This was a long planned trip as this was the first long weekend after almost three months. It was a dream for me to drive & explore the triangle route from Bangalore, The NH48 to Mangalore, and NH17 to Honnavar along Karnataka coastline and NH206 to Tumkur.
ay 1(12th Aug, 2006): Bangalore – Neelamangala – Hassan – Mani – Mangalore – Udupi – Kundapura – TurtleBayResort (near Maravanthe)
We got up at 3:30AM, packed up the necessary stuffs, had a nice bath & started the journey at 5AM. We reached Yeswanthpur in no time and Neelamangala by dawn. We turned left to NH48 to Mangalore. The early morning drive was as usual great and it reminded me of our bike trip in January. The road was almost deserted and we were relishing the drive, plus the great Jagjit Singh gazals were adding more aura.
We reached Kamat Upachar after Channarayanpatna for breakfast at 8AM. We start from CRpatna at around 8:45AM.
We were driving at speeds 80-90kmph so that we can relish the beautiful sceneries along the road, the small-big mountains, bushes, the trees etc. In no time we were passing Hassan and two 5 speed breakers where I jumped my bike last time. Hassan bypass has got rough a bit and roads were much deteriorated since Jan. The drive till Sakleshpur through the dwindling roads were OK but road was not as smooth. Sakleshpur is famous for the wooden carvings which they sell in throwaway prices in the road side. My wife bought one good piece for the drawing room and dumped it in the indica boot (She dreamt of buying one when we get our car next time during our bike trip).
We reached Sakleshpur by 9:30AM and after that the nightmare begins as the ghat road started. Although I knew the ghat roads were in bad condition but it was indeed beyond recognition. At all the turns the banking is washed away and the angle of banking is increased compared to the design limit. It was very dangerous for heavy vehicles to take those hairpin turns at higher angle of banking. In addition it started to rain very heavily. I was taking the Santro at the corner top of the banking and then rolling it down to the right corner at the end of the turn instead of keeping it throughout left, in some cases it was very risky as the car got tilted dangerous because of improper banking.
We kept crawling in the ghats but adjacent view of the deciduous forest looked awesome especially in the rain and after monsoon. We could see water gushing out from everywhere and also made a couple of good falls too. Even saw some people stopping their cars and started to play in rain and bathe in the falls. Before we realized it was 12PM and Upinagudi was another 40km. Oops we have spent 3 hours juggling in the ghats. The roads improved so that we could atleast drive at 40kmph but the rains didn’t. It was medium to heavy.
After driving another 10km we decided to take a break in the jungle and also we wanted some snack break too. We had cakes, chips and discussed about the ghat drive. I started to wonder is this the same road that I biked in Jan and did Mangalore – Bangalore in 11 hours including all breaks. Now it is taking ages in car. Now I know why people say Karnataka is more corrupt than even Bihar. This is the state of such an important highway which connects the capital to the only port town. I wish the authorities spare a thought to those heavy tanker drivers who had to abide such extremely conditions to transport fuel to the capital. Anyway we were more agony in store. All our plans needed to realign after this sad condition of road. My plan of reaching Kundapur by 4PM is totally off now; my next target was to reach there before dark (by 7PM).
The roads kept on deteriorating after Upinagudi till Mangalore. It was a driving nightmare and we finally reached Mangalore at 2:45PM, parked in Tajmahal hotel for lunch. Food was not good but the sweets were. Also it was raining that time. NH48 meets NH17 at pumpwell circle where left is Kasargod, Kerala and right is Goa, Mumbai route via the coastal Karnataka.
We started at 4PM after lunch. Roads inside Mangalore were good but once we entered NH17 it became pathetic. I cannot explain the state of the roads till Surathkal. It was first gear throughout. It was simply the worst.
Thankfully after all those pathetic moments, the roads improved after Surathkal, it was already past 5PM and my second deadline was also challenged now. In addition there was heavy traffic too. Even Udupi and Kundapur bypass roads were not in good shape otherwise the NH17 was decent and it kept on getting better. We entered Turtle bay resort about 12km from Kundapur, near Maravanthe at around 6:50PM at the stroke of darkness.
Checked into the beautiful resort on the beach, refreshed in the nice sea breeze, had a much needed bath and sat down to discuss the pathetic state of these cities in monsoon. After a nice dinner, we hit the bed by 10PM.
ay 2 (Chilling in sea, no driving at all): We get up at around 6AM. Thankfully it was not raining so went to the beach to enjoy the early morning breeze. One peculiar thing that I noticed there was that it rained any moment. Rain played hike-seek throughout the day. All of us were awake by now and we had a nice breakfast of puri, aloo, omlette, bread and of course the tea and filter coffee.
Now its time for water!! We all entered the sea and played with water. It was risky for swimming as there were rocks here n there and also the tide was on the higher side that day. We spent the next 3 hours in water and returned at around 1PM for lunch.
Some pics
After a brief rest, evening and night was spent in the beach and then we had a nice Chinese dinner before hitting bed. It was fun throughout.
Day 3 (14th Aug, 2006): TurtleBay – Maravanthe – Bhatkal – Murudeshwar – Honnavar – Sagar – Shimoga – Bhadravati – Kadur – Arsikere – Tiptur – Tumkur – Bangalore
Alarm rings at 5AM; we pack our stuffs, take a nice bath and start at dawn. Within a few distance we enter into that zone of NH17 where the Arabian Sea is the left and the river Sowparnika is flowing in the right. That was an awesome site. I have never seen such a beautiful site. We immediately stopped, clicked few photos and spent a nice 15 min there.
Some where after Maravanthe, we did fuelling and headed straight to Murudeshwar. It was really a nice drive. By 8:15AM, we were in front the famous shiva temple in Murudeshwar.
It was an awesome view of sea and the shore from temple. We offered a nice morning puja there. It is believed to exist since the Ramayana time and the story around Ravana’s atmalinga. Gokarna and Murudeshwar were set up much at the same time. Adjacent to the temple was a big status of Lord Shiva, about 50 ft tall.
After the temple visit, we had a nice breakfast with crispy dosas and puris and the naveen beach restaurant which is situated on the sea.
Some pics of Murudeshwar
We start from Murudeshwar at 10AM and headed towards Honnavar. Roads were better. We enter NH206 at Honnavar and soon into the ghats. Awesome view of the ghats and also we could witness awesome small falls across due to the monsoons. But the ghat road of NH206 was really good although narrow compared to Shiradi ghat but at the same time it was deserted as well, so it was pleasure driving all through.
We reached Jog Falls at noon. We spent about 20 min there. Rain and mist was playing hide-seek there. Water was in full flow in jog and also the amount of tourists. It was crowded. But the huge falls looked awesome this time.
We reached Shimoga at 2:15PM, missed the bypass and entered the city. For no reason a cop caught us and told that we have jumped signal, don’t know when. For them, the signal means “hand signal from 5 footer traffic cop on a 80 ft wide busy road”. So we were stranded.No one wants to write the challan, they were throwing the receipt book into each other. Finally one of them cut a challan and handed over to Nikhil. Ideally they should cut two challans (Rs 200) for two cars but they cut only one and gave the receipt for only Rs 100. Nikhil was a bare spectator, never knew whether to laugh or shout. We lost more than an hour in this process and entered a stupid hotel, just had a quick dosa lunch and started from shimoga at 4PM.
The road became very bad after Bhadravati for a few kms and improved a lot after Kadur but we have seen the worst so no problem. After a brief coffee break in Arsikere we headed towards Tumkur.
It was already dark and we reached Tumkur at 9pm. We entered Reliance A1 Plaza for dinner. This was our first visit to A1 plazas and we were damn impressed. Also after a poor lunch we were hungry too. We were served with awesome naan, butter chicken, pepper chicken, paneer-matar, dall fry and we hogged everything. It was damn clean and also very cheap. That was great. I don’t mind going there for a drive and dinner from Bangalore as well.
Actually we purposefully delayed by taking a coffee break in Arsikere as we wanted to avoid an evening entry into Bangalore due to the heavy rush. We started from A1 Plaza at 10PM and zoomed into Bangalore in not time and reached home by 11 PM.
We covered a total distance of about 1003 km in two days with some mind-blowing sceneries and a nice sea beach.
Signing off
Vijay
