Kodachadri Trek - The last few hours

The last evening of our trip was spent at Malpe Beach. Malpe Beach is about 5 km from Udupi. One can witness some of the most beautiful sunsets here and especially days where the clouds are present near the shore and are a bit scattered, the light patterns make for some of the most stunning landscapes. Malpe is also a quaint little fishing town.

A new dockyard is coming up where they have started to make mechanized trawlers for the local fishing industry. Close to the mainland of Malpe are four rocky islands

* Daria-Bahadurgad is the northernmost island
* Kari-Illada-Kallu is the southernmost island
* Daria-Gadara-Kalluthe is situated in between the two islands mentioned above
* The fourth one is St. Mary's Islands, also called thonse paar.

Regular ferries are available though your return is entirely dependent on the boatmen. They usually give it a couple of hours to drain the engine off the water and also let the engine cool down. God knows why they do that but you've been warned.

The usual fun in the beach started off and all the troubles faced the previous night were all forgotten. When you're in the midst of doing what something you enjoy doing, you never know how time canters off. Spend sometime in the company of some brilliant friends, u could practically declare that time is faster that light.

Here are some pics

Sunset at Malpe:

The bunch of amazing people:

Next day, Valentine's Day of 2011, it was time to get back to our routines. The place of farewell ironically was Mangalore Central Station, the place where all this started, our rendezvous point. Bidding goodbyes is always the hardest thing as far as I am concerned. This was particularly overwhelming. After 4 days of togetherness, fun and laughs it was particularly hard. But life as usual goes on. We bid our goodbyes, promises of doing such things again were the order of the moment. I hope this group, plus the people who we missed this time come together for another fun filled trip.

I might call myself a LoneWolf, as I do travel alone most of the times, but trips with my gang are any day an icing on the cake and I do pray we do get to do such trips again.


The Sri - Krsna Temple at Udupi

Trek to Kodachadri - Part1

Back with my next trip log. Its been a while has it not? Well, how did the trip turn out? Read on. Me n me buddies have been planning on a trip for quite a while, and after 3-4 months of planning n talks it finally came together, much to my relief. I had not been a part of their earlier trip due to a broken hand and was pretty keen on one. Others were as keen on this as we could be heading to different directions in sometime. How life works, we'll never know. But we were determined to make the most of what we had now.

We deliberated on quite a few places and zeroed in finally on a trek trip to the famed Kodachadri Hills, near Kollur. We did consider Jog Falls and Nagara but at this point in time there's no water in it.

The ones to take this trek up were yours truly, Raghu, Preethi, Kanchana and Esha, all close friends since the past 4 years. Me and Raghu were to join Esha in Bangalore, Preethi would join us in Mysore and Kanch would head to Udupi directly. Our jaunt was my house in Udupi. So me, Raghu, Preethi and Esha would join Kanch in Udupi.

10-Feb-2011: 0600 - 1945:
Raghu n I headed to Bangalore in the Shatabdi and had a quarter of a day to cut till Esha joined us. We headed to INOX in Mantri Mall and tried to catch up with a movie. "Biutiful" they called it. What we thought would be good was a complete disaster. "Biutiful" was nothing beautiful. It was horrible!!!! Wonder which moron had the heart to name it that way.

After the travails of that, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe where i got myself some memorabilia. Time for the train and we headed to the City Railway station where we caught up with Esha.

10-Feb-2011: 2035 - 2345:
Train started well on time. 3 hour journey till Mysore. We caught up with what was happening with each other. Not a moment was boring and it was super good to be back in the company of people whom i adore so much. Preethi joined us in Mysore at 2345

10-Feb-2011: 2345 / 11-Feb-2011: 0815
All the leg pulling and laughs kept us busy till about 11-feb 0230. People started cribbing about our noises but I seriously wonder how could they ignore the snores of them and the ones around them. It was a minor irritant to a perfect day. We too dozed off and woke up to a wonderful day. Train was late by half an hour and reached MAQ only by 0815.

11-Feb-2011: 0815 - 1430
We grabbed a bit of grub at a nearby hotel and hopped on to a bus to Udupi. The journey is pretty scenic with loads of backwaters which all of us enjoyed. Reached Udupi at around 1130. The destinations today for us were Maravanthe Beach and Murudeshwar. We had booked a cab to take us around which helped a lot. A sumptuous lunch at home and we would start only by 1430 thanks to our laziness.

More on the actual trip that day to follow. Keep reading!

Western Ghats Sojourn - Part 3

All those places covered and I returned back a weary traveller. Not to be satisfied with such a long trip, it was time to explore Udupi itself. Udupi has quite a few places to have a look at. Religious, if you look at it that way but pretty stupendous for the neutral eye which enjoys magnificence. Each and every temple is like that in its own way, but spare me of the cliche, the Udupi Krishna temple takes the cake for that.

Every stone carving in that temple cries out for your attention and gets it too. The sacred idol, of a young Krishna is out of this world in all its rich adornment. Again I run out of adjectives to describe this from a neutral point of view and I'll leave it to you people to visit it and describe it for yourselves. Having a picture of the entrance to the temple at night for your eyes to feast on, that is assuming you think this picture is good enough.

There are a number of other temples worth mentioning. There is the Mahakali temple at Ambalapady. The goddess is so imposing that you get the jitters on the first look. But a few moments in the temple and you feel as serene as you might have ever felt. Such is the spiritual influence here. Getting itself added to my list of must see temples is the Anantheshwara Temple, located just opposite to the Krishna Temple. The Shiva Linga is truly a sight to behold.

The best part of Udupi is the Malpe Beach. While the calm and serene beaches of the Arabian Sea are world famous, few have the silent and calming influence of Malpe. Its not so very famous, famous with the locals though. A very thin crowd. So if a silent and calm visit to the beach is what you desire for, Malpe is the place for you. The icing on the cake would be to watch the sun going down the Arabian Sea in the evening. You wont get more beautiful sunsets anywhere else, other than Goa of course. Posting one of my clicks here. Don't mind if the colors are not that very highlighted, these were taken from my mobile cam.

All good and bad things, especially the good things come to an end sooner than later. After 10 wonderful days at home, I had to head back to the city of Chennai where my daily bread and butter(read work :P) beckoned. Left with a heavy heart, bidding goodbye to everyone, promising myself, the next time I come back, I'd explore these picturesque Ghats all the more and fall in love with it over and over again. What wonderful places the Western Ghats have!! God surely was in his best of his moods creating this!!

P.S: Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing about them all.

P.P.S: Next trip coming up in July, so assure yourselves of more details and pics.

P.P.P.S: Brickbats and Bouquets always welcome :)

Western Ghats Sojourn - Part 1

It took quite a while to post this. But last Diwali I'd been to my parent's place at Udupi. Yours truly is in Chennai. Getting bored and restless sitting at home, decided to explore the pristine places of the Western Ghats nearby. Time to plan the route.

Came up with the following plan. A picturesque drive to Agumbe was first on the cards. To tell you about Agumbe, is one of the most scenic places on the Western Ghats and is about 60km east of Udupi. Added to the lush green view all around, the attractions for the visitors is the spectacular sunset and vast opportunities it offers to the trekkers.If you are looking for a peaceful break for a few days from the hectic city life, away from the crowded and commercialized attractions, then this is the place for you.

Agumbe is among the places here that receive very high rainfall and is rightly called the Cherrapunji of South India. Near to Agumbe is the relatively lesser known Hanumangundi falls. Agumbe now is a peak and the trek to the falls is a tricky one. Slippery and wild with snakes and leeches, its not for the faint hearted. A view of the Agumbe peak and the ever so beautiful Hanumangundi falls. One more place that is not known much and I could not visit is the Agumbe Forest Research Center, headed by the famous herpetologist Dr. Romulus Whitaker. It is an awesome place which researches on the flora and fauna of the Western Ghats, most notably the King Cobra. You can volunteer here if you're interested. Its on my bucket list, to become a volunteer here.

A click of the Hanumangundi falls.

The view from Agumbe.

The picturesque route.

From Agumbe I was off to Shringeri. It is home to the Shankara Mutt and the Sharadhamba temple. Not only its a religious spot, but its very pristine and scenic too. Its on top of a hill with a tributary of the Cauvery river flowing by the temple side. This only adds to the beauty of the place. The people are super friendly here. They'll go out of their way to help you around. Shringeri, as per legend was established by Shri Adi Shankara, the most famous of the gurus of the Advaita philosophy.

The Gopuram of the Sharadhamba Temple.

The old Shiva temple. Supposedly built by Shri Rama. There is a foot mark by the river that's apparently of Shri Rama washing his feet here by the river.


From here my route was Horanadu -> Subramanya -> Karkala and back to Udupi via Malpe.

That forms Part 2 of my journey. Update on that to follow. Hope you liked reading this as much as i enjoyed writing about. Comments as always appreciated. :)