Murudeshwar/Kumta on NH206

Harish called on Sunday. He wanted to know about places to see around Bhatkal, where he was going to complete some research on a book he's working on. Something about madrassahs springing up there in the late 90s. After the mandatory joke about him being attacked in his sleep by ISI agents etc., impetuously ventured that I might join him on the North Kanara coast as well.

Now Harish and me have a long history of unfulfilled promises to meet; ever since I moved to Bangalore, every trip back home is the same old story of me promising to meet everyone in Mumbai I know and then typically ending up so stuffed after Mom's or MIL's pampering that an apologetic telephone call is about the most that Harish and others like him can hope for. So he was to be forgiven when he treated my assertion of a meeting by the sea with the skepticism it deserved.

Perhaps because long weekends are so hard to come by, or the relative ease with which Sonal and (her brother who lives with us) Gautam agreed to the idea, I found myself scrambling for route maps, websites, Outlook traveller guides, and by the middle of the week, had booked us into two of Murudeshwar's finest. RN Shetty, the man who singlehandedly converted a tiny temple town into the (relatively) bustling tourist centre it is today, built hotels for every type and class of tourist and I slotted ourselves into the budget category. 390/- for a room, with 50/- for an extra bed sounded good to me by any standard, and when we finally did see the room--- a magnificent corner of the floor wonder with extended sea-facing balconies on two sides, we decided it was worth every penny and more! We booked the room adjacent for Harish and his travelling companion, a sweet middle aged lady named Abha. The idea was to spend just one night there- Friday- before headed back our separate ways.

Thursday passed in a blur of excitement. I hadn't realised it was so long since I'd taken a real break from work. Everythign was checked and double checked. The car had been acting up and was in the shop, another reason for worrying, especially since it was due to be returned to me only around 5 p.m. that evening. After some hurried packing, Sonal and I lugged the bags and my guitar into a passing auto and drove to the Hyundai service station on Kanakpura Road. Amit was true to his word and a few minutes after five we were on our way, only to hurriedly turn back for home when we realised that neither of us had remembered to pack the car CD player. The way back was spent in needless recrimination 9it was clearly my fault, but I wasn't conceding the advantage that early in the roadtrip!!!)

Half an hour later, we were headed back, this time to M.G. Road to make our last fuel-and-tyres stop and pick up passenger number 3, Gautam. By the time we actually hit the road with "0"on the odometer, it was almost 6 p.m. So much for our good intentions of departing early!

Obviously Shimoga, 281 km away, was out, since it would be midnight or later when we got there. So decided to stop over at Tiptur, about 3.5 hours out of Bangalore at the nondescript Janata Deluxe Lodge. That still left a lot of driving on Friday morning, but I was fairly confident of making an early start and making up a lot of good time on that stretch.

Which turned out to be pretty true, because the next morning, having got out eagerly of our not-too-comfortable beds at the crack of dawn, we hit the road at 6:00 a.m. and were in Shimoga, 143 km away, in exactly 2 hours, savouring a breakfast of idli-vadas and masala dosas at the Hotel Ashok before resuming our journey to the coast along NH206.

Route so far: NH4 out of Bangalore towards Tumkur; approaching Tumkur, watch out for NH206 (to Honnavar) sign. Gubbi, about 20 km from Tumkur, is the next real town on the route, followed by Tiptur (128 km from Bangalore). If leaving Bangalore after work, your only stopover options are Tiptur or perhaps Arsikere if you can make it that far. Dinner options are limited and timebound and accomodation also rather minimal at these one-horse towns, so be prepared!The better option is to start somewhat early, around 3 p.m. and reach Shimoga by about half past eight.

After Shimoga, the ride was pleasant and we averaged nearly 75km on the near-empty highways. As the day progressed, our speed slackened, thanks to the cows, cyclists and pedestrians (including incredibly, people who took their morning walks along the national highway!) who kept getting in the way. The ghat section of NH206 starts rather suddenly about the same time as the milestones for the Jog Falls appear. Jog- which are actually 4 waterfalls in one- was not one of the places we had planned on visiting, but given that we'd made up almost an hour and a half en route by virtue of an early start, we took the 2 KM deviation and headed there. After paying Rs. 20/- to a bored looking guard, we went in and took a look at the trickle, rather obvious at this time of the year. The disappointment was somewhat eased by our taking photos alongside signs proclaiming "World famous Jog Falls" and enjoying an icecream in the early-summer heat (Sonal had Chocobar, I had Mango duet).

Honnavar was just about 60 KM from the Jog Falls but the ghat section got steeper and I was getting a little tired, so we covered the last stretch rather sedately. Being the only driver has its perils. Sonal tried her hand at the wheel after Shimoga, her first time on a national highway and did rather well for about 50km braving the barbs and taunts hurled at her from the passenger seats almost as well as she did the oncoming traffic. I took over again after a rather bumpy section that made her lose her confidence somewhat (no fault of hers).

After the Jog Falls, the sun was almost overhead and my fellow travellers seemed to be dozing off, so we decided to start the first of our car games- spotting town names that doubled up as amchi surnames. For the uninitiated, amchi (literally "ours") is an adjective that people belonging to my Konkani-speaking Saraswat Brahmin community, refer to ourselves as. My people are spread along the length of the Malabar coast, from North Kanara (Karwar) right through South Kanara (Mangalore and adjoining areas) through even to bits of the Kerala coast (Manjeshwar and Kasargod). Most of these good folks took the names of their native towns as their surname (my own is "Mangalore" replaced by the more user-friendly honorific "Bhat"in my father's generation). Sonal's and Gautam's likewise was originally "Mankikar", or "resident of Manki". We started listing the village names- that doubled up as - surnames some time after the Jog Falls and there seemed to be no shortage of them on the way. Kodkani, Dhareshwar, Upponi, Gerusoppa flashed by in a blur and suddenly Honnavar (my maternal grandmother's maiden name) and the incredibly beauteous NH17 was upon us.

NH17 runs from Mangalore along the Karnataka coast through Karwar into Goa and then on to Mumbai along the Konkan coast in Maharashtra. The Konkan railway, that marvellous feat of engineering, runs parallel to this lovely strip of tarmac for most part. We hit NH17 at Honnavar and turned left, heading South into Murudeshwar, some 24 km away. Panaji, the capital of Goa, is about 200 km to the North.

Took one look at the lovely highway and decided that the next trip would be to Mangalore via Hassan and then a leisurely drive up the coast to Goa. That would mean about a week off and absolute time on our hands. Srinibab was inspired by my dream, and it will probably make another great blog sometime in the future!

Called Harish from Honnavar; he was in Bhatkal not to far off, so asked him to meet us midway at Murudeshwar for lunch. Meanwhile, we checked into one of the nice hotels of Murudeshwar, RN Shetty Guest House adjacent to the Murudeshwar Shiva temple (strictly no alcoholic beverages or non-veg food allowed). Which is when our delighted eyes beheld the superb rooms and the magnificent sea-view. In a flash, all the tiredness of the 12 hour drive was forgotten.

Showers and a change of clothing followed, after which we made our way to the Naveen Beach Resort (another RN Shetty enterprise, bless the man), recommended by my good friend Shefali Vaidya- Ganesh in her write-up in the Outlook Traveller Guide. She, more or less a teetotaller and a disgrace to Goans in general, omitted to mention chilled beer, which figured prominently in our lunch menu, now that the driving was done with for the time being. Over rawa fried king fish, a delicious lady fish curry and some good chicken, conversation flowed and ice was broken (Sonal had not been introduced to Harish before then). About 3 hours later, the bill appeared, not too much of a shock for a seasoned Bangalorean restaurant-goer. We checked in Harish and Abha into the room adjacent to ours and then hit the beach around 5 p.m.

City breeding has its disadvantages- we kept wondering that if the beach was this empty it was bound to be private propoerty of some sort, and peeped anxiously over our shoulders everytime someone headed our way. But nobody spoilt the party and it stretched well after dark, lazing on a grassy knoll near the seaside, talking about everything and nothing, sampling the fine spiced island rum, picked up from my latest duty-free experience. It drizzled a little as well and the moon was almost full, making it all a slightly dreamy experience. Some of us got rather more into the spirit of things than planned, so we ended the night's festivities and headed back to the rooms for dinner and much-needed sleep.

Day two was fairly mundane; we saw the temples in the morning (grotequely kitschy- Shefali was right about that!) then headed back to Honnavar where we dropped off Harish and Abha. They took in the local sights, including the lovely Om beach at Gokarna, before heading back to Mumbai on the evening bus; meanwhile, we headed to Kumta to the ancestral home of Sonal and Gautam's uncle, Anant Masurkar, who treated us to a sumptuous lunch and some delightful conversation. The combination of coastal heat and cool indoors (the house is set in 7 acres of coconut plantation) was irresistable and we found ourselves taking wonderfully satisfying siestas in the afternoon. Awaking at around 5, we brushed off the hosts' insistent pleas to stay and headed back on the road to Bangalore, me knowing full well that, as tempting as the thought was, staying over meant that I would have to drive nearly twelve hours at a stretch, not a pleasant prospect in the best of times and made doubly worse by the hot humid weather conditions.

The slight delay in leaving meant that we covered the ghat section to Jog Falls in the twilight and later in pitch darkness, with the lurking clouds adding to the atmosphere. Gautam and Sonal kept seeing weirdly frightening shapes in the forests surrounding the highway (update on 6 Feb 2007: Gautam completely denies this). I must confess that I felt much more at ease once the ghats were behind us and we were on the plains again.

Just as we were settling in for the final run in to Shimoga, the clouds finally opened up and in a burst of violent thunder and lightning, poured down upon us. We had just crossed the town of Sagar, about 75 km from Shimoga, when it started pelting down with a force I have not witnessed in Bangalore, the city of gentle rains. Always one for the soft options, I opined that in this weather, we might take another extra 2 hours to reach our overnight destination, not a pleasant thought with the threat of being run off the road looming high. As if to add weight to the statement, we suddenly found ourselves off-road headed into someobody's verandah. For most part, the road was not visible and navigation strictly by instinct. So we turned back and to our delight, found the most amazing little hotel on the highway off Sagar town. Hotel Varadashree, AC and non-AC deluxe rooms, veg and non-veg food, room service, full cable television... we could not have asked for more! But we got more, in the shape of an attentive and responsive staff who fulfilled our every need (from chicken tangdi kababs to a pack of cards) with a promptness that would cityslickers to shame. The night was still young and a power failure in the town meant that cable TV was out ("I have told seth to put our own dish antenna," Wonderwaiter explained, almost sheepishly), so we (Sonal, Gautam and me, not WW) ended up playing dumb charades (which degenerated into an argument over the spelling of "charades") and later gulping down copious quantities of Sprite as we wolfed down round after round of some delicious chicken and naan.
I awoke the next morning at my usual 8 a.m. and while the others snored on, took a little walk around the premises and found a newspaper vendor. Nothing of note seemed to have occured on the day we were travelling, except rather unexpectedly what seemed to be an attack on Lalu Prasad Yadav in Gujarat (by some exceptionally brave and noble gentleman, I remember thinking warmly). Assuming the town's power supply was back up, I switched on the TV only to realise that the previous occupant of the room, probably hard of hearing, had turned the volume all the way up. Now all awake and alert, the three of us watched a rather interesting "Happy Days" documentary on the History Channel, followed by some aimless channel surfing, a favourite weekend pastime of ours. Breakfast was a typical South Indian affair- no omelettes, the only black mark on an otherwise excellent hotel. After showering and changing, we reluctantly left the cozy confines of our sanctum for the night and headed back toward Bangalore.
Nothing of note happened on the remaining part of the way. We skipped lunch and tried to substitute with some chips and rather horrible biscuits that we picked up at Gubbi, but it was just not enough. Finally we stopped at Tumkur at the Canopy Restaurant for good old fashioned dhaba styled chicken, parathas and ghee rice. Tummies full, we settled in for the last stretch into Bangalore, the one I was dreading the most and with good reason. Indian highways should not be 4-lane, because frankly we don't know how to drive on good roads. Slow moving trucks and tractor-trailers hogged the fast lane while we were forced to manouever our way past by repeatedly overtaking from the wrong side, something I hate doing. Worse still is to contend with traffic moving the wrong way, a nightmare at those high speeds. Somehow we made it past the mess at the NH4 junction at Tumkur and settled into a steady rhythm along with the rest of the weekend traffic headed back to Bangalore. As expected, the Sunday evening traffic was heavy and undisciplined; by now my fellow travellers were dozing and I was having a hard time keeping awake, so the last hour was punctuated by missed turnoffs and some ultra-cautious driving on my part. Finally, we reached home stretch, and after topping up on groceries at the nearest supermarkt, reached home, bone tired but happy, a weekend well spent.

Total distance covered: 1026 km (Bangalore- Murudeshwar: 455 km; Murudeshwar-Kumta: 40 km)
Mileage: 13-14 km/litre, with the AC on most of the way (disappointing, have achieved nearly 18 on similar drives; but the car is older, the weather worse and slow driving was a significant part of it)
Takeaways from the trip: First time ever, slumming it out at nondescript hotels along the way; a good idea to break trips overnight, especiaaly when driving alone; carry plenty of water and maybe a few dry snacks; be ready with car games
Worth doing again: DEFINITELY. Maybe add spice by driving Bangalore-Mangalore via Hassan and then lesiurely drive up the coast to Goa, return via Honnavar along NH206 in a big triangle.