North Karnataka

Would like to start with a quote of a famous American writer Mark Twain“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

As said by Twain I do not want to sit in Bangalore and spare the holidays watching TV programs rather check out long pending wish list. Unlike 2016 the year 2017 has the privilege of having more long weekends and one among them associated with our Independence day. I was fortunate to pick this early in the month of May when Indigo Airlines floated an offer that was almost the price of 3AC train ticket to Mangalore.

Almost all planning including hotels and places to visit are all done by June. In-congruent to my previous travel this one had lot of anxieties till the date of travel and the cancellation made by one of the hotelier created more fuss among all of us.

As mentioned earlier building an enthusiasm to keep the interest high is important especially with kids but this time Prathiba too was excited reason being meeting her school friend Shalini after 2 decades. Of course Ananya got excited with Jog falls and beach.

Initial plan was to start from Kukke and reach Gokarna on the last day of the schedule but has to change the entire plan on the eleventh hour that was exactly opposite to the original which means to start at Gokarna and end at Kukke. Major issue associated with this big change was cancellation of rooms and re-booking to the revised dates and thankfully I was able to overcome this hurdle.

From Mangalore started early morning and reached Honnavar around Saturday noon driving through the western coastline. Gave a sweet surprise to the front desk and requested him to change the dates, initially the request was declined later accepted. After our lunch and a trivial rest started towards Jog falls which is east of Honnavar and later to Apsarkonda beach to glimpse the sunset. Reason for choosing Honnavar is that it is midpoint to Day 1 and Day 2 places.

Day 2 early morning started to Gokarna which lies north of Honnavar and from there to Idagunji on the way to Murudeshwar which is south of Honnavar. Spent a good amount of time in Murudeshwar and post lunch headed towards Kollur. 

Lack of knowledge along with the misguidance of the Jeep driver spoiled meeting plan of Prathiba and Shalini. We are supposed to reach Shalini house late evening but the Kodachadri was the culprit in spoiling the plans. Kodachadri is a place some 20 Kms from Kollur that has to be either trekked or travel by Jeep. Last 10 Kms will take 1 hour of Jeep ride that will break all bones from neck to lower spine sometimes you could see something popping out of your mouth that could be your liver or stomach, tough ride.



On the top you have Adi Mookambigai temple and the place where Adi Shankra did his meditation which needs one hour walk from the place where the Jeep drops and return to Kollur 1 hour. We did wrong estimate of this 3 hours and 2 hours of darshan time in Kollur temple ate the friends's meeting time. Reached their beautiful house near Udupi late night, and Prathiba and Shalini made use of the available time to recollect their old memories.

Day 3 – After a good breakfast from Shalini house headed towards Udupi temple, being Janmastami the queue was flowing to several streets which was expected. Since they have special darshan was able to complete the darshan in an hour. Sringeri was our next destination that was completed as per plan before noon closure and had a wonderful lunch. Finally reached Horanadu in the evening and again surprise to the hotelier for an unscheduled check in but it was accepted.

Day 4 – very early started to Dharmastla and from Kuke Subramanya where again big serpentine queue being Adi Kirthigai. In both the places made use of special darshan to buy invaluable time. Reached managlore and from there 40 Mins to Bangalore by Indigo.

Some of the key learning or highlights of this trip

I normally use booking.com for hotel reservation reason being there is no upfront payment required. Since I booked in June got a good deal and on the day of travel called the hotel to come to know that they have given it to someone else, could be they got better deal considering the heavy demand. Henceforth need to call hotel and confirm a month in advance and pay some nominal amount as advance so that we are at peace.

Due to personal emergency need to make a lot of changes as mentioned above that had lot of anxieties in our minds which created tension and when we realized that the plan change helped us to be on special days like on Janmastami at Udupi and Aadi Kirthigai at Subramanya erased the pain and also availability of rooms was at ease than expected.

As part of the planning got a travels contact who belongs to Tamil Nadu and this helped in communication all through the period.

Normally there won’t be any fuss for food from any of us and these travels will help you get accustomed to any food. Typical to this region the food was extraordinary and in Mangalore the evening snacks was rated as 5/5 by each one of us.

Best period to visit these places are post monsoon, August to December to enjoy the greenery of western Ghats and to avoid the humid climate during other months.

Unlike other tourist places especially temple parking area we will normally find someone collecting parking charges and these people will be locals from the ruling political party. I never paid any parking charges and the toll charges was less than Rs 200 for all days (mostly near Mangalore).

This travel helped me to test the strength of Jio and Airtel, clearly Airtel was winner but Jio never let me down.

If you are planning to make a trip to these places and any guidance required please feel free to mail me at gbramy16@hotmail.com

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