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Religion / Temples/ Murudeshwar-Mookambika

Last year Feb, we had driven to Mookambika temple / Kollur along with our cousins. This was our second trip. We had been to Mookambika with my parents just a couple of months before that. Then we had traveled by bus and stayed in Udupi. It was a really tiring  journey as the road condition was bad after the monsoon.

Mookambika temple

This time, we had booked our stay with hotel RNS residency at Murudeshwar.

Our route was Bengaluru-Tumkur-Arisikere-Shimoga-Sagar-Murudeshwar-kollur (map here).

Ram and his cousin Mahesh decided to drive alternately. We started early morning around 5:00, Ram being the first to take the driving seat as Mahesh was half asleep. Our first stop was at Tumkur for breakfast around 7:00.

After having our breakfast we resumed our jaunt.  Mahesh’s wife Paru wanted to see Jog falls and yes, I too wanted to, who would want to miss seeing India’s highest plunge waterfall. So we took a deviation from Sagar and went to see  Jog falls and also had our lunch from there. The view was spectacular though being off-season

We crossed the ghat section and reached the western coast . From a distance itself we could see the World’s tallest Siva statue welcoming us!!We checked in the hotel around 3:30 in the afternoon and after a shower, took a nap.

Our first temple visit was Idagunji Ganesha temple near Murudeshwar. Its was suggested by one of my colleagues. Its a really nice temple. So incase u plan a trip to Murudeshwar, I would definitely suggest visit Idagunji Ganesha temple

Idagunji Ganesha

Then we made it to the Murudeshwar temple just before it was closing for the day.

On our way back to hotel we had dinner.  After dinner we went to the beach, it was just amazing. A walk along the beach with ur loved one on a moonlit night!!  hehe what more to ask??..well I wanted ice cream too hehehe. So once back in our rooms all of us ordered for double scoop ice-creams of our choices.. We had got twin sharing rooms at RNS,  so we all sat in the balcony enjoying our ice-cream and the sea.

We slept late night, but were up early in the morning, as we had one temple visit pending. We managed to take a good number of snaps in the morning 🙂

We checked out around 8:00 and drove to Kollur, an hour drive from Murudeshwar.

At the temple entrance there was this beautiful elephant. When food is offered, it would bless the devotee with its trunk. It was so adorable and well it did attract a large crowd.

A view of the temple from inside the main wall.

After visiting Mookambika temple we went over to River Souparnika. Since it was just a weekend trip we didnt have much time to visit Kodachadri. It is believed that, in the epic Ramayana when Hanuman carried Sanjivini Paravat to revive the fainted army along with Lakshman, a peak from the Sanjivini fell here. The holy river Souparnika takes its origin here and flows through dense forests, rich in minerals and medicinal herbs of different kinds, and so possesses the curative power.  Like any holy river in India, the river flowing infront of the temple was so much polluted!!  But we were able to reach the upstream where it was much cleaner.

We started our journey back around 12:00. Theres a route from Kollur directly to Sagar and you can check it in the map. We reached home around 8 or 9 in the eve 🙂

Hopefully the next time we can make it to Kodachadri also!!

More Links:

Elephants in Kerala culture