This trip is a very special one for me as it was a family trip with my mom, dad, sis, bro in law n my daughter....badly missed my hubby though.
I was visiting my parents during my vacation to India and my sis and bil had come to stay with us at my parents place. It was a kind of a family get together.
That time , we planned this trip to our favourite childhood destination that is Ankola and Murdeshwar. Ankola is moms side deity and when we were kids, we used to visit there often. And then after that we would always visit Murdeshwar to enjoy the sea and the sands. This time, we planned to visit Gokarn in addition to these two places.
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| At Shiva Statue, Murdeshwar |
We booked a Qualis and left from Goa in the morning. Our first destination was Shantadurga temple at Fatarpa. We usually visited this temple at the time of "Jatra". But this year I would not be there for "Jatra". So we visited now. After our darshan, we headed further.
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| Shantadurga temple, Fatrapa |
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| Shantadurga temple, Fatarpa |
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| Shantadurga temple, Fatarpa |
Our next destination was Ankola. But we missed a turn to enter Ankola and realized it much later and hence had to directly go to Murdeshwar.
Murdeshwar has changed a lot in the past years. It has become more structured and organised. Since it was a working day, there was not much rush. We were all very hungry, so first we decided to have our lunch. We had our lunch at our usual sea side restaurant. We always visited this restaurant when we were kids and it always filled us with excitement and happiness. The same vigor I could see in my daughters eyes now.
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| View from the sea side restaurant |
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| Enjoying lunch |
After our lunch, we went to see the Shiva temple and the famous Shiva statue. Climbing the steps in the hot sun was little difficult, but manageable. The view and the breeze on the top was also amazing.
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| At Shiva temple |
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| At Shiva temple |
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| At Shiva temple |
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| View of the big rath |
Next we decided to go to Gokarn. This was the first time I was visiting Gokarn. When we reached "Mahabaleshwar Temple", it had not opened then and would open in another half an hour. So we decided to walk towards the beach to pass the time. We had some "Garam Chai" at a sea side hotel and then went further to the Gokarn beach.
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| At Gokarn Beach |
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| At Gokarn Beach |
The beach was not very clean but fine enough to enter the waters. We dipped our legs in the waters for some time. Soon it was time to go back to the temple. This time the temple had open and and there was a big queue waiting outside the temple. Standing in the queue, we got chance to observe the temple structure more closely. The temple is built of granite stone and looks very authentic, probably thousand of years old.
After the auspicious Gokarn visit, we headed towards Ankola. The "Lakshmi Narayan Mahamaya" temple at Ankola had not changed in the past years. It was just the same. When we were kids, we used to come and stay in the "Agarshala" surrounding the temple. The Pujari used to provide delicious food at really subsidized rate. The food served used to be really awesome and as kids we used to crave for that food. Those were the best days of our life. This time we took a quick darshan and then left for home immediately.
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| Lakshmi Narayan Mahamaya Temple |
This wonderful visit to the temples was an awesome experience and we enjoyed every bit of it. Missing those days now as I am writing this blog...
