Travelling to Warangal on a Photo-Tour

I have always imagined that Warangal was a place seeped in History, a sleepy small town where I will be able to see and click history at every turn. So I set up this Photo-Tour for my club members..and wanted to gather information; and to my surprise, there is hardly any document that was able to give me any information of the places we can visit and what to expect.  Which is true about most of the Indian destinations I visit, there is hardly any suggestions for good clicks or must click spots. Therefore I decided to blog.

Eventually,selected 3 places , the Ramapa Lake & Temple, 1000 pillar temple (almost synonymous to Warangal) and the Warangal fort; As this was a mixed ethnicity group and also the motive was to get great pictures we cut out the overtly religious places that form the general itinerary for most of the travellers.

Ramapa Lake & Temple, was the best part of the trip; The ancient temple is dedicated to lord Siva and except for the Shivaling inside the temple you could click everything around the place; In all there are 3 big and  2 small structures; 1 is completely dilapidated and entry is prohibited.The temple is in a very dilapidated state but the main sanctum is well preserved. The Nandi at the entrance is a must click, the carvings on the Nandi (the chains & the bell) are amazingly carved and should be clicked in good depth of field frame.  Its ~9ft high, carved in black and stands on a platform, so a good wide-angle would help, though I used my 55-250 to capture the carvings. There is no overhead shed and lighting is good.

The Sanctum has pillars and roofs which have abundant carvings. The pillars have designs of bangles etc and the walls and roof have some depictions of Gods; So there is a lot to click; There are also these pillars which have apsaras carved in black; One of the most exciting clicks was the line of elephants where each elephant’s trunk was in a different pose; a good opportunity to capture in depth of field.

The Lake is 1km ahead and looks very inviting for a boat ride; you can click the Pump house and an abandoned structure; You can also click the local fisherman on the lake; There is a temple kind of a structure near the lake, though its closed you can still click it from outside and be aware of all the monkeys there.

Our next Stop the Warangal fort, it was a disappointment, you climb up a rock (Ekshila) for a 360 degree view. There is a ruin of a temple whose sanctum is empty and there are 2 more structures, you can go up one of them for an even higher view. There is a portion of the fort which is like a park and has the piles of the ruins from the fort; There are the Kirtitorans the famous gateways and some good carved stones similar in carvings as the Ramappa temple.  A Few meters ahead is the Shatab Khan mahal; 1 single box like structure and very different in architecture.

Our final stop was the 1000 pillar temple; All my hopes came crashing down as there were hardly any signs of the 1000 pillars and the temple itself was very small; The nandi was also of the similar design as the one in Ramapa temple but the ASI has put a green asbestos sheet as covering which not only spoils the asthetics of the palce but also shades the nandi, and therefore not too much light is available.

After this was the long and arduous journey back...so if  you are planning for a single day trip, start early and there is much more on the way than just the monuments...so don't miss the green fields and bullock carts on your way. You can also take a small deviation after the Bhongir fort to check out the ancient Jain Temple.

If you find this article informative, pl leave me a note; You can also leave your experiences about the same...