After a memorable bike ride to BR Hills, we
were planning for some other road trip with family. This time we planned for a long drive during
the long weekend, but the time we started planning for the trip was bit late (in
fact it was too late). Some how managed to do the necessary arrangements.
Initial plan was to cover Murudeshwara, Gokarna
and surrounding places. But considering the distance and time we skipped
Gokarna and just stick to Agumbe and Murudeshwara.
After lot of enquiry and struggling booked the
home stay “Kaadinamane Home Stay” near Agumbe (Agumbe Road - Nadpalu village,
around 12 Kms from Agumbe).
Since this was our first over night journey
with family we have not included too many places in our plan, for Day one it
was just limited to explore few places around Agumbe as mentioned in the Kaadinamane
Home Stay web portal.
Keeping long weekend crowd in mind we started
Friday late night from Bengaluru, our destination was around 370 Kms from
Bengaluru and we knew that it will easily take almost 8 to 9 hours including
our multiple breaks.
Agumbe is very much known for best Sunset View
point, but it equally beautiful to see this floating clouds during the early
morning. We were lucky enough to witness
the same :)
After spending some time in Ghat section
reached home stay around 8.00AM. Once we completed the check in formalities,
finished our breakfast and took some rest for couple of hours. By the time
everyone are ready, enquired about the side seeings spots with the localities,
they are the one from whom we can get to know about some unexplored
places.
They suggested couple of places which includes
Koodlu falls, Onake Abbe falls and Kundadri hill. But due to heavy rain in past
couple of days he only informed not to go near water falls and he suggested one
more worth visiting place called Varanga Basdi which is around 18 Kms from Home
stay.
About Varanga: Varanga is a small village
located at a distance of 26 Km from Karkala in Udupi district. This village is
found on the way from Karkala to Agumbe.
Varanga is a popular pilgrim center especially
for Jains. This beautiful village houses most ancient and wonderful Basadis
(Jain Temples). The main attractions of
Varanga are Kere Basadi, Neminatha Basadi & Chandranatha Basadi.
The uniqueness of Kere Basadi is that it is
situated in the middle of a gentle green lake in Varanga. It seems like a lotus
in a pond. This basadi is also called as Jalamandir. Tranquil lake contrasts
well with the sharp quadrilateral architecture of the basadi and gentle swaying
hills at the distance.
Road condition is very good and reached the
place without any difficultly within 30 mins. But by the time we reached
Varanga temple was closed for lunch break! Temple will be closed from 1.00 PM
to 3.00 PM. So decided to go back and finish the lunch and come back.
After finishing lunch came back near Basdi by
3.30PM by the time we were back already there was a Que for the boat ride, one
should take a boat ride to reach the temple located in middle of the lake and
The only way to reach this Basadi in Varanga is in a small wooden boat.
Trust me the boat ride won’t be more than 10
mins but it will be an awesome experience.
Finished a round of photo session and by the
time reached back it started drizzling. Had a very pleasant time out there, not
much crowded and a peaceful place. Rain started getting heavier so we were
force to vacate the place & headed back to home stay.
Awesome place and not much known place around
this area for now, but soon it will be very famous because of couple of hit
movies in recent past were captured here :)
