Mangalore, Udupi & Murudeshwar - Beaches, Temples and Birds

There are a number of fantastic train journeys in India and the trip from Bangalore to Udupi is definitely one of them. The railways runs vistadomes on a select few routes where you can sit through the transparent coach and watch the vistas go by. I had planned the train journey purely for the views and a lot of people along with me were happy to hang by the door to skip the AC and breathe in the jungle air. My kid on the other hand went up to the luggage section and preferred to use the supports as a gym. 

 

 

The entire stretch has a number of beaches and we decided to go from north to south, so starting off at Murudeshwar, we spent time at the beaches and the temple with a massive Shiva statue was also a great place to visit. There are a couple of beaches from where you can even get a fantastic view of the island and the temple and is a must see. There is a walk around the mangroves as well and while I tried to get some birding done there, it was busy and we settled for just looking at the mangroves. There are options to go further to Jog falls, dive in Nethrani or even manage a few water activities, but that is for a different trip. 

 

 

Coming down south, we stayed in a villa near the Sangam of a couple of rivers very close to Udupi. The entire location is quite scenic with boatrides, bridge views and some great viewpoints. There are a few other popular beaches along the way and a sunset at the beach on India's west coast is a great way to close the day. We then moved further to Mangalore, where there are quite a few ancient and architecturally significant temples. The must-visit amongst these are Mangaladevi Temple (after which the city is named), the historic Kadri Manjunath Temple, the modern Kudroli Gokarnanath Temple, and the Sharavu Mahaganapathi Temple. We went to the first couple of them, the remaining will be seen in a different trip.