[KishoreC]

We woke up early to spend time on the beach. The cameras were conveniently left at the hotel room. We wanted to enjoy the early morning chill and freshness.

It's too bad you can't see sunrise on the west coast.

Anyway, our fun didn't last long as it started raining again. So got ready and packed up all the stuff in the car. Headed to the restaurant for breakfast.

A standard continental breakfast with a lot of south indian touches. We loved it. We hogged on Idlis, dhosas as well as bread, butter and omlettes.

After filling our tummy, the plan for the day was reiterated and finalized.

We will see Karkala, go to Udupi/Malpe through Manipal, then proceed to Maravanthe. Our end destination is Turtle Bay beach resort. My wife was hellbent on seeing St Aloysius Church. Me trying to convince her didn't work. I was scared to go into the city again after my experience last night.

We finally started at 9AM and proceeded to St. Aloysius church (As you know women have the final say ) . The church was closed as I suspected (it being a National Holiday the school was closed). We took couple of pictures from outside.







Soon after we left for Karkala. Took NH13 to reach Karkala. The road was in good condition and the morning drive on NH13 was pleasant.

We stopped at a roadside tea shop just after entering Moodabidri. We bough an assortment of local snacks from the next door Departmental store. I always make it a point to try local snacks. I never had Green color Murukku before.

Next stop "Thousand Pillars Basadi". Camera charge was a whopping Re. 100. My father in law got pissed, because everywhere in Hampi we had to give only 25 for camera. So we didn't take the cameras inside. Here are couple of pictures I took from outside.















Continued to Karkala and reached Karkala around 11:30 AM. It was drizzling when we reached, so me my wife and mother in law start climbing the stairs. My father in law waited at the tea shop next to the parking area. After the initial group of stairs, rain slowly started to increase. I didn't want to risk the NIKON getting wet, because the camera bag was not waterproof. So I turned back with the camera and ran all the way down to the safety of the tea shop.

It rained for next 1 and half hour. My wife and mother in law was fully drenched, but still they went to the top and saw the Bahubali Temple.

Now was the time to look for a room, so that they can change into dry cloths. I tried to catch someone at the Jain Mutt to get a room at their there dormitory for an hour, but could not find anyone at all. So we tracked back to the outskirts of Karkala to the Reliance Petrol Pump. Request to the manager to let us use their store room worked.

All this time it was raining, and it was raining heavily. I don't even have a single picture of Karkala from this trip.
So sharing some pics I took during our last visit.













Coming up.. Malpe beach when it's raining

[KishoreC]

Where are we going now?
Malpe.
Why? The plan says Agumbe is next.
Yes. But in this rain, there is no point in going up the hill and see nothing.
Hill? How big?
Not big. But there are 14 Hairpin bends before we reach the "sunset Point".
OK. Malpe then.

We shelve our plan to see Agumbe because it was raining continuously, instead we head towards Udupi to see Malpe beach.

We reach Manipal after around an hour, it's 2:00 PM and all of us are pretty hungry. So we stop at "Paratha Corner" in Manipal. Parathas were good and the gravy was OK. The place is just like any other road side hotel. It could be a little more cleaner for me to feel comfortable.

Anyway, continued to Malpe beach afterward. I had tanked up in the morning in Mangalore, so no worries. It was not raining anymore, but it was cloudy. We reach Malpe around 30 minutes later.

As soon as we hit the beach road it started raining again. The quota of getting wet is already over for the day, so we stay in the car and drive on the road next to the beach instead. Rain stopped after 15-20 minutes and we get out to enjoy the beach. Going into the water was not on the cards, we wanted to see and take in the fresh air on the beach.

We enjoyed fried fish at the corner stall afterwards. The same fish will make us come back here for more then next day.

"Life holds it's simple pleasures. Fried fish being one of those."
Here are the pictures.

It's raining


Tricky to synch the camera and the wiper


She looks cleaner after the rain










After all that abuse she still performed beautifully


It was almost 4:30 PM and with Malpe done, the only thing remained is to reach Maravanthe and settle down in Turtle Bay Beach resort.

It was no mean feat. You'll know when you see condition of NH17 between Udupi and Honnavar. My average speed must have been something close to 25 KMPH, because the major portion of the road was in the "NO ROAD" condition. We made progress slowly and reached reached Turtle bay only by 7:30 PM.

I was tired with the long battle with battered roads and slowly started unloading the stuff. The gloomy old rooms of Turtle Bay also brought our moods down.

While unloading the stuff we discovered our blunder. It was a mistake done on the previous day when I left my laptop at my in-law's room. The next day we were already late in starting from Mangalore. So in the hurry we missed the laptop bag and left Mangalore. An immediate call to Summer Sands revealed that they have found the Bag and the laptop inside. We told them we'll come there next morning to collect it. I didn't expect anything else from a highly regarded resort like Summer Sands, but in the end it was a unpardonable mistake on my part.

The penalty was to drive back to Mangalore (on that stretch of nightmarish NH17) to collect the laptop and loose more than half a day in the middle of the trip. We took this opportunity to visit Malpe again the next day and had 2 fried fishes per head as our lunch.

Coming up next.. on the way to Murudeshwara and Gokarna

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by KishoreC

Not big. But there are 14 Hairpin bends before we reach the "sunset Point".

It should be renamed as Fog Point. I have never seen Sun from this place. In fact, I can see this hill range from my house, say about 10-15 days in the entire year. So what are your chances of seeing sunset from here?

Originally Posted by KishoreC

So we stop at "Paratha Corner" in Manipal. Parathas were good and the gravy was OK. The place is just like any other road side hotel. It could be a little more cleaner for me to feel comfortable.

Hmm, never been here, must be a student joint. Where is this place?

Originally Posted by KishoreC

The gloomy old rooms of Turtle Bay also brought our moods down.

This is one sad little place, I wonder why people go here. There are alternatives like Sun Castle. Sun Castle - Home Page

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Hmm, never been here, must be a student joint. Where is this place?

Yes it's student joint. Saw lots of them having lunch there.
It's on the right side of the road while coming from Karkala just after entering the city. You get it before you reach the Cafe Coffe Day.

It was problematic getting to a toilet in this area. The CCD is a big one but does not have a toilet. I guess a University town has its own limitations.

[KishoreC]

Most of the third day was wasted in returning to Mangalore to collect the laptop from Summer Sands. I extended my hearty thanks to the service person as well as the person at the reception. We started at 4AM from Turtle Bay and was in Mangalore by 9 AM. I wouldn't like to describe the road again, thinking of it gives me shivers.

But the drive was not without any incident. In Suratkal town NH17 is a divided 4 lane road. A bus coming from opposite splashed a good amount of muddy water on my vehicle. The timing was such that I couldn't avoid the splash, there was a guy on bike behind me who also got drenched. Rest of the day we didn't roll down any of the windows. It didn't take too long for rain to clean the mud from the vehicle.

After collecting the laptop we had breakfast in a nearby "Sagar" type restaurant. Puri for everyone, followed by coffee. We started north again around 10:30 AM.

While coming to Mangalore from Maravanthe I took NH17 all the way, while going back took Mangalore - Karkala - Udupi - Kundapur route. It was 30 KMs more but took almost same time, as the road from Mangalore to Karkala and Karkala to Udupi are in much much better condition than NH17.

All of us had snacks and tea for lunch. Finally reaching maravanthe arround 3 PM.

In-laws were quite excited, they didn't imagine Maravanthe to be this good from our description of the place. It's amazing to see Sea at one side and Souparnika river at the other. There was lot of crowd and saw lots of buses and taxis stopped on the stretch.

We spent more than an hour looking at the sea and the beach. Also had Gobi Manchurian and coffee at one of the jhopris.

Here are couple of snaps












After Maravanthe, it was time to head to the final destination of the day. Om Beach Resort, Gokarna. Why didn't we see Murudeshwara? We didn't have time, so we had to come back next day to see Murudeshwara.

On the way we spotted these:






I guess we spotted the same fall on our way back on NH206.

The drive was horrendous till Bhatkal. NH17 within Bhatkal town was worst in condition. Roads improved a little after Bhatkal and bad patches were lesser in number. Bad roads totally vanished after Honnavar. Roam surface was good and you could see the marking on the road is not too old.

There were occasional bad stretches. I remember one really bad one before a bridge. It got dark and started raining again. So we progressed slowly and cautiously. Still I couldn't slow down in time for couple of bad patches. It's really annoying, especially when you don't expect to have a 200m of bad patch after 10KM of good road.

My car (Fabia) handled really well. She withstood the abuse for days, still no creaking sound or sorts from anywhere. I really felt sorry for the car, so never pushed it beyond 80KMPH anywhere in the trip. It was like, I was promising her good roads for the next trip.

After another long struggle, we reached Om beach resort around 8 PM. Trip meter has just crossed 1K mark. We checked in and got lost in the luxury of the resort. I'll describe the details of the resort with pics in my next post.

With that Day 3 ends, with a sigh of relief that we got our laptop back, and with a prayer, that we learn from this one and don't make the same mistake again.

[ampere]

Amazing photos. How was the performance of the car? I looked at all the threads, but I did not see anything mentioned about it.

I will do this circuit, but definitely not in monsoon times !

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by ampere

How was the performance of the car? I looked at all the threads, but I did not see anything mentioned about it.

FE wise, I'm sorry, I didn't measure it in this trip. With the road condition in mind I can guess it will be abysmally low.

In my last trip to Hampi we got 17.XX KMPL with 5 Adults and 2 cabin bags.

Hopefully it answers your question.

[PearlJam]

Excellent narration and photos! As asked by ampere, how was the car's performance in terms of acceleration, airconditioning, stability, and refinement?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by KishoreC

Yes it's student joint. Saw lots of them having lunch there.

It was problematic getting to a toilet in this area. The CCD is a big one but does not have a toilet. I guess a University town has its own limitations.

That's the worst CCD in the country I think. There are many proper restuarants with good toilets in Manipal. Just avoid typical student joints.

Originally Posted by KishoreC

While coming to Mangalore from Maravanthe I took NH17 all the way, while going back took Mangalore - Karkala - Udupi - Kundapur route. It was 30 KMs more but took almost same time, as the road from Mangalore to Karkala and Karkala to Udupi are in much much better condition than NH17.

That's a long detour.

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by PearlJam

Excellent narration and photos! As asked by ampere, how was the car's performance in terms of acceleration, airconditioning, stability, and refinement?

I'm no techie when it comes to cars, but will share my opinion here.

Acceleration :
OK.

Never pushed it too hard so don;t have a time measurement. More than enough in city driving condition. Mine is a diesel one, so in the city I keep it at the lowest gear possible and use high rev to have better response from the engine. In diesel version the engine becomes most responsive over 2K RPM, I guess that's true for all the diesel engines.

What amazes me is the acceleration from 80 to 100 is quite good, if you shift to 5th at 80 KMPH.

Air Conditioning:

I have had couple of problems with A/C. First it came with a already blown fuse. We detected it after bringing the car home. Next, something was wrong with the filter, so fan was blowing real slow. After these were fixed, the A/C works like a charm. A/C on 2 is more than enough for Bangalore. We only need 4 or 5 on a very hot day and only outside of Bangalore.

General drivability :

This is where SKODA quality shows off. The built quality of the vehicle is among the highest in Indian market. I'm very pleased to see SKODA hadn't reduced the quality in their hatchback. You'll definitely like the overall built of the car. It's sturdy, very practical and at the end the doors shut with a mild "thud".

The steering is superb and bulky. Leg rooms enough and ride quality is pretty impressive.

Braking effectiveness will impress everyone. Mine is clocking 25K, several hard stops, but no skids yet.

The Gear system is a joy. It's so easy that you'll never miss 3rd. I don;t know the technical terms but there is some kind of retainer control in play here. Once you have moved the stick towards 3rd, it can only go into 3rd, same to other gears. Typical SKODA, press and put on 1st for reverse. Takes a little practice, but very easy none the less.

Stability :

Beleive it or not it is as stable or even better than a normal sedan. I tested her upto 130 KMPH without ever having a sense of anything wrong. The steering becomes harder with speed and a superb breaking makes it a very stable vehicle at higher speed.

Only glitch I see is the body roll. A feeling of high body roll always comes whenever turning on high speed. Never tried it at a considerable higher speed.

My views here may be biased, because my previous car was a Suzuki Grand Vitatara 2.5 V6. I got used to high body roll and danger of toppling by riding that SUV for 5 years.

Refinements:

Most of these are not written on the specs. I guess SKODA wants to play the "hidden features" game.

1. A very powerful remote lock and unlock. Tried it on MG road in Bangalore from 500 ft away with lots of vehicles around.
2. Can roll up/down all windows at once by turning the key. Very useful on hot summer days, to let the hot air out quickly.
3. Chilled glove box. Never used it, in fact never found a use of it.
4. Steering adjustment available on both axis.
5. One touch window roll up/down.
6. 300 LT boot.
7. Rear seats 60:40 and fold-able.
8. Heated and remotely adjustable RVMs.
9. Crash proof pedals. Pedals will break/fold in case of frontal crash.
10. Headlights vertical control.

I took the Ambiente version so have Alloy wheels with it.

Hidden Bads:

1. Engine is really loud. Even sumo/qualis will shy away.
2. Headlights even on highest level is useless. I plan to change the bulbs and put couple of new lights in front.
3. No speakers on back doors. The space for speakers are there but no speakers.
4. Only 1 reverse light (isn't that weird?).

This almost became a review of the car.

Anyway I hope the info help you guys.

[ampere]

Wow! That is fantastic! With Skoda I am always on the double edged Sword. One end of the spectrum is such a ride quality. And on the other end is the Skoda service, which puts back the brake.

I was eagerly waiting for the Yeti. Every time I take a step forward, the A** reminder comes back !

Always in two minds! To Buy or not to Buy!

[KishoreC]

We started day 4 on a positive note. We had Gokarna, Murudeshwara and Karwar in our changed plan. We were supposed to do Murudeshwara the previous day but time didn't permit.

Before we started we enjoyed and appreciated the Om Beach resort by going to every corner of the resort. You can see the ocean far away from the restaurant. I didn't notice that the filter got fog on it overnight. So first couple of pictures were not that sharp.

See for yourself.
















We started at 9 AM after a sumptuous breakfast, to visit Om Beach. It was a cloudy day with rain every now and then. The view from top of the hill made us stop there. We stopped there for 15-20 minutes to appreciate the view. I haven't seen such a beautiful landscape anywhere else. The hill, the beach and the ocean made a perfect trio. It was hard to finally leave.

Here are couple of pics:












Now the question is, did I have my hazard light on ? Yes I did, but the timing made it look otherwise.




We drove to the area where the stair to the beach starts. I at least wanted my in-laws to have a peak at the beach if they didn't want to go down. The Rain Gods were planning otherwise. It started raining again. Knowing that the steps down to the beach will be quite treacherous, we didn't take the risk and turned back.

In both my visits to Gokarna, I couldn't enjoy Om Beach to the fullest. Last time it was a shooting party, this time it is rain.

Sharing some pics from our last trip.










At 10 AM we were on our way to Murudeshwara. It kept on raining and the road from Gokarna to NH17 was in a pretty bad shape. Progress was slow and it took us quite a while to reach NH17.

Coming up.. Murudeshwara and a very bad decision.

[lohithrao]

Kishore a good report there and nice pics too...

Bad roads have become part of our life (for the people from coast...)

Slush being splashed by the buses, even i was the victim. had to spend half a day to clean inside the car....yuck

[KishoreC]

We continued on NH17 and the rain stopped after sometimes. After Kumta we realized that all of us need a tea break. We stopped at a roadside tea shop. I guess it was in Haldipur.

Here comes the big shock. Me and my father in law go into the shop and place order for tea. "Nalaku Tea" I said (I manage to say only that much Kannada). There was a Kannada newspaper on the table, I can't read Kannada so didn't even pick up the paper. My father in law noticed there were lots of pictures on the first page talking about some kind of devastation. he inquired about it at the shop. The guy at the shop could manage to call another guy who could speak fluently in Hindi. He introduced himself and said he was a primary school teacher in Raichur. He is back home for Diwali vacation. He read the newspaper for us letting us know that there has been flooding in Orissa, AP and Karnataka. Also that NH17 was closed after Ankola and Karwar is inaccessible.

We were shell shocked. We haven't been watching TV or reading newspapers for last 3-4 days. Who new, when we are having difficult time driving in the rain, people are losing all they had. Their homes are getting washed away.

Scary news. We inquired about situation down south and it seems south was not affected at all.

So what happens now. We can't go to Karwar which we had planned for the second half of the day. At least we wanted to see the Rabindranath Tagore beach. We thought of taking a decision while having lunch at Murudeshwara.

So continued to Murudeshwara, crossing Honnavar, Manki and then taking right at the BIG gate. We reached Murudeshwara after 11 AM. Continued up the hill and parked inside close to the Shiva statue.

I wouldn't try to describe how it looks from on top of that hill. See for yourself. The Temple "Gomukh", the sea the restaurant and the crowd mixed altogether makes a great view. There were Water Scooter ride starting from the beach and lot of customers for them. Colorful boats were lined up on the beach.

Here are some photos:





















Coming up.. Where do we go next ?

[KishoreC]

We were not interested in the temple, so after coming down the hill and roaming in front of the temple a bit, to appreciate the massive Gomukha, we proceed to Naveen Beach Restaurant.

This restaurant is surviving solely for it's location. Food wise it's so so. Grabbed a good table and ordered our meal.

We started discussing about what to do with the second half of the day. We missed Agumbe 2 days back because of rain, and it seemed to be the best choice. I looked up in the Eicher India map that I carry and found a road going in from Byndoor towards Kollur, from where we can turn towards Someshwar. We had to change quite a lot of inner roads, but I was quite sure about the route to take. Distance seemed to be approx. 120 KMs from Byndoor. So Agumbe was finalized. We started after having lunch.

By 2 PM we started for Agumbe. It was surprising that road was good al through, very few potholes. We reached Someshwar around 5 PM and headed straight to the hill. At this point I could already see that the top of the hill is covered by clouds, but was not really sure if the "Sunset Point" was that high.

14 damn Hair Pin bends we crossed and reached Sunset Point. As Samurai mentioned in a post in this thread, it should have been named "Fog Point". The disappointment was such that within 5 minutes we were back in the car and I was turning the vehicle to come back down.

See this:


The only thing to see there were these.




Couple of more shots and the camera was put back in the bag.






I know how good the view could be if there was no fog. That increased the disappointment.

Anyway. we headed back and made it back to Someshwar. Stopped at the first shop on the left and had Coffee.

Now comes the hard part, that is driving back to Gokarna. I pulled out the map again and immediately could see my mistake. I didn't calculate the distance right. Distance from Someshwar to Gokarna will be between 220 to 250 KMs. It was 6 PM and this 250 KM will definitely take more than 4 hours to cross. That means we will ba back by 10 earliest and will miss the dinner.

Without going into details, I can say, it was a very long drive through the jungles and small towns and then again on NH17. We stopped in Bhatkal for dinner, we had to, it was 9:30 already. Found a Veg restaurant (Srinivashan Restaurant or something) and had our dinner there. Finally we reached Om beach resort at 11:30 PM.

There are a couple of things worth mentioning. In one of the small town a stray dog came running from in front and got under our vehicle. Hard breaking didn't help, it was already under the vehicle. We could stop only after 20 or so feet, but didn't have to stop as I saw it getting out unharmed on my RVM. I love dogs, and would've felt terrible to have one dying under my vehicle. I guess a little higher GC of Fabia saved it. Couldn;t understand why it ran straight to the vehicle from front.

There were couple of land slides getting cleared on the way. Also, a stretch of 10-15 Kms had no shoulders, work was going on. Going out of the tar to give way was not an option here as it would mean a good 2 feet drop. We got stuck behind a truck carrying a CAT used for construction here, and had to follow it for 10 minutes before it could give us way to pass.

So 4th day ends here. With a day driving of close to 500 Kms and only Murudeshwara to remember. Agumbe disappointed again. I was tired like hell and just wanted to crash.

Tomorrow is the big day, when we go back to Bangalore after taking a peak at Jog Falls. We didn't know that it would be the most enjoyable day of the whole trip.