5th March 2009, 14:44
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| BHPian  | Bangalore-Kalasa-Kudremukh-Udupi-Karkala-Charmadi-Bangalore Well, primarily we dont plan. And then, a trip can come from any where, any time.. without a hint. Thats how i travel... And so does my wife  After wedding each weekend is a "get-together" weekend and it gets on the nerves after 7 in a row! Thats when you want to really drive to the ghats on the west. After one accident, while tailing my fiesta behind the infamous tempo traveller, parents are a big NO to night driving. So then Saturday and Sunday are the only 2 days at our disposal and yes i need to travel 400 Kms atleast. Otherwise, it doesnt seem to be a long drive anymore with good roads and good cars these days. There we go! Got up at 3.30 am on sat morning...listen to this, my usual week day waking time is 8.30 am and start to office at 10.30 and here is me getting up at 3.30 am and switching on the geyser.. And my parents still think its a dream. I am cleaning my car at 4.30 in the morning and the gurkha comes to me and says he has not seen me around though he has been around for years... I wasnt surprised We leave bangalore at 5 am. Trip party : My wife and Myself. Car : Ford Fiesta Petrol 1.6 Zxi Destination: Still Unknown! Since it is still 5 am, we decided to drive through the city from JP Nagar 1st phase and reached NH4 at Yashawanthapur. By now, we were decided to travel towards either Mangalore/Udupi or Sagar... Either of the places requires me to drive till Nelamangala. I could see a big infrastructure project being done on NH4 from peenya and goes beyond Nelamangala junction. It seems to be a Flyover road for the whole stretch. I saw a Hynudai Terracan with the "Hellboy" stickering, dont know if that was the "hellboy" of team-bhp?? Once we reached Nelamangala, we thought we could as well visit Kalasa and Horanadu and maybe stay overnight at kalasa anddrive back on Sunday noon. Seemed a good deal. We reached Yadiyur Roadside hotel where most of the KSRTC buses halt for a break, at 7 am. And guess what, we were the first customers for Idli, Vada for the day and surprisingly vada was not over-salted! After breakfast, we continued our journey and passed through Channarayapatna, Hassan. Surprisingly the whole stretch after kunigal was filled with fog till 8.30 am, which is unusual for this time of the year. Most of the vehicles were driving with fog lamps. We passed Hassan at 9 am and took the Hassan-Belur road. This road is as always, in pretty good condition. Nelamangala to Channarayapatna has 4 laning activity going along at a good pace. But i definitely feel the government has to plan for tommorrow rather than plan for the traffic that ply today. I mean Bangalore-Mangalore definitely requires 6 laning to a 4 lane highway. What do u guys think? Doesnt help, leave it #$%. Once we reach belur, we take a U-turn towards the Belur town and then cross the river bridge to move towards Mudigere route. Mudigere is around 32 Kms from belur and the road is a bit narrow and the shoulder are not in good state. Allowing the vehicle to drop down the shoulders could prove nasty. But i should say the road is in drivable condition. Once u reach Mudigere, carry on towards Kottigehara. All this while after belur, there is signs of coffee estates around and the scenary turns into paddy fields with patches of coffee estates in between. The paddy is cut at this time of the year and new seedlings were yet to be sown in and hence the drive was not all that green in this area. Then you take a right turn at a junction which leads towards Kalasa, Horanadu, Shringeri and going straight would go to Charmadi ghats towards Dharmastala. From now the road has forests on both sides with coffee estates inbetween. Surprisingly i could see tea estates too. We reach Kalasa by around 12noon. We visit the Kalasa temple to get the Darshan of "Kalaseshwara". Personally i like the Kalasa temple a lot for its calm. We have lunch at Thotadooru Yatri Nivas. Lunch was a south Indian plate meals with chapathi for Rs.24 per plate. We fill petrol in Kalasa. Since we had come this far and it was noon, we thought we may as well drive through Kudremukh sanctuary and stay overnight on the coast. Wife nods her head and off we drive towards Kudremukh. There are lots of rivers, streams flowing even in this heat and hasnt dried up yet. We visit the Lakya dam which is a Reservior to store water on one side and also gather sediment and sand. I beleive there is 300 feet of soft moist sand there in the DAM. We couldnt see any water in this reservoir whatsoever, but could see vast area of sand. A new experience. Then we see Gangamoola which is the birthplace of 2 rivers Tunga and Bhadra which are very close to each other, but flow in different directions then on. As you all know, they merge as Tunga-Bhandra later on. We reach a place called Samse which is full of Tea estates. We stopped by a tea shop which sold fresh tea powder too. Did some tea powder shopping and spent some time in the river which flows-by called Somavathi River. We had another 100 Kms to reach Udupi. We leave this place by 1.45 and started driving towards Karkala. Reached Karkala by 3.30 and udupi by 4.30 pm. We could have driven from Karkala to Udupi vis Manipal. Since we were not aware of this route we had taken the Karkala-Surla-Kaatpadi route to hit NH17. We checkin at Kediyoor Hotel which is a very good lodge to stay in complete with AC, colour TV,very clean Bathrooms and great food. Think of Mangalore buns, Goli bhajji, Neer dosa et all !! We relax and hit the bed till 5.45 pm surfing TV. And then we realised, we could as well go to Malpe beach and it was time. I get into my shorts and took our cameras and off we drive to Malpe which is 5 Kms from Udupi town. We spend the next hour at the beach until it was dark. We drive back to Hotel, order for Bhajji and tea. We watched BETA on some hindi channel and it was 9 pm already. Well, time for dinner!! and we were hungry already. End of Day 1. |
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5th March 2009, 15:26
| #2 |
| BHPian |              This is where we had tea and did tea powder shopping   |
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5th March 2009, 16:13
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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5th March 2009, 16:20
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| BHPian | |
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5th March 2009, 16:34
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| BHPian | More snaps from Day 1.           |
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5th March 2009, 16:34
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| Senior - BHPian  | Excellent picture pal. The very first one is mind blowing Quote:
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5th March 2009, 16:45
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| Team-BHP Support   | Nice report, I have never been Kalasa despite being so close. May be soon. Quote:
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5th March 2009, 16:47
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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5th March 2009, 16:49
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| Senior - BHPian | Quote:
 Kudremukh should be done on early morning to experience the fog and the sunrise from the dam. I remember one of my first trip on bike with inadequate woolen protection, I was riding at 20kmph and continuously wiping my glasses. | |
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6th March 2009, 12:41
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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6th March 2009, 13:03
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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6th March 2009, 17:06
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| BHPian | Day2 Day 2 Got up at 9 am. Called up the room service for 2 continental breakfasts. We were ready by 10.30 am. We had to start back to bangalore atleast by 3 pm. So we had 3 to 4 hours at our disposal. We drove to Malpe Bhandaru and clicked snaps of the fishing boats. Unfortunately, the fisher men were on leave on first Sunday of every month. Hence we couldnt get to see the fresh catch.    By then it was 12 noon. We planned to visit Pillikola to take a glimpse at Romulus Whittaker's Kingcobra collection and the Lake at that place. But i was adviced that it was atleast 70 Kms from Udupi and i was in no mood to travel towards mangalore in that heat. Finally we decided to go back to Udupi and have lunch at Diana. We checked out of Kediyoor and got into Diana for lunch. Ordered Poori Panner masala and Channa Bhatura and obviously ended with Gudbud.   We start Udupi at 3 pm and travel towards Padubidri on the NH17 and take left deviation towards Karkala via Shirla. Shirla (12 Kms from Katpadi junction) Karkala (44 Kms from Udupi on this route) Udupi to karkala via Manipal is 36 Kms. On the way to karkala, i could see NITTE group of colleges. Hadnt seen it earlier. We visit the 8 pillared temple at Karkala, the Lake and the Gomateshwara. The climb to Gomateshwara hill has 200 odd steps and not tiring. Clicked snaps from the top. The statue is 42 feet in height and is not as good as the one at Shravanabelagola. But definitely it was worth a visit.    We then moved towards Mudabidri, Guruvayyanakere, Belathangadi and Ujjire.    Finally the lofty Charmadi hills stood infront of us. Its a sight to behold. I had not done the charmadi ghats before this and this truely was a super experience to drive the toughest ghat in Karnataka. There were numerous water streams on every corner, every turn and a number of View points.     The road quality is very good, thanks to the recent tarmacing activity! But drivers need to be aware of the 4 feet deep ditch all the way through the ghat on the left side. On coming vehicles can push us into it any time. We reached kottigehara by 6.30 pm. and after that a decent road till belur (just follow the well signed boards). From belur to Bangalore, it was a 4 hour pedal-to-metal drive of 220 kms, with a dinner halt at Hassan (Sri Krishna hotel). So, we reach home at 11.30 pm and hit the bed, thinking of the monday morning :( Total Distance: 880 Kms Mileage: 12 Kms/litre of Unleaded Normal petrol. Hightlight: Charmadi ghats, Kalasa temple, Kudremukh sanctuary road. Next trip : Talacauvery and around (coorg) Surprises: Udupi-Mangalore NH17 stretch in great condition. Charmadi ghat road in very good Condition Didnt feel tired after 900 Kms in 2 days Regards, Pramod |
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6th March 2009, 17:38
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| Senior - BHPian | Gudbud at Diana is a delicacy. Good you had it. Another must go place is Mitra Samaj in the Krishna Temple square, a 200 year old eatery famous for its dosa's and bullet Idli. I'm feeling hungry now  |
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6th March 2009, 17:59
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| Senior - BHPian  | Quote:
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6th March 2009, 18:07
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