Mangalore Milieux

It was already the end of third year of our engineering and we friends have not been to even one outing. Kamesh and I always had fascinating get-a-way ideas for our outing. Both of us always wanted something adventurous like trekking, white water rafting, and etc.We looked for a place where we knew somebody who’s local to the place. The idea struck at last, we wanted to go to Mangalore. People were looking forward to our idea of going to Mangalore which happened to be Sanket's Local. Ideas can only strike amidst exam preparation during our group studies. Our idea was instantly liked by naresh and anirudh.The tough job always was to convince Sanket and Anuraag.Sanket for hosting and planning up things in Mangalore. Anuraag was skeptical about the idea and took time to get going. We convinced them somehow and the others followed.

We had three exams left and everybody was so excited that we literally stopped studying and started planning. Exams keep coming and going, you always can have better luck next time but a memorable excursion like this can happen only once in a life time. All of us including Avinash were ready. But I still had my fingers crossed about anuraag.We booked our tickets and our planning started. I and Naresh browsed every damn website about Karnataka tourism and at last short listed places for our trip. I always wanted to trek parts of Western Ghats and we zeroed in on Chikamagalur district and nearby places.Coorg was on the list too.

Sanket's cousin Gaurav who stays in Mangalore was contacted regarding our trip. Unfortunately, we were informed that Chikamagalur was a naxalite hot bed and Coorg was more of a hill station than an adventurous one. So we asked Gaurav bhai to plan a trip for us. Meanwhile, Anuraag gave a big yes and our group of friends was complete. Exams concluded and we had three days for the trip to commence. Everybody was so excited and was eagerly waiting for the D-day to come. We just could not wait for our outing to start. After three long days, the trip unfolded. Every one of us raring to freak out. :)))

We took our train to Bangalore and from there we planned to take a bus to Mangalore through Hassan.The train arrived at Bangalore and we were on board for our journey to Mangalore on a very bad ghat road. Most of them were oblivious to those sharp turns and sudden jerks except for me and Sanket .We could not have a puke free journey and some of us had to go and beg the bus-wallah to stop for both of us. At last, we arrived at Mangalore. We had a very warm welcome by Gaurav bhai.We were literally taken by surprise, when he made an articulate travel plan and gave us a copy. That was so nice of him. Eight of us were into the Toyota qualis in no time which was supposed to be our vehicle for the trip.

Our stay was arranged at Sanket's uncle's place. As we traveled through the city of Mangalore, we were impressed at first sight. I felt the city mostly comprised of a cosmopolitan society and is very calm. As we went home, everybody got totally drenched in sweat welcoming us into the coastal city. That evening we had a quick trip to the Mangalore beach where we could witness one of the most beautiful sunsets we had seen. Later, Gaurav hosted a dinner for us in the Mangalore club that night where we chalked out our plan for the next three days. It gave us time to settle down and listen to interesting stories about Mangalore from our very special local lad Gaurav bhai.

Next day early morning we started our journey. An early morning drive is always special, but this drive made it more special as we were traveling on a particular ghat road which had backwaters on one side and the sea on the other side. We were passing through a string of beaches and the best of the lot would be the cool blue Maravanthe beach. This was enroute to our destination "Yana Caves".Yana caves, located in the forests of the Sahayadri Mountains is a trek through a set of unique rock formations. It is a very beautiful trek and it took us almost an hour to reach the destination. A trek through the forest always gives a humbling and rejunevating experience making it very memorable. There is a small beautiful temple on the top. We also had glimpse of some of the caves in the dome. Food was on the top of our list during the trip. Most of the times we had our breakfast at the trademark Kamat hotels of Karnataka. After the trek, we stayed at Murudeshwar.

The second day started with the visit to the sacred Murudeshwar temple. It is a very powerful Shiva temple on the shores of the Murudeshwar beach. From there, we went to the famous Udipi temple; it is the temple of Lord Krishna. Most of us expected for some yummy breakfast at Udipi rather than a temple. Udipi should be famous for its breakfast delicacies right? Yes it is!! Don’t forget to have your breakfast at Hotel Diana at Udipi. It’s awesome. With our stomachs more than full we embarked on our journey to our next destination "The St.Mary Islands". We were on board a medium sized motor cruise and went round the island for an hour or so. It is preferable to visit this place in and around October it seems as we could have got to land on the island then. But nonetheless, we could click some very beautiful pictures of the island. We had a glimpse of the fishing port and it is very pleasant err.. Unpleasant smell. Later, we went to the Shiva temple at Gokarna known as the Gokarna temple. It was a very powerful temple. And please don’t have food at Gokarna they are some very bad restaurants in and around. We were able to grab some snacks at the manipal campus enroute.

In the later part of the evening, we visited a light house on one of the beaches. We had an opportunity to watch a spectacular sun set atop the light house. We did not feel like coming down but we had to because the officials are very strict on closing the light house after the sunset. We came back to the Mangalore city in the night. Sanket's uncle hosted our dinner at a place called "The Village”. The food was good and the restaurant attracted good crowd. At last we called it a day after a very hectic day.

The third day was more of the local touring and visited some local temples. We tried out some local coastal eateries for lunch. In the evening we visited an ice cream parlor called "The Pabbas" a must visit eat out. We had an awesome dinner prepared for us by Gaurav bhai's mom and the time has come to bid adieu to Mangalore. Our journey was coming to an end. We planned to take a bus this time in a different route that night. I would thank Gaurav for such a wonderful trip.

The best part of a holiday is we love and cherish every moment. Jam packed schedules might physically tire us but at the end of the day you don’t feel like ending the day. We never feel like ending a holiday. This was the only excursion we had during our engineering lives. We planned many more...but they never happened. Now our engineering is done, an excursion might never happen again. But we still keep planning because there is still a hope that if it happens again it would make one more memorable holiday.

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