A visit to the recently famous Kere(Lake) Jain basadi in Varanga near Karkala. This unique age old Jain temple is located in the middle of a lake with beautiful backdrop view of a hill and lush greenery all around.
Date – 1st September, 2019
Location – Varanga Kere Basadi
Varanga Kere Basadi was on my to do list for quite a while now. We decided to visit this temple when our plans for visiting a nearby waterfall got cancelled. Earlier in the day we had trekked to Joyisaragundi waterfalls near Mala village. You can read about it here. This place has got recent fame because of few movies being shot here. The Kere Basadi is in the middle of a lake. So the only way to reach it is through the boat arrange by the Varanga Jain Mutt. The boat service will start in the evening around 4pm.
We reached Varanga at around 3:30pm. We enquired around and found that the boat will start at 4pm only. So we decided to walk around and explore the nearby places before 4pm. There is another temple called Neminath Basadi nearby which we visited first. The inner part to this temple was not yet open. This temple had some writings in old Kannada and we spent some time walking around the temple. Also we could see the basadi in the middle of the pond from here. It was almost 4 by now. So we decided to go and collect the tickets for the boat. The ticket per head was Rs. 10.
By now there were a lot of local tourists already at the spot and waiting for the boat. Its a small boat and the trip in it was scary because it was crowded and it kept tilting from one side to the other. The pond was full of fishes. When we reached the Kere Basadi, it started raining heavily. It is the middle of monsoon season now. The hill behind the temple was not visible because of the heavy rain. We walked around the temple and enjoyed the view from here. Next we went inside the temple and spent some time there. After that it was time for the boat to go back and we safely reached back. Then we drove back to Udupi from there.
Overall it was a wonderful trip with the trek to Joyisaragundi falls and visit to the ancient Varanga Kere Basadi on the same day.
Photos and videos – Varanga Jain Basadi
Ref – A very informative video I found on youtube on this place –