Last December, I visited some of the pilgrimage centres in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Chickmagalur districts with my family members. We left Mangalore on Dec 29th morning to reach Udupi. After a long time, I was visiting Udupi. So, the new gopuram built in front of the shrine, caught my attention. After visiting Udupi we headed towards one of the famous temples of Coastal Karnataka, Anegudde.
Udupi Sri Krishna Temple
From Udupi, to reach Aanegudde, you need to go via Kundapur through National Highway 17. This place also called Kumbhashi is abode of Lord Vinayaka. Idol of Lord Vinayaka covered in silver armour. Kumbhashi is one of the seven places for salvation in Coastal Karnataka. As the legend goes, once there prevailed a severe draught in this place. Then sage Agastya, came here to perform Yajnas to please rain god, Varuna. But the demon Kumbhasura used to disrupt the yajnas. At this time, Lord Vinayaka blesses Bheema, strongest of the Pandavas with a sword, by which he kills Kumbhasura. In Kannada, 'asi' means sword. So, the place where Kumbhasura was killed with the sword was known as Kumbhashi.
Anegudde Sri Vinayaka Temple
Apart from the shrine, people from Dakshina Kannada/Udupi are also well aware of monkeys living in Anegudde and the tricks they play. People have tagged the monkeys as 'Anegudde Ponkr Manga'(mischievous monkey from Aneguude). But to my surprise there no sign of any monkey in the place, when we visited.
Kollur Sri Mookambika Temple
After Anegudde our next destination was Kollur. Kollur is the abode of goddess Sri Mookambika. Kollur is a place of interest to both the devout and trek enthusiasts. River Sowparnika flowing in front of the temple with Kodachadri hill in the background, is sure to delight the nature lovers. To get the darshanam of Sri Mookambika, there are two queues maintained. One is the regular queue without any seva charges. Another one is the North Gate Dharshanam. You have to pay Rs.15 per head for this.For complete details about Kollur, you can visit this link. Here is the list of sevas you can perform in Kollur. After visiting Kollur, we were getting ready for a journey through the Western Ghats.
Kodachadri Hills
Our next plan was to reach Sringeri via Agumbe. Agumbe in the western ghats is famous for its sunset point. It records high rainfalls in the region. But it was too misty to view any light from the sun. It was 8 in the night when we reached Sringeri. 
Sunset point at Agumbe
Sringeri Mutt provides pilgrims with rooms for stay at a nominal rate. Since we could easily find the Mutt's office as soon as we entered Sringeri, there was no difficulty in getting rooms for accomodation. Month of December is also a time when school children go on a educational tour. Sringeri too was visited by school children then. More on Sringeri and Chickmagalur in the next post.
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