Saturday, January 3, 2009

Trip to a few Coastal Places in Karnataka

We decided to go for a trip as all had hols for Christmas. At first we decided to goto Kanyakumari and Pondicherry, but as we dint get bus tickets n also hotel bookings, decided to change the plan. Then we decided to goto Dandeli which is known for adventure sporting activities like river rafting and so on. It was also full and we couldnt go there too. Finally we decided to goto a few places in North Karnataka.
Me, Rahul, CS, Gn, Bose and Harsha were all set to go, but Rahul decided to goto Pondi with his family which left the 5 of us. We booked a Sumo and left B'lore around 7 pm on 24th Dec. Our first pitstop was at Kamat restaurant after Nelamangala around 10 pm. Ate dinner there and left. Our driver then stopped near Shimoga for a smoke and also met one of his friends whose vehicle was punctured. He stopped again at Jog as he wanted to take a nap for a while (6-7).

Day1 (25th Dec): All of us had a good hr's sleep and left Jog around 7.30 and reached Honnavara at 10. Luckily we got a room to freshen up and had breakfast at Kamat. The 1st destination which we wanted to see as per plan was Yana which was 40kms from Honavara. Bose has read somone's blog and told us tht this was an awesome place for trekking, Harsha then said this was not a trek but a hiking place. Fully hyped up n ready for a great trek we packed some 5 packets of biscuits, big cans of water lol. Road to this place was horrible (full of dust!!). Around 12 we reached Yana and started the so called trek. We enquired in a shop and found out that there were 270 steps which led to a shiva temple hahaha, This place had rocks with full of honey combs all over it. After some 20 mins the trek got over lol, actually we crossed the temple which was below us, reached the other end. We came back to the temple and had a look around it. Me and Cs stayed in the temple eatin prasada, bose n others went in the cave round the temple and came back.
Around 2 we started goin back discussing about where to go next. After a few arguments finally decided to goto Karwar and stay there for the night.
We had decided to skip lunch thinkin the trek would be long n it would become eve by the time we come down lol!! We left yana around 2.30 after having some cool drinks towards Karwar. As the driver hadnt had lunch we had to stop. He took us to yet another Kamat restauarnt near Gokarna i guess. We reached Karwar around 5 and direct went to Tagore beach. I dint get down in water as there was only an hr's time. Took gn's cam and took pictures and video's. Others enjoyed in the water til 6. We had booked a lodge which we found out was 30kms from Karwar and decided to find a lodge near by. After an hr's search finally found a 6 bed room at some Om lodge. The best thing was that the bathroom of the huge room was so small that it was impossible for Bose to go inside hahahaha lol. Had dinner at a small restaurant and dozed off around 11.

Day2 (Dec 26th): As per plan we decided to goto Devbagh beach which was also near by at 6 am. We left for the beach around 7 and reached there around 7.30. We were fooled by the fishermen there who asked to us walk 3kms where we would get a boat which would take us to an island. This was the most shittiest beach i had ever seen, we walked and walked and finally reached a resort which said the boats were only for those people who stayed there and he asked us to goto some other place where there were boats to reach the island. Tired we decided to walk back and eat breakfast and goto Gokarna. We left Karwar at 11 and reached Gokarna at 12.30 if i am right. The driver took us to one of the best beaches called the Om beach.
This beach had 2 parts which were seperated by rocks. Harsha and me went to the other side after a while and found it much better ;), the most funniest part was Bose q to us when we were going the other side ("a kade en waves jaasthi barthidhya? lol hahaha").The water here was so clean and as there were hardly any waves we decided to spend the entire noon here. Harsha gave me and Bose swimmin lessons (forgot about Bose's new dialogues for this trip, "Maana maryadhe ilva and entha PJ lol")and we also played Frisbie. We left this place at 4 and had lunch, ice creams and left to the famous temple here. After touchin the 'Atma Linga' and finishin the temple darshan we decided to reach Murudeshwara by the night as the boys wanted to visit yet another temple early the next morning! We reached Murudeshwara around 9.30 and to our bad luck couldnt find even a single room there. We decided the best alternative was to move to Udupi during the night and stay there and chuck Murudeshwara. We asked Sam to book a room for us somewhere in Udupi, but found out all rooms were booked there :(, after a while Same called again and said he had booked rooms at a place called Brahmavara which was a relief for us as we saw people sleepin on footpath in Murudeshwara! Had dinner at 11 in Murudeshwara and left towards Udupi.

Day3 (Dec 27th): We reached Brahmavara at 2 in the morning and reached the lodge where sam had booked, but the hotel fellow who was in a sleepy mood told us that no reservations were made and asked us to leave!! After Bose convinced him he gave us 2 rooms. We woke up at 8 and decided to visit the Krishna temple and st. mary's island. We reached the temple at 11, stood in the long queue and finished the darshan and decided to eat lunch at the temple itself (about the lunch in the temple "No Comments"). We came to Malpe in the noon and had to walk about 2 kms (thanks to the driver) to catch a ferry to St. Mary's island. We reached the island around 4 and seeing the rush there decided not to get into the water. Spent some time on the rocks there and came back to Malpe at 6. We then went to Sam's home around 7.30, spent sometime there. He took us to a restaurant called Diana which was the best in Udupi i guess and treated us simply :P. We left Udupi around 9 towards Mangalore, our last destination.

Day4 (Dec 28th): We reached Mangalore around 11 the previous night and stayed at BSNL guest house. We woke up early in the morning and left for Penambur beach (Suratkal). The water here was clean and the waves had more force in them, we spent around 2 hrs here and left at 10 back to the room. On the way we ate breakfast and also picked up Sam who was to come with us back to Bangalore. We played few games of Carrom at the guest house, had bath and left for lunch at an ice cream parlor called Pabhas. Cs atlast found his Carrot halwa with ice-cream (thanks to me!!) here and all had yummy ice creams and we left back to bangalore at 2. On the way back we again visited another temple (luckily the other temple was closed phew, apart from this Harsha and others wanted to goto Dharmasthala temple which luckily dint work out!!). We were all sleepin in the noon, but were awoken by a huge H2S explosion (thanks to Bose lol ;)). We had dinner at Belur and reached Blore in the midnight around 1.

We enjoyed a lot in this trip, espicially the Om beach in Gokarna and also the Penambur beach in Suratkal. If we hadnt wasted half a day in the useless trek in Yana could have seen waterfalls in and around Sirsi! Shet missed out as he was at his hometown i think. Raja had gone to Munnar with his family also missed out :P

No comments: