Day 2 : December 27th
Darn its raining today, was all bright and sunny yesterday. Anyways I decide to take a stroll around the place , minus the camera.
Breakfast is ready by 8:30am and we are done with the payment formalities and leave the place by 9:30am.Looks like I am gonna have a hectic day ahead because the list for today looks like this
Kuppalli Sringeri Doddamane (kasturi akka's place) Agumbe Finally the beach at kundapur.
(By now maggie calls me and says that he has left bangalore. Maggie would be joining us at Kundapur today by late evening)
Reach Thirtahalli main road and take the deviation towards Koppa. Kuppalli is on the same road , where noted kannada poet Kuvempu lived. For those of you who don't know kuvempu please read here
Kuvempu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Hindu : Echoing the poetic Malnad
Am kinda flabbergasted seeing this persons achievements in life. Definitely an endowed man with special writing skills.
We take a stroll and I realize what made this person such a legend with the poems and literature he wrote.The place where he sat and penned all his books has a wonderful view of the western ghats and trust me you and I could become poets just by sitting there.
Photography isn't allowed inside the house and there is a book store at his house where you could pick up books authored by him. A quick visit to the kavishaala and we are back on the road to Sringeri.
Reach Sringeri and park the scorp' much before the temple coz I can see the chaos from a distance itself.
We are done with the temple formalities (pardon my ignorance have no idea what transpired inside) and then I see a long line of stranded vehicles. I am lucky for the 2nd time, I just manage to reverse and turn the scorp’ around without much of a fuss. An innova driver holds up traffic behind him to let me pass. Favor returned since I helped him clear quite a few vehicles parked earlier when he came out of the temple.
Make a quick call to Maggie and tell him to ditch the idea of visiting sringeri today. It wasn’t worth the time and effort since the temple was thronged by devotees and parking was a huge problem.
Back on road we are cruising thru the winding ghats en-route Agumbe.
Bang comes the next request from my beloved lady. I need the “
mandaale “ . Mandaale is name of the cap made from
arecanut leaf plates used commonly by the farmers in the Malnad region.I know what she meant but where do I find it. Inquire in a few shops and they guide me to Agumbe which is the hub formaking these caps.
I finally reach Agumbe and find a shop selling these. Pick up 2 and head straight off the
Doddamane which is like 100 mtrs from where we are parked.
While inside I find
Gowri Shankar(hope I got the name right) from ARRS. He was the same guy who was assisting
Rom(Romulus Whitaker) in the NGC show “
Secrets of the cobra” . Speak to him and then I take a few pics of Doddamane. Food is served here to every visitor and you can pay whatever you feel like.
Typical roadside hotel in the malnad region
45 mins later we are back on road and driving to Agumbe Ghats. Agumbe ghats has become an eye-sore now with all the plastic and dirt tourists litter the place with. I decide not to stop since its way too foggy and absolutely nothing can be seen from the view point. Wifey agrees and we drive on.
This is the best view we had after the 3rd hair pin bend. I deliberately under exposed the 1st one. The 2nd image has the actual view.
The roads in Agumbe ghat road is in shambles . Think twice if you really wanna traverse this route. We take the deviation before Hebri , drive via Harady to reach kundapur by 5pm.One last quick stop at a local chai shop for that much needed cup of tea.This road is pretty narrow and you gotto simply demand your way if there is oncoming traffic.
Check into Turtle bay and 15 mins later I get a call from
Samurai saying that he was on his way back from Goa and would like to catch up for a few mins. We spend some time with the
Samurai’s, they bid their adieus’ and leave to manipal.
Our 1st sight of the beach
By now its 7pm and all this while it hasn’t rained in Kundapur and then the heavens open up for a few mins. I somehow have a gut feeling that Maggie is close by and there you go my phone rings.
Maggie is in kundapur and asks for directions to reach Turtle Bay. I offer to pick up him from the highway and drive towards NH-17.
See how the weather changed?
It’s been a long day we share our driving experiences, have dinner and hit the sack. Pretty uneventful again and has been a good day. The Scorp’ returned a mileage of close to 13.84kmpl since we started with 80% AC on. All thru today’s drive I was demanding my space on the roads. Well yes I simply shoved a few vehicles off the road to the shoulder who never gave way. Couldn’t control and have been grinning teeth to teeth.
Tomorrow is gonna be fun-filled coz we have the beach at our disposal for the whole day.
Total distance traveled today is about 295kms.
more to come....