Travelogue Goa: Day 1 - Tamdbi Surla

Finally, we were in Goa and were ready to venture out and visit some good places in Goa. As I mentioned in Getting prepped up, I had created a theme for each day and had come up with the places to visit for each day based on the theme. So the theme for Day 1 was

• Visit one new location - which was Mahadev temple at Tambdi Surla
• Visit Old Goa Churches and Museums.

Alas, what I did was only a travel schedule and executing it was more difficult than I had thought. Everybody started complaining that the schedule was hectic and they wanted to rest. So to suit everybody, the schedule was modified to include only one new location - Mahadev temple at Tambdi surla and rest was to be postponed to the next day and adjusted there of.

About Tambdi Surla

Tambdi Surla is a little known place that consists of a twelfth century temple of lord shiva. This temple is the oldest temple in Goa and is little disturbed by the various conquests and destruction of portuguese and muslim invasions. The temple is nestled between mountains and has a clear stream of water flowing alongside. The site, even thought not visited as other places in Goa, has been well maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India. The temple was built by the Goa-Kadamba dynasty rulers and is constructed in the Jain architectural style. for more information on this temple visit this link.

Getting there

Tambdi Surla is approximately 65 kilometers from the capital city Panaji and about 32 kilometers from Ponda. The easiest landmark for Tambdi Surla is Bhagwan Mahaveer sanctuary and Mollem National Park. You can get there by following NH4A which ultimately connects Goa to Belgaum, Karnataka.

The ride to Tambdi Surla is as scenic as the temple itself. You will have to pass through deep goan lands full of fields and forests and you can witness the traditional houses and lifestyle of the Goans. Being the monsoon season, the entire way was covered with a green blanket with the rains adding the grandeur.

It took us about one hour to reach Tambdi Surla due to the winding and narrow roads. But once you get there it is a totally different experience. Even though this place seems far away and having only one temple to visit, it is worth it and a trip has to be made by travelers atleast once in their life time. Below are some of the photos at Tambdi surla

The Cobbled way to the temple

The Mahaveer Temple

Stones with writings on it

Wet stone corrupted with beer bottles

The pristine stream

The Way back from the temple

The temple contains a shiva lingam and is worshiped on a daily basis. We spent about half an hour at the temple and headed back from Tambdi Surla to Ponda for rest.

On the way back, we had lunch in one of the Goan house cum restaurant type hotels which was run by a old man, his wife and his daughter. The food was traditional goan fish curry rice with a fish fry, cocum soup, cabbage baji and was splendid. The refill of the fish curry and fish fry was unlimited for a cost of just Rs. 45. If you want to taste the traditional food of Goa at very very reasonable prices then it is good to visit these home run restaurants rather than going to the costly ones which don't even come close to the taste that the home run restaurants provide.

After lunch, we headed back to our accommodation and hardly did anything for the rest of the day except have a good sleep and another splendid dinner in the night at a traditional goan restaurant.

Enjoy!

the Photograchar