[mclaren1885]

It all began when we came back from the national meet , memo who had missed out on that trip wanted to make one count .. 21st july , 5 pm college bell rings and im out of my final exam .. 7 pm memo gets home and the four of us leave from my house to rajajinagar to pick up 2 more friends .. Finally the trip had begun , after loads and loads of planning , arguments on how many cars to take etc etc we were on our way to see some of the most scenic places in this part of the country ..


First stop at shell to tank up , next at the AIT girls hostel to pick up motopsycho’s girl and we were off to memo’s farmhouse on the way picking up motopsycho too .. Cooked dinner and went to bed at 12ish .. We were to leave at 4 in the morning , our first destination being belur .. But slight change of plans , due to excitement neither could memo or myself sleep .. So wake up the rest by 2 and we are off by 2:30 ..


Start off with memo driving , his girl navigating , motopsycho , mi3 , my brother and myself seated quite comfortably at the back .. Within 4 hrs and we were at hassan , no one realized how time had passed by the drive itself seemed so much fun amidst our car talks .. Memo pulls off at hassan and hands over the keys to me .. Within 40 mins driving over non-existant roads we reach halebidu .. Managed to get out of the car while it was freezing cold and were quite amused to see the art work on the ruins .. All I can say is that those artisans must have had some talent , but today it remains sad to be seeing such magnificent pieces of artwork in ruins .. Managed a few pics albeit NONE carried a digicam .. Sheesh , on a 2000kms trip and no camera ?? Weird aint it , amidst all the planning we never once bothered to think about getting hold of a digicam ..

The ruins









Then we were off to belur , visited the temple which is BIG by any standards .. Had breakfast at belur and were off to chickmagalore in no time .. Passing through chickmagalore our next destination was kemmangundi .. Took a left deviation from the NH and this is where the fun just began .. Memo thought this to be the coffee 500 rally stretch and was grinning from teeth to teeth .. The 65kms climb up hill had some really breathtaking scenes .. Those u cant forget for the rest of ur life .. Pardon me for the poor quality of the pics taken from a cell phone as we had no choice ..

A pic from the foot of the hill ..


A breathtaking backdrop



The road leading to kudremukh read the baba budangiri range itself was treacherous and one can take my word for it .. Single lane , with tarmac non-existant at places , potholes the size of craters , no boundaries on either ends , whew it was scary .. One wheel by chance off the road and wham u end up at the bottom of the cliff … Seemed quite happy when on meeting samurai he tells me that if one goes off the cliff their bodies would be breakfast/lunch/dinner for hungry lions , tigers, hyenas etc etc and it would take weeks or at times even months to figure out that someone had gone off .. What a relief aint it ??

Amidst all this chaos we at times had to overcome ON COMING TRAFFIC , that was indeed scary .. Staying a few inches should I say from the edge of the cliff just to let another vehicle pass by ?? One tempo traveler wouldn’t go off the road on his side and freaked us out to which most of us went abusive .. Motopsycho goes “ Maga , abuse him more da , hinde tiragkondu barakke agalla awange” (meaning , bugger abuse him more he cant turn around and come) and everyone burst out laughing like mad .. Reached one point where there was a huge puddle of water , all of us get out of the car to capture a scene which is so typically rally ishtlye .. Memo backs up a bit and wades the baleno through water splashing it to almost 1.5 times the height of the car .. That was one awesome sight to watch .. If I could somehow manage to edit the voice could put up a video of it .. Some bad quality pics , but just goes to show the kind of scenic beauties we got to see ..
The treacherous single lane road


View from Z point



Soon we are on top of the hill , now get to see the Z point , and a nearby falls .. Walk upto the falls as u cant take the car .. As we stand by the falls my brother (his names runal , yes its R-U-N-A-L) fells something moving over his leg and we discover it to be a leech .. He tries to pull it off but both ends are clamped well to the skin .. Luckily motopsycho was under the influence of ciggies , memo grabbed hold of it and put the ciggy on runal’s leg .. The leech immediately withdrew itself and fell to side with just a push .. Now did I hear someone say “Cigarettes are injurious to health ?? ” .. Soon we get back into the car and drive out of there just to find out that mi3 ( real name mytri) had gotten leech on her back too .. Soon all get out of the car and manage to get the leech of her back .. She looked as if she had been to some horrow show .. As we got no food on top of the hill we decided to head down .. And it was my turn now to drive ..

Got behind the wheel of the baleno and was mighty impressed with the way it handles , took a different route to the one we came uphill as it looked more safe .. The 15 inchers along with the suspension work handle like a gem on this car .. Throw the car in and u always have the precise feedback from the steering .. Got downhill just to figure out this was indeed the coffee 500 stretch , yay now I was grinning from east to west .. The drive downhill was awesome too .. Get off at chickmagalore for lunch and head off to manipal to take shelter for the night ..

[mclaren1885]

We passed through kudremukh but never got to visit the hill top as it was closed due to some naxalite attack a few days prior to it .. We went past sringeri and agumbe before getting to manipal at around 8 in the night .. The drive from agumbe to manipal was even more scary with visibility 1 feet from the headlights .. Thank god memo had strobes on his headlights .. Reached manipal and checked into our rooms at valley view , the so called happening place in manipal .. Got ready and headed out of our rooms by around 10:30 ish to a disco that was right beneath our hotel .. A few gulps down and watching the great ambience memo , runal , anusha (referred to as NOS from now on) and myself headed off to the snooker parlour .. After an hour we headed back to the disc to grab a few more drinks .. Party all the way to about 2 in the morning after which we all returned to our respective rooms completely exhausted after a tiring trip covering almost over 500 kms on the 1st day itself

All of us wake up at about 2 in the afteernoon , and to our dismay find out that by 3 every hotel in manipal is closed from 3-6 .. A call to samurai , figure out that there is a food court at MIT and we head off in search of it .. However , find a nice Chinese restaurant on the way and stop by it .. Must say the food was awesome .. Then we head back to the rooms , myself and memo book tickets for Fast and Furious : Tokyo Drift for the 5:30 show .. Get into the snooker parlour at 4:30 and play till about 5:20 .. A call later telling samurai that we would meet him by 7:30 at his office head off to the movie hall right beneath our rooms .. Everyone enjoyed the movie (except for the part where memo and myself were cursing the totaling of the vipers , the evo , the civic etc) .. Though the story line isn’t that great the drift scenes were awesome .. Biggest joke of it all was to see a Jap engine being showed into the American muscle car ( for more details go watch the movie) .. Out by 7 decide to head to meet up with samurai , however the passengers seat (read a sparco lookalike) had its own plans .. The bracket got bent and the seat would just slide front and back .. Memo and myself get down to putting it back into shape by which time its almost 9pm .. Not knowing what to do , we all head off to the bowling alley about 100mtrs from our rooms .. Spend time till 11 there with memo scoring a high score of 94 and myself a lame 100 .. Get out pick some booze and 3 pizzas from dominos and back in our rooms till about 1am chatting away to glory ..


Start off the next day at about 7ish with a visit to samurai’s office .. Then we head down to see his newly being constructed office and a magnifiscent view of manipal from there .. Next samurai takes us to END POINT a scenic place nonetheless .. Samurai I so envy u for getting a chance to stay in such a magnificent place .. Samurai shows us the way to the go-karting track and heads back to work .. We first visit the food court and boy o boy , didn’t the guys have fun .. Being a complete party buff in Bangalore and having visited so many pubs , disco’s , malls etc I can take a bet that I haven’t ever seen so many chicks at one place all my life .. That’s the food court for u .. After an hour’s MISSbehaviour , freaking out NOS and mi3 we head off to the karting centre .. And as usual 2k down the drain , loads and loads of fun we head back onto the roads wishing we owned a karting track of our own ..

View from end point ..
]

Samurai’s black beauty and memo’s silver or is it brown beauty together ..

This city runs on cycle products .. LOL .. Check out the sticker ..

Neat body kitted lancer , had the BMW grill however ..


Next stop , malpe beach and everyone except memo get into the water .. Boy it was fun , the high waves , a human chain formation , wading through the sand and sea shells .. Whew … I guess runal and motopsycho picked up atleast 200-300 shells from the beach ..

At malpe beach..


Soon we get back onto the roads and travel through kundapur and head to marawanthe .. Get down at the marawanthe beach , a few photo sessions later off further down just to see the river flowing on the RHS .. This has got to be one of most scenic roads ever existent in the country .. After digesting the fact that there indeed were so many scenic locations in karnataka itself head out further with a plan to halt at murudeshawar .. On our way , a sign board reads “ GOA – 310 kms ” .. Memo looks at me and I look back and say “ LETS GO GOA ” .. A call down to v1p3r asking if he could get in sync with jay , walk upto my house , pick up the keys to my baleno and some cash from dad and drive her down to goa .. Apparently it didn’t work out as v1p3r didn’t get perm from his parents and also because dad needed the car back in Bangalore .. Disappointed that I wouldn’t be doing the ankola stretch in my baleno gulped down a few more RC’s ..


Next stop murudeshwar , visit the shiva temple and have dinner at the naveen hotel by the beach and head off to goa by about 8pm ??

[mclaren1885]

Reach karwar in no time , and continue our way onto margao .. About 80kms from goa memo feels a tad tired , I couldn’t drive as I was under some RC influence .. So we take a 30 mins break and once again off .. Reach margoa , stop at the usual late night police checks who start to harass us saying u cant seat 6 people in a car , they asked each of us to show our college ID’s etc etc .. After paying the fine we headed off further , just to be stopped by another set of cops .. This cop was however decent , he checked all the documents and let us through .. Find the right way back into the city and stopped by yet another set of cops .. This guy is very arrogant and starts speaking all kinds of crap and that he doesn’t trust we are students and the girls with us aren’t are classmates etc etc .. After asking him to go through all the documents , ask him to call up all our parents if he wants to ; seek permission from him to enter goa and we are off again ..


Head to calanguthe beach to find rooms , reach there by 4am and as its off-season all of us crash out in the cars while runal is at the beach missing his someone special while I was walking all the way from 4-6 in search of rooms .. Finally managed to wake up the owners of the “ Traveller’s Bunglow ” and hired two rooms .. Soon enough we were all snoring away to glory in our rooms till about 2 in the afternoon .. mi3 and myself stay back at the room while the others grab a bite at subway and get us sandwiches too .. Next we head off to calanguthe beach , and then to dinner at the Kamasutra lounge and bar for a few drinks and dinner .. Get back to the rooms at around 1 again and crash out for the night .. Off the next day morning to fort aguada , trek down for about a km , reach the bottom of the fort just to be greeted by some amazing scenery .. Got to see fishing happening and loads and loads of crabs on the rocks .. A photo session later and spending about an hour at the rocks , unwillingly we all head back up as it looked it would rain .. A trek back up and we are off to the go-karting centre .. Another 2k down the drain and by now NOS and mi3 are wondering why we couldn’t do this staying back at Bangalore itself .. LOL .. After having some super fun karting , pushing each other off the track , racing each other etc etc we headed back to our rooms for a small nap .. Went out for dinner at Indian Spice , spoke to psycho on phone updating him ever so frequently where we were and that we were safe and sound , in the meantime rubbing salt to wounds that he should have joined us .. Head to baga beach and spend about an hour before heading back to the rooms .. Did I mention that somewhere in between all this we had another session of go-karting and this time memo and myself double teamed motopsycho and pushed him completely off the track atleast 40 times of the 50 laps .. That makes it 6k down the drain for karting alone ..


Up next morning by about 8 and out of there by 10 on our way to bangalore through hubli (more importantly the ankola ghat section) .. Stopped by at the karwar beach for another photo session ..

A profile view of the baleno at karwar beach..


My favourite pic of the trip..



And later a few feel the need to go to Jog Falls and we head off via shimoga and ditched the ankola stretch .. Sigh … Reached Jog Falls through a single lane road filled with some captive scenes .. Stopped by at view point , where runal and myself slipped and almost fell off the cliff .. Quoting our prayers we head back on the roads .. Reach Jog Falls only to be disappointed by the sight .. Thick mist and fog meant no visibility whatsoever .. As we were planning on heading back out of nowhere it all cleared up and we were just invited into seeing the most beautiful falls in this part of Karnataka at full flow , with lush greenery everywhere and the slight drizzle that made me feel so peace at mind .. Got back onto the NH and headed all the way back to Bangalore and reached here by about 11 slept over at memo’s farm and all of us headed back home early morning ..

Jog Falls at its best ..


That’s motopsycho for u ..



Nothing like checking out mother nature ..


All in all we had a super fun trip covering 1990 kms in less than 7 days , up and down hills , driving through beaches , visiting temples , ruins , rally stretches , waterfalls name it and we did it .. Too bad that psycho , jay , v1p3r and the rest coulnt join us on this trip .. However looking forward to such trips in the future .. Sorry to bore u guys with this rather longish travelogue , but as u can see its hard to conceal the excitement .. Thus I would like to end my ranting and let u all enjoy the pics and take a break from daily work and try and imagining urselves in our shoes .. Now how about getting all the Karnataka members to do this trip soon after the monsoons ??

[mclaren1885]

All in all memo (the cooldrunkard) , NOS (the JP) , motopsycho (better known as vikas D) , mi3 (better known as goobey) , runal (whats his name again ??) and myself (??) had a ball of a trip .. All we missed is a digicam , more bhpians and me obviously my car ..

Wish rudra and samurai will be willing to join us on such future trips so that we have the photography part covered apart from the guarantee of being offered the finest booze ..

[memo45_m]

buddy mclaren why don u explain the funny moments of thr trip too....... then all the things we did to convince the cops and HOW DID U FORGET THE '' TRAVELLER'S GUEST HOUSE OWNER ''...... The god father of our Goa leg of the journey

[memo45_m]

by the way a huge thanks to
1. samurai for letting us know the mother nature side of manipal............ 2. mclaren for putting up with all my nonsense and my major part of the driving........
3. motopsyco for joining the forum and for a the fun he had is store through the drive.....
4. nos, mi3, runal to get along with us for every silly thing we did and for letting us do all that karting........

[aZa]

Seems like all the fun is Down South

Gr8 write up Mcleran! it was fun reading it

[Jay]

@ Mcl... wow dude thats a loooong post... interesting nevertheless to read... nice to hear you guys had great fun...
i still cant understand as to how 6 of you managed in one car for that long a journey...
Well hope we can make it next time around...
Too bad none of you had a good cam... the pic with memo's baleno in the right and the beach to the left is nice...

[satish_appasani]

mclaren...nice writeup.... and nice trip indeed....

BTW, how much fuel did you burn, i mean not for you but for the car?

[motophsyco]

dude dats an awesome write up of what happened....hats off

[memo45_m]

WE spent abt 2 full tanks and an additional 10 ltrs making it in total of 51+51+10= 112ltrs of fuel for the car and had an fe of abt 14 kmpl....... and we were 10 kms short of 2000kms......... on the whole it was an amazing trip that we suggest everyone to do when they got the time to.............. and as mclaren and motopsycho say nothing liking checking out MOTHER NATURE......

[DRC]

MCL, Wasn't it raining there... Planning this trip next week.

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by DRC

MCL, Wasn't it raining there... Planning this trip next week.

Well it was indeed raining heavily in a few stretches , but i guess thats where the fun lies .. Visibility at times was less than 5 feet , but to see the hills clad with clouds all around , that slight drizzle , the water droplets trickling from the leaves over u , the tingling feeling u get when the droplets run down ur spine .. Its just wonderful ..

I guess this is the best time to do this trip .. One that is worth every minute , every penny u spend .. Just make sure most of ur travel is during the day time .. The roads are trecherous (read sharp curves , blind turns) but super fun nonetheless .. If ur heading to kemmangundi make sure u take the 1st left on the highway and not the other deviation which a few kms down the road .. This road is absolutely the most fun loving road i have ever been on .. Single lane, no boundaries to the left , passengers can literally look down to where the bottom is .. Whew , scary yet fun .. And BEWARE OF LEECHES .. Those suckers are damn painful .. Carry ciggies or salt at all times .. Dont walk on grass , or get into water ..

Have fun , do post ur share of the trip with loads and loads of pics .. Though a cam cant do justice to all those beautiful sights that beholds the naked eye , it would be nice to relive those moments .. And like i kept saying throughout the trip , NOTHING LIKE CHECKING OUT MOTHER NATURE ..

PS : Do make sure u visit END POINT in manipal , stop by at the malpe beach , if u are not too keen on doing Jog Falls (actually u must seeing the rains) u could drive down through the ankola ghats too .. Thats another route i would love to take any given day ..

[khaadu75]

Mclaren, GOA and that too without me ..... Even I have been itching to go there again but I guess I will have to wait for a few months more .. Anywyas, seem you guys had a gud trip !!!

Cheers

[mclaren1885]

Originally Posted by khaadu75

Mclaren, GOA and that too without me .....
Cheers

Well actually i did think of giving u a call the moment i reached goa .. But then , off season matlab no shacks , no firangs , no masti , matlab khaadu getting bored .. Yes kingfisher would have always been there but that u could do sitting in the hills back in himachal bhi na .. So decided to party alone .. Well next time ur planning on something , just let me know .. Would love to join u along with a few friends and ofcourse our cars ..