Unique with Quite the Interesting History!

The Temple in the Sea is quite a unique Hindu temple that can be found on the mid west coastline of Trinidad! It is also called the Waterloo Temple referring to the town in which it is near to. The temple was built by a man named Sewdass Sadhu in 1947. Due to the colonial powers at the time, namely the British, he faced opposition in finding a suitable location to build the place of worship. In an act of defiance, he opted to construct the building by literally filling in the ocean and reclaiming land bucket by bucket! This obviously took ages but he eventually got it done entirely by hand and to this day it still stands in the ocean connnected to the mainland via a narrow causeway.

The above photo shows the town of Waterloo and Carapichaima near where the temple was built. The long main road is surrounded by nucleated and dispersed settlements due to these being old indian villages that were eventually developed to more modern living accommodations over the years and so is not a planned settlement in any way.

These villages or towns are separated by large fields used for agriculture that were once used by the nation's sugar industry as you can see above which are called the Caroni plains. Believe it or now, most of what you see and more were all just cane fields to fuel one of the largest sugar industries of region!

This is what the coastline looks like facing southwards from the compound of the temple. You can see on the bottom right that there areas for cremation pyres which is also another Hindu ritual that is facilitated here. You will notice that they are squares.

This is what the north facing view of the coastline looks like from the compound of the temple. You can see the beautiful northern range in the background as well as the swamp lands that fringe the coastline for miles!

This is what the actual car park looks like. It was quite empty that day which I was very grateful for! You can see the statue of Sewdass Sadhu in the bottom right while the temple itself is in the top right and the cremation site on the top left so you have some sense of direction!

This is only entrance to the causeway and temple from on land with a tiled pathway and a nice gate with a sign that says "The Temple In The Sea". It is quite grand up on person. It was closed but that is of no problem for the drone! The higher angle view gives you a great idea of how far out into the ocean this guy had to fill up to build this thing!

There are two buildings on the left as you walk along the causeway with blue highlights and white main colors. both sides of the causeway seems to be lines with small mangrove trees and other types that seemed to not have been cleared away by maintenance but they look so beautiful either way!

Finally we get to the end of the causeway with the temple itself! It seems to have a lot of haphazardly scattered building materials all around but also was very clean, neat and you can see that it was well taken care of!

Its design was satisfyingly symmetrical and the colors complemented each other well. The temple seemed pop out at you with vibrance amidst the brown and dusty surrounding areas! I tried to go in quite close here to show you the entrance of the temple much better and in more detail.

To the right of the temple within the compound itself was a park of sorts at the water front that is an awesome place to sit, relax and take in the views as well as the sunsets from this side of the coastline which are always amazing!

You can see that there are many paved pathways and so on to walk around and take in the nice scenery and the sea to land beaches. There were a large amount of flags in the ocean planted from more Hindu rituals and so on!

A statue was construction in his honor with a plaque that serves as his memorial and his placement as one of the great nation builders of the country and true patriotic pioneers. Sewdass Sadhu and his struggle has greatly benefitted his community and the nation at large.

The Temple in the Sea is definitely one of Trinidad's great historical locations that speak about its people and the the Indian diaspora that persevered against the oppressive colonial rule in the land they inhabited. It still stands today as a testimony of the people's resolve!