Dussehra holiday
time is perfect for planning long drive trips. Hence, off we went towards the
west of India which had both beautiful beaches and temples. We managed to cover
a few places over three days. I am posting separate blogs for each of the
places visited.
We started early in
the morning (around 4.30 am) on a Friday and yet got stuck in traffic at
Yeswanthpur for an hour. We cursed ourselves for not selecting another route
out of the city, but to be honest we dint expect a traffic jam at the
under-construction bridge at 5 am in the morning. After few manouvers in the
small roads, we managed to wriggle out of the traffic and hit the NH 48 towards
Hassan. Route is pretty straight forward.
Bangalore - Hassan - Sakleshpur - Mangalore
We stopped two times – once for breakfast and once near Sakleshpur to admire the nature. Drive was beautiful and roads are good. We reached our Hotel in Mangalore at 1.30 pm hungry for lunch. The Hotel was in the main market area. Being vegetarians we had to search a little bit for veg restaurants. Over the next two days we identified a few and visited those regularly.
Our first visit was
to Someshwar beach and temple which is famous locally for its view of sunset.
Mangalore to Someshwar via Edapally-Panvel highway took 20 mins since there
hardly was any traffic (13 kms from Mangalore). We reached there at 4pm. The
temple was closed and we had an hour’s time to spend in beach.
The beach was clean and neat with very few people. The huge rocks in the beach (known as Rudra Shile) there gave a good view of the horizon. We heard that not many tourists know about this beach and hence the crowd is less. Not many shops around. So better carry food/ water. There are red crabs in the beach at some points, hence it is better to be careful before venturing into inhabited places of the beach.
The Someshwar temple
is on top of a hillock on the beach. There are steps at the back of the temple
which give access to the beach. The temple is considered as one of the 12
sacred shiva kshetras of India. It is known as Rudrapada kshetra. It is
believed that the temple existed from the time of Ramayana and it is also
believed that Pandavas worshipped here.
There is a Parasuram temple at the corner which gives a beautiful view of the sea.
We spent our time till sunset there and headed back to Mangalore. The sunset view is just indescribable in mere words. Must see for yourself.
