.
There is not much to write about the trip nor the place, let me be a little lazy and let the pics do the talking or writing or whatever.
The road from Kumbard to the Mutt
The view from the top, the picture does not do any justice to the beauty
The entrance to the Mutt
The view from the top
We met a couple of Sadhus inside the Mutt who narrated to story of how the mutt came into being. In Indian culture when feeding religious heads or priests the cook or anyone else must not taste the food before it is served to the priest. Apprently Saint Gorashak nath when cooking tasted the food when the priest or Sadhu in this case came to know about this , he tied a cooking pot called a "Handi" in Kannada to Gorashak naths head and told him to build a Mutt where the pot falls and thus "Handi-Badangnath" came into being.
There are two ways to reach the Handi , one is through a small cave else there is a separate entrance.
This cave leads to another cave entrance which leads up.
There was something painted or rather drawn with charcoal on the entrance of the Mutt , The care taker there said it was drawn by a old guy from Belgaum who was high on Pot!!
Another Sandhu there had these really cool ear rings made of Clay and the opening covered with wax.
As prasad we were given rice and Sambar which we hogged down.
A few more Pics of the place.
This place is also quite famous for another reason, which was the reason my friend had mentioned this place about. More about it next time.
Also another route which can be taken in Dharwad-Haliyal/Alnavar-Kumbard or Belgaum-Ramnagar-Kumbard.
Edit: The place is also spelled as handi bhadangnath , adding it to show in the search.
Google Map to the Mutt
