Mangalore was a place I always wanted to visit but just couldn’t plan. This New Year had a long weekend so decided lets head Mangalore and Udupi this time. There was a lot of speculation happening over which route to take while driving through as news flashed that Shiradi ghat road was going to be closed real soon. After some discussions and debates, we finally decided to take Shiradi ghat while going and Charmadi ghat roads while returning. Drive day was 1st Jan 2015, early morning and our drive was Chevy Beat. Total 3 people – Mom, Atul and me.
Bangalore > Nelamangala > Hassan > Shiradi Ghat > Mangalore
Day 1
Plan was to leave as early as possible to cover much distance in the wee hours of dawn. But previous day being the New Year’s Eve and sleeping late, we could only wake up around 4:15. By the time we were ready and started our engine, time was already 5:00am. To add on to our dismay it was raining in that hour of time and a big loud noise from the nearby transformer – power off. Somehow with car and mobile lights we loaded our stuffs and started our journey sharp at 5:15am. Car ODO read 5102kms.
Took Bannerghatta road, reached Nice Road around 5:45am, Rs 130 toll to reach Tumkur Road / Bangalore-Mangalore Highway. Due to dense fog, visibility was very low in Nice road hence the drive was very careful and involved lesser overtaking. 6:00am exit Nice Road and took turn towards BM Highway / NH 48. Traffic was kind of heavy here due to huge trucks and narrow toll gate to pass (single car entry at a time) – Rs 20 toll fare. After this toll gate the drive became pretty good – nice wide 4 lane roads. Reached the first NH 48 toll gate (Rs 41). One hour drive and we reached a small Kamat café, decided to stop by and have some tea. Pretty clean and decent place – tea and rest room use, we hit the roads again at 7:15am. Reached the second toll gate (Rs 41). After some time, we stopped by a petrol station, filled the tank full, air in the tires and headed straight towards Hassan. Came pass two toll gates till Hassan (one Rs 35 another Rs 30). Around 9:45am we reached Hassan and took turn towards Shakleshpur. The view throughout NH 48 was outstanding, treat for ones’ eyes – roads going up and down, complete view of the road ahead was amazing. This by far was the best NH I have seen after Bangalore-Chennai highway. By now we were too hungry and wanted to have some food. Came by a place called Ossor Restaurant amidst a coffee plantation estate and decided to have our breakfast – puri, sabji, masala dosa and tea.
10:50am and we started our journey towards Mangalore via Shiradi Ghat. As the twisties started we came across a board which says that the Shiradi ghat will be closed from 2nd Jan onwards until 5 months. Cruising through the twists, we had to be careful from heavy trucks, KSRTC and fast moving vehicles. I was warned million times by all my friends to be aware of the rash driving KSRTC buses as they see no one and stop for none. Reached Shakleshpur town around 11am and continued towards the ghat roads. The view from the ghat section was breath-taking. We enjoyed the scenic and green beauty around us. The drive was marvelous yet difficult too. Bad roads all across the way, big potholes, dust and stones. Drive was very slow and nothing more than 1st / 2nd gears. We could see huge piles of construction materials all along the way which we dumped before hand for the road improvements. Luckily the traffic in these roads was very minimal and manageable. Around 12:20pm we crossed the Shiradi ghat section and reached a toll booth for the highway leading towards Mangalore (Rs 20). Another 2 hrs drive and we reached Mangalore city limits. As soon as we entered the city we could feel the humidity, it wasn’t cold at all. By 3pm we reached our hotel, Hotel Mangalore International, situated in the KS Rao Road and right infront of the City Center mall. Parking was a bit risky as had to park it in a small place in front of the hotel. However, it had security guards, we felt a little relief. Rooms were decent and ok for a budgeted hotel. Dumped our bags and stepped out for some food. It was already 3:30pm and most of the restaurants were close for lunch. Had to settle for Dominos, a small walk from the hotel. Though we didn’t plan anything specific for day 1, we decided to sleep for a while and take some rest. We woke up and decided how to kill the evening. Planned – watch a movie “Night in the Museum Part3’ at Cinepolis in the City Center mall and dinner at Corals in the Ocean Pearl hotel. We ate some dal, rice, mutton fry and mutton biriryani. 11pm, back to hotel and we retired to sleep after a long day. Day 2 was when we go for sight-seeing.
Day 2
Deliberately woke up late, 9:30am - feeling fresh after a tiring first day. Pilikula Botanical Garden, Panambur Beach and Tannir Bavi Beach were our destination places for today. Started at 11am and planned for some breakfast. Stopped at a restaurant called ‘EggSunday’ and had some amazing eggy breakfast – omletes, pav breads, juice and chai. Done with our sumptuous food, we started towards Pilikula Botanical Garden which was 12 kms from this place. 12:45pm – reached the park. Pili means tiger and kula means water – so basically this place was an area from tigers to come and drink water long long time back. Entry to the park was Rs 100, this included only the zoo. Adjacent to the zoo was a water park as well. We didn’t opt for that. Spread across a huge area, the zoo homed some beautiful birds, reptiles, lions, tigers, deers, turtles and crocos. It was a beautiful and well-managed zoo. Without spending much time we now headed towards Panambur beach. It was 15kms from Pilikula.
2:30pm we reached Panambur beach which on the way NH 17 (straight towards Panaji). This is basically a port as well as Indian coast guard station. Ample space for parking, this beach was quite crowded despite being a weekday, however, the beach is very beautiful. The water here was clean but too sandy. Hundreds of visitors all along the beach – some playing with waters, some going for horse and camel rides, others were enjoying motor rides towards the sea and some ATV. We went for a motor boat ride which cost Rs 100 per person – a quick 10 mins ride into the sea and back. There are many sea food joints along the beach, we enjoyed some awesome crab masala curry, fried fish, prawns fried rice, ice golas and faloodas. It was already 4:15pm and we now headed towards Tannir Bhavi Beach which was 6kms from Panambur. 4:35pm, we reached Tannir Bhavi beach. Super scenic beauty all along the way that leads to the beach. It’s a very peaceful beach and we planned to catch the sunset. Towards the evening, people started to flock in groups and in no time the beach was full of people. No luck though – the sun was covered by dense clouds hence we couldn’t see a proper sunset. Feeling disappointed we thought of returning back to hotel. Not many food-joints in this place – only couple of huts/shacks offering bread omlet, magi, churmuris and cut cucumbers. Around 7pm we left for hotel.
7:35pm we reached our hotel, got freshen up and once again headed out for some dinner. This time we didn’t go far – experimented in the food court of City Center mall. Did some quick shopping for the next day, had dinner – chilli momos, keema mutton and fried rice, back by 10:15pm. By 10:45pm we all retired into our beds.
Day 3
Our day started by waking up at 8am. Today’s destinations were St. Mary’s Island in Udupi and NITK Lighthouse Beach. Had our breakfast in the hotel cafeteria. Simple food – idly, wheat dosa, khara and kesar bath along with tea. Around 10am, started from hotel and moved towards Udupi. It was 67kms away from our location via NH 17. Good two lane drive, at times it became four lanes. Guess it was some festival related to Muslim folks; hence most part of the road was blocked. This created some inconvenience and the traffic was dense at some places. Despite all these we reached Adi Udupi at around 11:40am.
Passing through a narrow road, we reached Maple beach, St Mary’s Island port. One has to take a ferry to St Mary’s Island, fare being Rs 100 per person. Had to wait for 40mins for the ferry to come and pick us up. 12:20pm the ferry started towards island. We would see huge ships anchored on to the port. Super scenic beauty of the Arabian Sea mesmerized us a lot. And the view of the island from far was adding on to our excitement. We could see people parasailing on the bank. It took 25mins for the ferry to reach the island shores, 12:45pm. They gave us 1hr time to enjoy around the island and come back sharp by 1:45pm to be ferried back to the port.
The island is a place to die for, simply loved it. Its bank is full of broken sea shells with rocks spread all across the shores. Greenery all along, the island was stunning with golden sand, rocks, coconut trees, crabs, cranes, clear sky with white clouds and an endless view of the sea. There was water scooters for enthusiastic visitors and I bet the owners made some good money as people were super excited to take a ride on those scooters. Not many eateries, gola guy, cucumber, churmudi, etc. I had a small accident while on the island – could figure out a slippery rock and a wrong step – straight down the rock with bruised left hand. Asked some ice from the gola guy and continued enjoying the nature. :)
In no time 1 hour past and it was time for us to go back to the meeting point where the small boat would pick us up to be taken to the ferry. While it got late for people to come and gather, at 2pm we started with the ferry ride back and reached the disembarking point by 2:30pm. We started back our journey towards Suratkal and decided to have lunch on our way back. Reached a place called Bittu da dhaba at around 3:30pm, where we had our lunch, nice veg place and not very crowded. Ate rice, dal, bhindi fry, aloo mutter, tandoori roti, lassi and some soft drinks. 45mins of rest and we started for NITK beach. Our gps gave us wrong directions and we had trouble finding this beach which was our last destination of the trip. After some asking around and reworking on the gps system, we finally arrived at the NITK Suratkal Lighthouse beach at 4:45pm. Seeing the clear skies, we were determined to see the sunset today and then leave. This beach has a lighthouse and NIT Suratkal was just along the bank of the sea. Unfortunately we couldn’t climb up the lighthouse as it was close for that day. This beach is a bit sandy as the waves brings in lot of sand with it. However, a nice pleasant place to enjoy some quality time with family and friends. We could see many NIT guys jogging along the beach and few love birds having good time. Atul and me did our share of enjoyment by playing with the waves and getting all childlike, mom however preferred to witness all these from far. After a long wait of 75mins, the sun slowly started to fade away for the day. Mom, Atul and me sat down to see the day end and capture few moments through our camera lenses.
6:20pm the sun went down like a big fireball submerged into the water and with a promise to come back again the next day. With dusk setting in, we decided to head back to Mangalore. 7:30pm reached hotel. All of us took bath and got freshen up for a dinner at Gajalee - heard a lot about this seafood place in Mangalore. Reach this place at around 9:15pm, but must say a very bad experience. I never visit such an awful place in life, pricey yet below standard food, unfriendly staff members and nothing close to seafood – didn’t have lobsters, crabs, bombil. This was the worst thing we experienced in our otherwise awesome stay in Mangalore. I rated them 1 in Zomato. 10:30pm we were back to the hotel and retired for the day. We had to make sure to sleep properly and get up fresh for our drive back to Bangalore.
Day 4
Mangalore > Charmadi Ghat roads > Belur > Hassan > Nelamangala > Bangalore
This was the day to drive back home. Deliberately got up late, around 9:30am. We got freshen up and decided to check out from the hotel. Since payment was made before-hand it didn’t take us much time to settle everything and head out. 11:15am we stepped out of the hotel and on the way decided to have breakfast at Pabbas, the famous ice cream parlor in Mangalore. It was 2kms away from our hotel and reached there in no time. It was a nice place with all varieties of ice creams and other eateries. It was pretty crowded being a Sunday however, we quickly got our table and in no time decided what we wanted to eat – Banana split, Pabbas special ice cream, veg cutlets, some sandwiches and tea. Delicious ice creams and it got over just by blink of eyes. Paid our bills, started our journey back to Bangalore. Car ODO read 5669kms and 12:15pm we left the city limits. Entered this toll gate to catch NH 48 (Rs 20). A decent two lane drive, at times it did become one, not much traffic. This drive till Charmadi ghat roads section was highly un-eventful and pretty much boring. Too many twisties and town limits all along the way, sudden zooping around of trucks, KSRTC buses and some rash drivers did give us chills but undeterred we continued to go on in a lesser pace and be safe.
At around 2:30pm we reached the Charmadi ghat sections, everything was going on well till now, awesome scenic beauty of the ghats but super difficult HPBs, narrow roads with hardly space for two vehicles to pass across each other at the same time. Suddenly the traffic started to pile up, huge KSRTC buses and other luxury buses got stuck around the twisties in each sides of the road. People had to get off their cars and manage the traffic for these giants to pass. Bumper to bumper traffic for almost 3 kms amidst those HPBs and had to get stuck for almost 90mins for the roads to get cleared off. One good thing was the roads were in very good conditions though a bit narrow as mentioned earlier. Somehow we left behind the horrid traffic behind and started moving ahead though we lost solid 2 hrs in all these.
5:15pm we reached Belur town and from there took State Highway 57 to reach Hassan which is almost 45kms away from Belur. Amazing road this was, we really enjoyed our drive from Belur to Hassan, two lane roads but super wide and nicely laid. Most NHs wouldn’t be as good as this one. Reached Hassan at 6:20pm and decided to have some food as we were famished. Stopped by at this veg restaurant (Mayura International), ordered for some gobi manchurian, paper masala dosa and tea. Back on the roads, NH 48 at around 7:05pm. Crossed 4 tolls along the way (Rs 30, 35, 41, 41).
Reached Nelamangala at around 9:45pm, gave toll (Rs 20) and after a while hit the NICE Road toll towards Bannerghatta road. And finally at 10:50pm we were back home. Car ODO read 6075kms.
A tiring journey yet enjoyed every bit off it as I feel everything in life comes as an experience and we should cherish those moments. Hope you all like the travelogue, tired to be as crisp and informative possible. Thanks
great trip report and an exceptional photo of the star fish, wonder why I see them most on this particular stretch of the coast and no other. Did you also know that the light house beach is the best place to collect "cowries" and that its quite a contest amongst the locals.
Could you update us with the vehicle used and mileage etc.?
Nice log with very good pictures took me back in time to my days in Mangalore in 2005-2007 when the city centre mall was not yet functional. And at Pabba's you should have also tried their special ice-cream 'Gudbud' which is unique of Mangalore. Try it next time.
