Udupi

Day 13:

We reached Udupi in early morning and we went directly to our hotel Kediyoor near to the bus stand. There was some confusion with out hotel booking through Goibibo. Though the booking wa confirmed when we booked the room, the hotel was not aware of it. And Goibibo changed the booking to another hotel without informing us. They said they tried to reach us by phone. So we sat there in the hotel lobby, tired after the trip, wondering what to do next. The hotel offered a triple room for the same price and I informed Goibibo to cancel my booking free of cost, which they agreed. A small hiccup I guess, though I was pretty much irritated at that time.

Udupi in the coastal town of Karnataka is famous for the Krishna temple and also famous in south India for the chain of vegetarian Udupi restaurants. The Sree Kirshna temple and the temple mutt or monastery  is around 1500 years old was established by Madhvacharya in the 13th Century. There is a beautiful temple pond on the sides of the temple. The statue of the temple faces west, away from the devotees. The story behind it is that when one of the lower caste devotee was denied entry to the temple, he started worshiping from a smll window outside it. Lord Krishna was so pleased by his devotion that he turned around to face the window. The window is now known as Kanakadasa's window and there is huge Gopura (or tower) built over this window.

Sree Krishna temple

After breakfast, we went to the temple. It was not crowded and we could move freely inside the temple without problems. Foreigners were allowed inside, which was nice as Gela could also come inside and look around in one of the oldest temples in south India, and also built typical south Indian temple architecture. She was also interested in visiting dance schools or watching some traditional dance performance. But as it was not the festival season, the local dance school was closed. We just walked around, visiting the local handicraft shops.

We cancelled our plan to visit the Murudeshwar temple as the train connections to go there and back was bad. The buses will take more time than the trains. And after a long overnight trip I was not in a mood for any more bus journey.