Introducing Heggunda - A Rock Climber's Eden

One of the fascinating features of my home town Bengaluru, India is the numerous rocky and wooded hills sited within an hours drive. Living in flat-as-pancake Dallas area I miss these hills and climbing the rocky massifs. There is history which dates back to 1000s of years, natural beauty of the hillocks and there are wild animals. Overall this makes it an interesting place to visit. Heggunda offers an array of rejuvenating activity options: trekking, rock climbing, cave exploration, bird watching etc. For those with a special interest in history and antiquities, there are herostones, ancient temples and inscriptions to admire and analyse.

The most interesting feature of Heggunda is the massive rocky hill — Ramadevara Betta — crowned by a Rama temple. The hill towers behind the village and its main face has been peculiarly sculpted and shaped by the elements. But beware of the several large beehives on the rockface disturbing even one of them might cause an army of soldier bees to chase you.

Memorial stones.
The village has about seven attractively carved memorial stones in various states of neglect. Two installed near the Anjaneya temple are being used as post to tie up cattle and one more is lying in the middle of a field nearby. The remaining four – including two depicting heroes wielding guns – are installed in the middle of the village amidst houses and they are being used as platforms to dry washed clothes.