0500 Started from home
Brrr... cold winds, empty roads, occassional zipping automobiles
We swiftly get on to the infamous Tumkur Road, navigate through (surprising for an early morning)busy road with laden-Trucks, on to the Belur-Hassan highway
0630 Kunigal
0800 Breakfast @ Kamat upachar (120), Hassan bypass
Fog at Hassan. Terrible roads start just after Hassan.
0930 Sakleshpur ghats - incredibly terible roads - 6 accidents; at least 1 fatal.
1130 Netravati river, v.v.dirty. Tens of thousands taking bath, washing clothes, brushing teeth, countless lechers perched at vantage points, unmindful ladies going about their ablutions - all in the name of Spirituality. God! Took a few droplets and sprayed ourselves, to clean our sins, somewhat!
1145 Dharmasthala Temple. Shock! 3 hr long que. Vijayadashami rush; 25 lines of barricades, filled with people to the brim, all wanting to take the Lord's blessings. Arati of Lord Manjunath inersprsed with Animated film Jai Ganesh on 4 LCD tv's in the open waiting hall. Wailing children, overzealous adults (of many sizes, shapes, heights, race, colour, gender), narrow que's - one hall to another - all made it a very interesting experience!
Intense heat, Set prasadam Tkt 150. Water 15. Tons of eatables none taken. Unimpressive temple. No mood to take pix. Burnt pebble pricked feet, tired souls... nay soles! Missing taxi & driver, frantic search, taxi found, but driver sleeping in a nearby van. Skipped lunch.
1630: Enroute Kukke - Thunderstorm, lush green Areca-Pepper farms, Mangalore tile & laterite homes, more bad roads! Roller coaster ride thanks to our fearless merciless driver Krishna, who single belief (other than God) is to drive his Indicab at high speeds & overtake every other vehicle in front, come rain / shine.
1640 Subramanya - mist. Painful trudge to & fro Adi Subramanya temple, Kumaradhara river. More droplets to cleanse ourselves.
Confused indiscipline at main temple.
1st experience at public-bare-upper-body-show.
Huge Ganapathi Temple, just outside Kukke.
1840: Belthangady 37 kms. 1k diesel. No sight of tonite's destination - Horanadu. Dozzz... zzz..
1900: Hey, Dharmasthala 12 kms! R v goin back? Hmm... Nope, just wrong choice of sequence of places.
Anyway... Bad roads, chill weather, synthetic telugu songs' blare continue, lightning flashes at a corner o'the sky. Every1 wants to overtake each car in front, on-coming bus & trucks want to annihilate each of us in the night cavalcade.
1920: Dstla! deviated & took right on to Charmady Ghats, pity cudn't do this beautiful stretch in daylight. Huge temple, Shrirama Kshetra-skip.
1930: Destn 100 kms away!
1945: Ujire - Dasara procession.
More lightning, pelting rain, even more terrible roads... Charmady here v come!
A Place called 'Watekhan' whizzed past!
2315: Reachd Horanadu. Steady drizzle, hundreds of vehicles, Jam.
No hotel rooms! HomeStay at Ram's. Rs. 200 (corner of a hall). No dinner.. famished... crashed instantly into deep-sleep!
Insights: Planning to travel during festive season? Factor in the possibility of teeming crowds, long ques, poor accomodation, no sleep. In fact, it may be wise to not travel at all!
Structural design fault in Indicab. Rainwater creeps up the windshield during high speeds - despite wipers, due to lesser slant than say, an Alto or Swift. This makes it a dangerous car to drive on a rainy night. Mr. R. Tata - are you listening?? I hope the new Indica Vista has good design and build quality.
Day 2
0534: Got up & ready in a jiffy! Luxury of a hot water bath - a fire-wood fuelled 'hande' with a flowing tap feeding resh water to it, ensured that all 12 inmates of the house had hot water in the cold environs!
0630: Annapurna Temple,
Q, shirt removal routine. Brought angavastram :) Painful frail voice singing devi shlokas. People sleeping inside temple. Poor facilities to take care of rush during festivals.
0730: floppy idli, water sambar, coffe wit jaggery b/f. Rs 28. 100 to krishna.
0755: Kalasa. Conspiculously empty. 1000 yr old Dakshin Kasi, with strange figures on stone pathway! The town itself is unaware of the legend/s it supposedly holds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalasa
A View of the Kalasa village from the Temple-top.
0900: Kudremukh national park, breathtaking scenery! Someshwar Sanctuary,
1045: Sringeri. A 1,000 yr old legend, enchanting sculptures, temple dates back to 14th Century
Parked in the temple complex was the main Swamiji's Merc. Devi was taken on a stroll (common on all fridays per local knowledge), so no darshan / puja. Left after a walk around & a few pix of the magnificient temple. Star shaped perimetre, yoga and Dashavatara motifs sculpted out of stone.
1225: Agumbe. Shockingly Hot! No clouds... Is this really The Cheerapunji of the South? Unbelievable! but true. A view of the sun-set point, jsut that it was mid-noon.
Terrible roads, steep ghats, zipping vehicles, searing heat!
Away to Udupi... no tar roads. Lost way, went around.
1420: Finally reached Udupi. Heat, dust & long ques continue.
Sri Krishna darshan in a a/c temple! Welcome respite from searing heat & dust, muddy roads. Fabulous Diamond encrusted idol. Meanwhile, Manipal zips away. Prasadam 30.
Hah - the temple chowkidar shoos a few guys removing clothes! :)
1430: Lunch at Annapoorna veg across the temple. 50. Awful taste - so much for the legendary 'Udupi Hotel'.
Sign on a main road at Udupi: "Your taxes in use. Manipal-Udupi road." Only there's none found!
1630: Kollur, Mookambika Temple. No mad-rush. Unassuming, peaceful, but jostling crowds. Quick darshan (compared to others during the day)
Golden Gopuram of the Devi's temple.
A Ganapathy Temple, next to the main complex, with interesting motifs and a Sanyasi in Penance - a candid pic.
Ever misty Kodachadri peak stood serenely behind the temple.
It's already 1730 & quickly getting dark. Going by previous night's experience, we wanted to scourge for accomodation immediately after getting out of the temple.
Random thoughts of staying at any of the guesthouses in this temple town was banished by the 'keepers constant "no accomodation" response. Some even put up permanent boards on their gates saying as much!
Left with no choice... simply drove on to Murudeshwar, in the hope to get a sea-facing cottage & good night's sleep.
Near scrape with a Qualis & TT. Dirt track drive on moon-terrain-craters.
1930: Bhatkal.
2000: Murudeshwar.
Checked into Murudeshwar Intl Hotel. (2.5k,a/c, tv, decent room, with parking-lot-facing-view. None the less comfy. Later found out RNS beach front property was full with weekend party-bandwagon from nearby places, esp. Mangalore & Manipal.
2045: Kamat 'Tarkari' oota 89, in a/c. The only decent veg restaurant at Murudeshwar, overflowing with people. We were told that the 'tarkari' (vegetarian) food that we looked for was available only at this place.
2130: Brisk walk back in a dark alley (the main road at Murudeshwar connnecting main highway and beach/temple) to hotel, few jeering road-romeos. Channel surfing.
The airconditioner made such a racket whenever it started, (given that every hour there was power-shutdown & the hotel's DG supply was inadequate) wondered how would we could catch up on lost sleep....
2220: Zzzz...
Insights: The hinterland of Karnataka is woefully devoid of any development; that we take it for granted in the Cities and even demand of the Government as if its out birth-right. Spare a thought for the villagers or even 2nd / 3rd tier towns, they require basic amenities too, lets begin with better roads, for example.
Bad infrastructure - No Roads, No Power, Poor Sanitation. At least the temples due to which these towns thrive must step in and do whatever it takes to bring it to acceptable levels. During such times as festival season, it is pitiable to see pilgrims sleeping on temple steps (Horanadu) and footpaths / vehicles (Dharmasthala, Kollur).
Day-3
0800: "Mhatobar Shri Murudeshwar Deva" temple. At a little distance is the Humungous, gold & silver painted figures of Shiva, Nandi, Ravan, Bal-Ganesh, and a variety of others. Larger than life, tasteless concrete and paint structures.
World's Tallest Shiva Status in Concrete, the original Murudeshwar's Temple in Gold painted Gopuram and the newly constructed Gopuram.
Candid pix of the beach around the picturesque island.
0820: Kamat tarkari b/f. People sitting on each other to eat lessthan ordinary fare. Soggy dosa, sambar sold out. Can't belive - Kamat ran out of coffee, @ 9am!
Pathetic facilities at Murudeshwar. Very less by way of tourist safety.
Hundreds swimming on beach, parking their vehicles on the beach itself - not particularly a pretty sight. We gave a visit to the beach a miss.
0945 Honnavar. 1000 Kumta. 1015 Aghanashini bridge, SH69 craters.
1115 Gokarna
Very pretty statue of the "Bala Ganesh". Too crowded sanctum, exremely simple exteriors. One last shirt removal routine! :)
Golden beaches. No Kidding! the glistening sand on the beach under the sharp sun actually looked like gold... liquid gold!
1300 Back to Honnavar, deviation to Jog. Tumkur 370 kms.
Dry arid hot weather. Not a single vehicle in sight, just plain pot-holed roads stretching for miles and miles.
Ever heard of beat the horn? Our krishna likes to beat his indica's.
1400 Ghat to Jog bgins. No respite frm heat. I can smell coffee! Nope its just a mirage!! Jog is still 24 kms away + another 304 to Tumkur. Birds chirp lazily, hidden frm view. Smell of fresh water brings some relief frm the boredom. Suddenly a scorpio zips past & vanishes into a turn. Krishna breaks out of his reverie, decides its time to tear the wind & fly away to Blore, only there's a Scorpio to bring down, first, which's now playing hide-n-seek! A-ha wait a minute, gotcha! Ther's a chk-post & he's slowd down, this's Krishna's chance; lo behold, the Scorpio is of to a flier just as the barrier lifts... Dream on.
1445: Jog falls, severely depleted, almost a heavy trickle, magnificient nevertheless. Pix taken, pineapple pieces stockd at 2 a thin slice.
1500: Back on the road, Blore bekons. 371 kms away. Scorpio or not. Btw, he's no where to b seen now. Quite empty road.
1540: Krishna announces lunch time. Hotel Madhura @ Sagar, couple of white chapathis & 1 full meals - 58. Tumkur 300 kms. Krishna falls asleep driving! Its time to take matters, nay steering, into my hands; drive Indicab frm Sagar to Shimoga - not bad.
1730: Tea at Maurya 18. Blore 270 kms, eta 9pm.
1845: Tarikere. Terrible NH206. A signboard reads Blore is 233 kms. Extended eta 10pm, hopefully. V r all pooped out, waiting for redemption. Krishna has other plans, he's just hit a purple patch, & takes off upto 110kmph - but not for long. NHAI has every trick up its sleeve to make our journey miserable!
1910: Somehow reachd Berur.
Still to go: Kadur (1920), Arsikere (2000), Tiptur (2030), Doddaguni - watering hole 2110 hrs. Gubbi (2130). Empty roads at Gubbi, rain b'twn. Tumkur (2145), Kunigal, Nelamangala (2245). As usual, heavy traffic greets us. Ypr jn 2300.
2330: Home at last!!
