All good now, Flights for Eswar n Varshini booked to and fro
Bangalore. Shortlisting places, resorts etc began the very day.. But
still I felt bad that I am not able to visit Karnataka coast.
Friday came, we left to Tirupathi, left Shree with my in
laws and start back to Bangalore. Its only 2 of us this time to Bangalore.
We stopped at Maiya’s Kolar to grab some burgers where our
friends Omkar, Daamu and Prasad are waiting for us. I shared with them our plan.Omkar, a motor bike traveler suggested us to be very cautious on the
Shiradi Ghat. Previously our friend Seenu who is also a back packer had
told us his horrifying experience with the same ghat. Now we were in dilemma if we have to go by car
or by air to Mangalore and then hire a zoom car. But then Ram fixed “We are
going!! And its going to be a road trip from Bangalore”
Kasu, Duddu, Paisa, Money Money!! This going cashless after demonetization,
has created a fear to go to ATM. We hadn’t stood for cash at ATMs for more than a month.
We can’t expect cashless transactions on highways. My new colleagues readily helped me withdraw some cash each day along with me. Hoping
we will transact with card where ever we were half ready.
Later we reached Kudroli temple, a beautiful large temple -
yellow lights adding more beauty to the place.
 |
| Kudroli Temple |
 |
| Temple premises |
We spent some time here and reached hotel
and called it a night.
Day Two – (23rd
December 2016) Ullal - Udupi - Malpe - St.Mary’s Island - Murudeshwar:
Next morning, we woke up around 5:30, started to Ullal, a
small village/town at the border of Kerela and Karnataka. On the way to beach, the
scenic beauty was awesome; we stopped at the Ullal bridge built on Netravati
river for some pics.
 |
| Netravathi River from Ullal bridge |
From Ullal, a narrow road with beautiful big houses and coconut trees on both sides, led
us to Someshwar beach. Having spent quality time at Ullal beach and Someshwar
beach.
 |
| On the roads of Ullal |
|
|
|
 |
| Sea side morning walk |
 |
| A very good morning!! |
 |
| Someshwar Beach view |
 |
| Mr.Cool |
I asked Ram if we can drive to Batapady beach. The beach, along with the
back waters by its side, really peaceful and unexplored. The place gives
you a kind of solace. I didn’t feel like leaving the place. I am sure,
you will love the calmness of entire Ullal town.
 |
| Ullal's beauty once again!! |
 |
| Batapady back waters |
 |
| Cherry - our car |
Standing between Kerela and Karnataka!! In fact I got a message from my
service provider “Welcome to Kerela” 😎
We rode back to our hotel room, had the breakfast (not
so tasty one), freshened up and checked out. Unsure about our stay, if we will
stay back in Udipi or will head to Murudeshwar, we started our journey. On the way
to Udipi, we diverted to Suratkal beach.
We could see no one
at the shore except some birds. Ram said “Surely there are some fish”. We got down the car, and starting walking towards the shore, the birds
flew away as we neared. There were different kinds of shells at the shore, and
these cute little star fish. We hadn’t seen star fishes ever like this. They
were like at least 100 of them, some small, some large, some alive, some dead,
some complete, some with broken arms. The live ones were trying to penetrate
into the sand to escape themselves from being eaten by the birds and trying to
escape along with the waves coming by. “Shall we take one home??” I asked. “They
will not be alive till we reach Bangalore!” came the reply.
 |
| Birds and their food |
 |
| Trying to send some fish into water!! |
 |
| Star star!! |
 |
| Stars on shore |
Played for some
time at the beach.( No , we both are not fans of getting completely into the water,
we know the after effects of going into sea water!! We had been in Chennai for
more than 4 years you see!!! ). Just we went into the water till our knees.
We
could see the lighthouse like about 1 km distance; we headed to the lighthouse
hoping they allow us up to have view of the beach. The security there said its
open only from 4 PM till 6 PM, having nothing to do, we hit the highway and headed
to Udupi.
 |
| NITK - Light house |
The road was packed with coconut trees on both sides and back waters
here and there on which bridges were built. The journey was eye pleasing. On
reaching Udupi, we parked our car at a small lane, left foot wear inside the
car and started walking. The heat on the streets was so horrible that we found
it very difficult to walk on. We somehow managed to walk to the car street and
entered the queue for darshan.
The queue was small and completed our darshan in about 20
mins. While coming out, Ram wanted to donate something for the temple. Only
after donating a priest said “go inside and take left and show this slip, you
will get prasada”. Ok.. Now we got inside, another bramhin accompanied us to a
large hall with hardly 50 people inside , and served us sumptuous prasadam, or
else we would not stand in so long queue for the annadana prasadam.
 |
| On the way to Udupi |
 |
| Some back waters |
It’s
time for some fun
again.. We were at Malpe beach, just some
6-7 KMs away from Udupi, despite of the
heat,
the beach was too crowded. Ram was
eagerly looking forward for a ride to St.Mary’s Island. As we reached the shore, the guy who issues tickets told
us, there must be at least 10 members for the ferry to start to island. Slowly
within 15-20 mins, there were about 12 members and the ferry guy issued tickets(200
per person). The next 5 miniutes, we all were in the ferry and started to the
island. Well, I was very scared with the waves, and the guy provided no life jackets and tensed till we reached St.
Mary’s Island.
St. Mary’s island is a small island with coconut trees (also
known as Coconut Island for this reason), 2 -3 shops and 2-3 huts or some shade
kind of thing. The island is known for its rock formations, and the island was
fully filled with lot of broken shells which gives beauty to the place. You can
also find many fishes and other aquatic creatures near the huge rocks as the
water is very clear. The boat guy told us to come back in 1 hour after exploring
the place. As we walked, the other side of the island was fully crowded
especially with college and school kids. Now we kept wondering before 6 o clock
how are all these people going back to Malpe, guessed there would be lot of crowd
while returning back
in the ferrys,
which would be dangerous. We explored the island for about 30 mins, took some
pictures and headed back to the place where the ferry dropped us. There were
already about 5-6 people, and as we also joined we insisted the guy to start
the ferry. Soon along with about 15 other people we started to Malpe.
 |
| Our ferry to St. Mary's.. India Boat |
 |
| Reaching the island |
 |
| Fishes, Shells, Waters |
 |
| Rocks at St.Mary's |
 |
| Rocks again |
 |
| Only Shells |
It was around 4:30 PM by now, nothing much was left to do here. So we decided to head to Murudeshwar. My requirement was to
reach Marvanthare beach before its dark. We started back to Murudeshwar, now we
were back on Kanya Kumari – Panvel National Highway. We reached Marvantare
beach just before sunset, the specialty being the road is along the Arabian Sea
on one side and Souparnika river flowing on the other side.
 |
| Some scenic beauty captured at Kapu village |
 |
| Sun set at Padu village |
 |
| Marvantharebeach |
 |
| Marvanthare - Sea on one side, river on other side of road. |
 |
| Another one from Marvanthare |
Till Udupi the highway was good, but from here, the road became narrow besides the road widening
happening almost everywhere. So,
the
narrow road, the huge trucks, the road repairs, the early sun set, it was very
difficult for R to drive till Murudeshwar. On our way, I
tried booking hotels through MMT etc but
couldn’t find any. I had also tried calling some hotels for vacancy and found
no luck. Not sure what to do, as we approached the place, we moved towards
temple to check vacancies. As we were passed by the bypass,
a guy stopped us and said all the hotels are
full near the temple, you can check this hotel and decide. It was a newly built
hotel(can’t recall the name), and was very neat. It also had car parking, our
requirement was met.
 |
| Night view - from our room |
After a tiring day, we checked into the hotel, had dinner
and dozed off while watching Jabardast.
Day Three : (24th
December 2016) Murudeshwar, Gokarna, Karwar, Davangere :
“Akhy, Tea is ready, get up.!” Said R. My lazy bones don’t
wake up without bed tea.. :P . Sipping the super hot tea at the balcony, took
pleasure in the view of Siva along with temple.
As we parked the car at temple
parking, we now knew why there were no hotels vacant; the place was over
crowded at the temple, park, beach and everywhere else. Always its ‘the tummy
first’ rule, entered the restaurant and sat at a place with good view.
 |
| Slightly over rated place |
 |
| Look!! Some fish are here!! |
 |
| Statue park |
We quickly
completed the not so tasty breakfast. If you peep into the water, you can see
number of different fishes swimming. The tea I had
here was the worst tea ever. Christmas holiday season
attracted many school/college tourists, due to the crowd we skipped the temple darshan. There are 2
lifts operating to the 18
th floor of temple gopura with fee of 10
rupees, to have a sight of beach and the sea, but long queue here again was the
reason to skip this too.
The statue park has
different statues depicting the legend of Gokarna and Murudeshwar temples.Roamed here for
some time and reached the room to check out around 9:00 AM. Now we were on Kanyakumari
– Panvel Highway again to reach
Gokarna.
With the banks of Aghanashini river switching sides, we drove to Gokarna. On
the way, we diverted our route towards the mouth of Arabian sea, where this
river joins. It was a beautiful location, no persons nearby except a few people
busy fishing.
 |
| Aghanashini river.. on the way to Arabian |
 |
| Some posing!! |
We drove to a very narrow road to God’s own beach, it was
somewhat scary to reach there as the road was passing through a hill, just
beside the beach.
Somehow, not feeling
so comfortable to get down, we left to Gokarna.
 |
| God's own beach |
As we neared the temple, the road was very narrow, with
people all over and cows blocking the road. So again, parked car at one place,
and started walking to the temple. The lane is full of shops on both the sides,
with colorful dresses, chapels, antique pieces, musical instruments, bags, etc
etc. At one point of time we were wondering why so many foreign tourists are
here, we are in Goa or Gokarna.?! 😝😝😝
The temple was very crowded, and I found it very commercial
as well.. Some purohits approach to you, trying to convince you they will take
you to darshan, in 5 mins, make you touch the linga etc. Beware and be
ready to be annoyed as well. After coming out of temple, we went to Vinayaka
temple, at the end of the street, quickly headed to Om beach now.
Om beach was a 10 KM drive from temple, but was a very
pleasant ride. We need to park the vehicles and walk down from there along the
steps. But it was 12 PM already, and was sunny, found it difficult to walk
down, but walking down was better than walking back up I have to mention. The
beach had hardly 40-50 people, may be the time we went was wrong. There
were a few shops and we both had lot of butter milk to satisfy the thirst.
There were some water sports organized too. After spending some time here we were
on track to Kudle beach.
 |
| Road to Om and Kudle beaches |
 |
| Om beach |
Kudle beach is just 1 KM from Om beach, this beach also
is
down the hill, so parking on the hill
and walking down to beach is same here as Om beach. But unlike Om beach, the way
to the beach from parking is very deserted, and the trees and rocks along
way. It was not so family friendly beach, and we were in 30 mins back to car.
 |
| Kudle beach |
 |
| On the way to Kudle |
Heading back to Kanyakumari – Panval highway again. .
R asked “ So, shall we start back to Bangalore? Is Karwar
mandatory? We will be going to Goa next month, we can cover Karwar time na??”
Me: “Hmm.. We can go, but we can finish whole Karnataka
coast on one go!! Its an accomplishment na!! Any way.. you are driving so you
better decide.. I am good any way. “
Krishna Gadi veera prema gadha album just completed and
Kushi album began with “Aadu vari maatalaku arthale verule”..
Ram said.. Me boss warn chestunnadu chudu.. Karwar veldam..
(It’s a typical telugu conversation which was apt to the situation, so who didn't understand please excuse”.
On the way to Karwar, stopped for lunch at Kamat. There was
a petrol filling station which accepted cards there, so refilled petrol as
well. The same highway here was now better, and the road to Karwar was very
beautiful, cutting through some hills of western ghats. We surpassed the Naval
base , Karwar port, Rabindranath Tagore beach( we didn’t stop here, seemed to
be a routine beach actually), the sea view on the left side, we halted at Karwar
Marine Aquarium, a poorly maintained one yet with different kinds of interesting
fishes. We were not much interested to visit the Warship museum just a few
meters away from aquarium.
 |
| on the way to Karwar |
 |
| Karwar port |
 |
| Sea view beside the road |
 |
| Warship Museum |
Now we were leaving to the last beach stop of our
trip – Majali beach, which is near Goa border, just 6 KMs away. Passing the
Kali river which poured herself into the sea here, we reached Majali beach.
 |
| Heading to Majali |
 |
| Nearing the Kali river |
Sitting inside, we cherished our travel of THE
KARNATAKA COAST!! The three days!! From
3 KMs to Kerela to 6 KMs to Goa!! Wow!! It was a lovely experience, a much
needed trip..
Day 4 : December 25th
2016:
On our journey back home, we stayed at Davangere Saturday night –
deliberately got up late, and reached home by 3 PM Sunday 25th
December 2016..
