A lighthouse at dusk, an island made of stone.

Padubidri Blue Flag Beach

Before sunrise the rampani crews walk into the surf with a net that takes a whole village to haul. Two long lines of men lean back into the sand, singing to keep time, and for an hour the beach belongs to them. When the net finally comes in, silver and alive, the whole shore gathers to see what the sea decided to give.

In 2020 this beach became one of India’s first Blue Flag beaches — clean water, safe bathing, cared for by the people who live beside it. We are proud of that the way a family is proud of its front garden. It is the first thing we would show you, and it is right outside.

Malpe

Malpe is where Udupi goes to the sea. Its harbour is one of the busiest fishing ports on the whole west coast, and at dawn it is a theatre: hundreds of painted trawlers nosing in, ice being smashed, baskets of mackerel and pomfret passed hand to hand, auctioneers shouting prices faster than you can follow.

Walk a little further and the town softens into a long golden beach and the sea walk — a breakwater that runs out into the Arabian Sea, where half of Udupi comes to watch the sun go down with a plate of churmuri in hand.

Sasihithlu

At Sasihithlu the Shambhavi river runs out to meet the Arabian Sea, and between them lies a long finger of sand with calm river water on one side and rolling surf on the other. Stand at the tip and you can feel both.

It is where India’s surfing coast quietly began: the Indian Open of Surfing has been held on these waves, and on a good swell you will see boards out beyond the break. On a quiet evening you will see nobody at all.

Sri Krishna Matha, Udupi

In the thirteenth century, it is said, the philosopher-saint Madhvacharya was meditating on the shore at Malpe when a ship was caught in a storm. He calmed the waves, and the grateful captain offered him anything from his cargo. He asked only for a lump of sacred clay used as ballast — and inside it was an image of the child Krishna, which he carried to Udupi and installed himself.

There is a second story here that everyone in Udupi will tell you. Kanakadasa, a poet from a low caste, was refused entry to the temple. He stood outside and sang to Krishna — and the wall cracked, and the image turned around to face him. You still see Krishna through that small window today, the Kanakana Kindi.

Every two years the care of the temple passes, in a great festival called Paryaya, from one of eight monasteries to the next — as it has for more than seven hundred years. And Udupi’s temple kitchens gave the world what we now call Udupi food.

Zeenath Baksh Juma Masjid, Mangaluru

Long before Mangaluru was a city, Arab traders were sailing here for pepper, and Islam arrived on this coast with them. By tradition, the Zeenath Baksh Juma Masjid by the old Bunder harbour was founded in the seventh century by those early traders — which would make it one of the very first mosques in India.

Its prayer hall is a forest of carved wood: pillars and ceilings worked by hand in the style of this coast, not the domes and minarets you might expect. It is a reminder that this shore has always been a meeting place, and that it has welcomed people from across the sea for a very long time.

Sri Durgaparameshwari, Kateel

The temple at Kateel stands on a small islet in the middle of the Nandini river, and the water parts around it on both sides. The legend is that the goddess Durga came here to destroy the demon Arunasura, taking the form of a swarm of bees — and afterward remained, as the river’s own protector.

Kateel is also the heart of Yakshagana, the coast’s great all-night dance-drama. Its troupes are among the most famous, and through the dry season they travel from village to village, performing the old epics from nightfall until dawn in costumes of gold and mirror-work.

Gommateshwara, Karkala

Bahubali was a prince who fought his own brother for a kingdom and won — and then, in the moment of victory, saw the emptiness of it and walked away. He stood in meditation so long, the story goes, that vines grew up around his legs and anthills rose at his feet.

At Karkala he stands in stone, thirteen metres tall, cut from a single granite boulder and raised on this rock hill in 1432. Look closely and you will see the vines climbing his legs. Once every twelve years, in the Mahamastakabhisheka, he is bathed from above in milk, saffron and flowers.

Pilikula Heritage Village

For centuries the great families of Tulunadu lived in guthu houses — wide manor homes around open courtyards, with sloping tiled roofs, carved wooden pillars and a shrine to the family’s guardian spirits. Whole clans lived under one roof, and the land around them was farmed, fished and celebrated together.

At Pilikula a guthu house has been carefully kept, with a working village around it — potters at the wheel, weavers at the loom, a lake, a botanical garden and a biological park beside. It is the best single afternoon for understanding where you are, and the story of the people whose coast this is.