Friday, December 12, 2008

Murudeshwar - The more I see ...

Murudeshwar is a small town in Uttara Kannada district that is situated around 465 kms away from Bangalore the state capital of Karnataka, India. This place is closely bounded with the Arabian Sea and hills of Western Ghats which makes it an attractive tourist spot.

My travel experience to this place is totally different in many ways, starting from the travel plan till returning back to my pad, everything. I may have surprised myself when I planned it less than in an hour and the mode of communication was the State run local buses, I switched 5 buses to reach at that place. Frankly, the people out there wouldn’t have appreciated so much for a person holding a camera, writing pad and asking them so many questions not in the language that they can easily understand, but they did and everything according to me was part of the memorable trip :)

"Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."

One of the main attractions of Murudeshwar is the Lord Shiva idol which is visible from a long distance from the Arabian Sea. The length of the idol is 123 feet into the sky and considered as the tallest Shiva idol in the world.

You can visit Murudeshwar any time in the year and it is well connected by Roads, and trains (Konkan Railways). There are many places of tourist interests near murudeshwar, some of them are Jog Falls (90 Kms), Udupi (100 Kms), Gokarna (65 Kms) and Karwar (120 Kms).

29 comments:

~vagabond~ said...

Those are some amazing photos. Murudeshwar seems like quite the place to visit...every bit worth the five bus switch.

alok said...

vagabond, thank :)

Yeah! indeed worth five or more buses switch. And that also gave me a better idea about the local people there and not just places, includes many things that I wanted to count & take it with me from the trip.

Anonymous said...

Hey Alok,
At least one place I can relate to when I was in Bangalore :)

It is an amazing place especially this statue.Lot's of great memories connected with this trip.

Nice photos, thanks for sharing them.

-Himanshu Sheth

alok said...

Himanshu, my pleasure. hey! buddy, I can very well understand your attachment with this place.

keep rocking :)

Unknown said...

Awesome photos, very very magical!!!!.. These pics reminded me of the Kempfort Mandir at Bangalore... It was close to the place where I was put up in bangalore and it was an amazing feeling to go and sit in front of the tall Lord Shiva idol with the water around it.... It gave me so much peace.... I wish I get a chance to visit this place as well sometime!!!!
Just lovely!!!

alok said...

Diva, thank you so much for the lovely comment :)
I wish you would visit soon this place too like the one inside Kempfort.

Fida said...

I would have gladly joined you on that 5-bus-trip to arrive at such a place. I love the photos; especially the first is really powerful!

Anonymous said...

Now I know there are people like me !! My recent trip to Amritsar was no less. :)

And yes, worth taking every bus switch & hitch.
The idol is very impressive. And the sky is so blue. Will note it down in my list. Have you been to neighbouring places as well ?

An off topic. _ Whenever I come to your blog, I just fall in love with this song "Aaj tu yaad aayi" but not able to download it. If you have it, could you pls send me ?

Cuckoo said...

And are some of my comments missing from here ? Because I read each & every post of yours. And as I said I liked that song very much on my each visit.

alok said...

Fida, thank you for the comment, yeah! the first picture is my favorite too and for sure it holds an invisible power :)

alok said...

Cuckoo, I am glad to meet like mind people here :) Yes! I did visit the neighboring places also.

Your comments are missing from the blog? I don’t think and I trust “Blogger / Google” :), you have noticed anything suspicious, pls. let me know or just drop a mail ?

P.S : you can’t download that song from that website. Yes! I do have the song, there you go …

~ ॐ ~ said...

Very nice pictures, really like the blue in the background !

Very interesting post as well...

how about collaborating and making a travel blog together? to start with it can contain the posts that you write here copied and pasted there...

write to me @ prashantbhardwaj[at]gmail[dot]com and lets discuss !

Lakshmi said...

lovely pics..brought back nostalgic memories..I must however say that I was a little disappointed with Murudeshwar..maybe it was the time of the year and it was extremely commercialised and crowded

Winnie the poohi said...

Hey! beautiful place!

Temme more about how to go from bangalore.. I assume you are in bangalore too.. I would love to go!

Erm.. temme the train route.. for bus seems tedious.. 5 buses? :O :O

I dont mind ST buses but still 5 ???

alok said...

Prashant, thank you so much for the comment and the invitation. Your ideas sounds good to me, I have sent you a mail regarding the same.

alok said...

Lakshmi, thank you for the comment. I agree to your point about commercialization and the crowd at specific time of the year, I guess it’s a general trend. And I didn’t follow the general trend for this trip and that’s what - "I was pointing to 5 buses and local people".

Initially, I was treated as if a foreigner but then things turn to my side as soon as I changed my mind not to hire taxi or take help from private travel agents; you see it wasn’t a planned trip for me and the locals did help me in that ... However, at the same time I do understand the constraints if you move with a family or a big group. If the trip is not planned before hand then it will be a challenge in the peak seasons (oct-feb).

alok said...

Poohi, do read my reply to Lakshmi. I think the easiest way is to go from Bangalore is to catch a train to Mangalore (from Bangalore it's an overnight journey) and then a direct bus from Mangalore to Murudeshwar. However, you have plenty of other options I guess there are direct buses from Bangalore too, but I am not sure about the frequency or the timings, else you can catch a direct bus to Karwar and get down at Murudeshwar. And if you are lazy to plan everything by yourself then I guess in that case KSTDC will come handy, they do conduct regular trips from Bangalore and also arrange accommodation/food with a budget that suits everyone.

Unknown said...

Awesome pics. I must go to Murudeshwar.

//
all-mixed.blogspot.com

AJEYA RAO said...

The best way to reach Murudueshwara is by Konkan railways, from Mangalore. Its a very beautiful journey as the train winds between the paddy fields of south canara. Your post has tempted me to travel there again during my next visit home. (Mangalore)

alok said...

Jadu Kumar, welcome to my blog and thanks for the comment.

alok said...

Ajeya, yes! truly journey by Konkan Railways is worth a trip, and glad you liked the pics :)

indicaspecies said...

Your post brought back memories of my trip to Murudeshwar. I heard just last week a small group of people I know had a good scuba diving experience while there.

Your photographs are superb!

Anonymous said...

Hi Alok,
I came across your site on Vagabond's blog.
Great pictures. I cant believe you changed 5 buses to get there. That requires a lot of patience.

Anonymous said...

I typed "mangalore to murdeshwar buses" in Google. The first search result was a link to animized.blogspot.com. I clicked on it and started reading it without even realizing that this blog is by a coworker. Topping the Google search results !! Good for you, Alok.

alok said...

Celine, thank you so much for the comment, I am glad to know that you like the pictures.

alok said...

Vamsee, thanks for dropping by here and the comment.

If you can believe then surely there is nothing called as impossible.

alok said...

Anonymous, thanks for the comment and it was a pleasant surprise for me :)

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hai Baji said...
This comment has been removed by the author.