The best experience that we had during our recent trip to Mangalore was a visit to Hasta Shilpa Heritage Village near the town of Manipal. Surprisingly neither the hotel where we stayed nor the usual travel websites like Tripadvisor or Thrillophilia include it in their recommended spots for sight-seeing. In my view, it should be right at the top as I have not seen anything like this ever. I chanced upon a reference to this place through a Youtube vlog called the "Travel Vlog IV" by a person named Ivana, where she mentioned this place as one that's not to miss.

This village has been built over 6 acres of land and it includes 23 reconstructed houses and other structures that belong to a time period between 1216-1912. Not only these are masterpieces from architectural perspective, but the detailing of each wall, floor, ceiling and furniture can only be viewed as a humongous artistic endeavour. As soon as you enter a house, you would hear a classical song or an instrument being played in the background matching with the locale from where the structure originally came. All these elements together would transport you back in history to those days when people used to live in that house. It's literally mesmerizing.

The man behind this superhuman mission was Vijayanath Shenoy, a banker from Udupi, whose passion was to devote his time, energy and money in the restoration and popularization of architectural and cultural heritage. He built the first house for his own residential purpose in 1984 by reusing the relics of demolished houses. That received a lot of attention from within India and abroad. When he saw a steady stream of visitors, he decided to embark upon the mega project. Later, in one of the interviews he mentioned that - “I love houses in which six or seven generations once lived and breathed, designed not by architects but by people themselves—in line with their needs, social requirements, and the climate.”

It took nearly 20 years to complete the work (1997-2016). Although initially the funding support was limited, eventually that support came from the Finnish, the Norwegian Government and the Indian Government.