The Temple in the Sea

The Waterloo temple was built by Sewdass Sadhu, an indentured labourer's son, who in the 1930s built a small temple on a sugar estate owned by Tate and Lyle; when he refused to remove it he was jailed for 14 days and fined, and the temple was pulled down. Undeterred, he began carrying stone and fill into the sea by bicycle and by hand to build a new temple where, as he saw it, no colonial power owned the ground; he began in 1947 and finished the causeway and temple in 1952, and after his death in 1970 the temple decayed until it was rebuilt and reopened in 1995. The octagonal temple now stands at the end of a causeway out into the Gulf of Paria, reached on foot across the water, and it has become a place of pilgrimage and a symbol of the Indo-Trinidadian community's endurance. Nearby rises an 85-foot statue of the deity Hanuman, one of the tallest outside India, painted in bright colours above the coastal plain.

What's there

• The temple causeway - the walk out to the octagonal temple in the sea.
• The Hanuman Murti - the towering statue nearby, among the tallest of its kind outside India.
• The Gulf of Paria setting - the flat coast and the mudflats at low tide.
• Sewdass Sadhu's story - the five years of solo labour, 1947 to 1952, that built it.

When to go

January to May, the dry season, for the easiest visit. Sunset over the Gulf of Paria is the loveliest time at the temple. Hindu festivals bring pilgrims and a different atmosphere.

What to expect

It is a modest structure, and the appeal is the story and the setting rather than grand architecture; visitors who do not know the history often underwhelm. The Gulf of Paria coast here is muddy rather than a picturesque beach, and the water is not for swimming. As an active place of worship, remove shoes and dress and behave respectfully.

Nearby

The Caroni Swamp and its scarlet ibis roost are close; Chaguanas is the nearest town.

Key facts