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Published: September 29th 2012
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There is something very strange about beach destinations. I used to wonder,what do all these people do when they stay near the beach? Of course, there is the sea and you go for a dip, but the charm runs out after a couple of hours and then what next? With hill destinations, I get it. There is driving, hiking up and enjoying the view from the top. This was until the trip to Agonda in south Goa. For three days it was nothing but eat-swim-relax-sleep-drink-swim-relax routine and by the end I had attained complete nirvana. It was about rediscovering myself. For one, the vast expanse of the ocean and the power of nature puts things in perspective about the connection between us humans and nature. Second, doing nothing is actually a good way to think through things, relax and make decisions about life. It was a completely different experience for a person like me who always has to have something to think about.
Thirdly, enough with the philosophical bullshit. I'll come to the trip I took with my wife, Pavi.
I had booked a round trip non A/C sleeper bus ticket from Bangalore to Kundapura by Karnatake State Road
Transport Corporation KSRTC (Rupees 400/person one way). The bus that we were supposed to travel in had had a breakdown and we were bumped up to A/C semi-sleeper bus after an hour of waiting. We were pretty tired and slept as soon as the bus took off. The bus takes the popular Bangalore-Mangalore highway through Hassan and reached Mangalore the next morning. From Mangalore the bus travels northwards to Udupi, the popular temple town, and as soon as we reached Udupi, the air was waft with the smell of the sea (fish, to be precise!). The next stop would be Kundapura about 90kms from Mangalore. Kundapura is a small non-descript town but is well connected on the West coast highway. We got down at the bus stop and hired an autorickshaw (tuk-tuk) and were charged Rupees 250 to take us the 12kms to the Turtle Bay beach resort. I had made a reservation online for a small standard room (Rupees 1000/night) for two days, but when we got there we were told that the rooms were unavailable as the people staying there had extended the stay.The lady at the reception told us that they can give us a cottage room
right next to the beach for 2000 rupees/night. The room was clean and laid artistically with typical village style windows (check out the pics) and a cement slab cot. It was neat and comfortable and with the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks on the coast, heavenly. The property's USP is the presence of rock boulders on the coast with crevices big enough for a person to walk-in and the resort is surrounded by fishing hamlets with boats neatly laid out. The fishermen take the boats out in the night for a catch and sell it in the nearby towns. A picture perfect place to relax for the weekend. We took a dip in the sea, had food and beer. The food was not quite to our taste, but the beer was heavenly as it always is near the sea.
The second day, we decided to explore the place and headed towards Udupi and Malpe. We walked the kilometre from the beach to the bus stop and took the local bus to Udupi (Rupees 30 one way). Once there, we took the autorickshaw to Malpe, 6kms from Udupi. We got a ferry ticket to St. Mary's Islands
which is about 6kms from Malpe. After a 30min wait, the boat finally arrived and boarded 50 souls to be taken to St. Mary's Islands. The islands are made of volcanic rock formation with the rock arranged neatly like a column. The island coast is madeup of shells and not sand as I had assumed. What lies beneath the coastline - rock, shells or sand, I am unsure. I gathered that the formation of the island is geographically unique and resembles the Giant's causeway in Ireland. We explored the place and took a short dip in the water as it was crowded in the weekend. The view of the island and coast from the topmost part of the island was enchanting. We then took the ferry back to Malpe and the tuk-tuk to Udupi, had a short look at the temple and the famous decorated idol of Lord Krishna. We could not see the idol as the Lord had taken time off for a shower, and so settled to shop for some beads (Pavi is crazy about beads) in the little shops that line almost every temple in India. We then took the local bus back to the resort, had
food and drink and spent the remained of the day relaxing.
The third day was spent relaxing with usual food-drink-dip-sleep-food routine and that evening we headed back to the KSRTC depot in Kundapura to take the bus back to Bangalore. One tip that I learnt was that it is better to take a semi-sleeper bus (like the seats in an aeroplane) when traveling through hilly terrain as the position is good for sleeping. Full sleeper buses tend to rock front-to-back and can be quite merciless onthe neck.
On the whole, a very relaxing long weekend.
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