Visiting an 850 years old Jain Temple

This weekend while I was back in my hometown in Mangalore for my college break after a tedious week of semester exams, my partner's friends had planned to come visit and sightsee Udupi. Now Udupi is his native and is about 60 km (37.28 miles) from where I live.

I left early Sunday morning to meet them in Udupi and we set out on a short roadtrip to Varanga, a little village in Karnataka. The reason for this was that his friends suggested we go see the "Kere Basadi" which translates to "Lake Temple" in Kannada.

The Kere Basadi, also known as the "Varanga Jain Temple" and "Chaturmukha Basadi" which translates to "four-faced temple" as there is a four-faced symmetrical structure on the temple, is about another 40 km (24.85 miles) ahead of Udupi. We started to drive off at around 12 pm and after an hour and a half of listening to lo-fi Bollywood mjusic (can't do without this xD), we reached around 1:15 pm.

Well, clearly we weren't prepared well enough because here's what happened there - we waited in the long line to get on the boat that would take us to the middle of the lake, where the temple is. And when it was our turn to get in, we were asked for tickets. But we weren't aware that we needed to get those first.

So, then we walked back to the ticket counter but again were refused tickets because the time was 1:30 pm and the boats don't operate between 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm!! (we were going crazyyyyyy here)

Anyway, we had no option but to spend the next two hours somewhere around the place, so we had a nice lunch close by.

Finally, at 3:30 pm, we reached the spot right on the tick of the clock and got our tickets, which was just INR 20 (0.24 USD) per person.

The boat ride was very short, only about a 100 meters and it is the only way to reach the temple. We saw lots of fishes in the lake while on the boat.

The temple is dedicated to Lord Parshwanatha, the 23rd Tirthankara (supreme preacher) of the Jains and was built in the 12th Century. The place was just beautiful and really peaceful. The silence here is meditative and the serenity of the surroundings and calm waters is just refreshing.

It was definitely worth the travel and wait to spend some really peaceful time at the temple here. Would recommend everyone to pay a visit to this monument.

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