Trip to Udupi Beaches By Sudhir Bangalore

Myself and my office friends were planning for a get-together since a long time but unfortunately it was not getting worked out. So during the first week of this month myself and Risaf planned to make a trip. Now the next question was, Where to go? Both of us digged into google.com and tried to get information about some exciting place for visit. We checked details about many places in karnataka also we checked a lot of travel photographs on travel sites. Our main aim was to make this tour a memorable one and should be adventerous. After a lot of search on various websites, both of us hit upon the idea of going to Malpe Beach. The main reason for our selecting this place was because it had a exotic island nearby, called St. Mary’s island, where the rocks have emerged as hexagonal prisms. I was a also excited about travelling in sea for around 20 minutes and going to an island and also enthusiastic about this rock patterns. Finally the trip members rose to six, alongwith Risaf, Trevor, Nishit, Sreejith, Jayakumar and myself. When we made a further search about the bus route and nearby place in Malpe we came to know about Kaup beach which had a lighthouse and also the Maravanthe beach. The captivating photographs of these places and description given by various people in travel sites/ blog made us more enthusiastic to visit them. Myself and Risaf spent a lot of hours getting the details about the buses and about the trip plan like when to go, which bus to take, where to go first, food, hotel details for stay, etc. Here I would like to make a special mention of Risaf because it is he who contacted the other colleagues and managed to make a very good arrangment for the smooth running of the office works for two days in the absence of we six guys. I would like to thank Geetha, Raghu and Hassan who worked extra hours in our absence as without their help this trip would have been practically impossible. So everything was set, It was decided that the trip will be of two days, First day we will be visiting the Kaup Beach and the next day we will be off to St Mary Island at Malpe in the morning and at Marvanthe Beach in the evening and catch the evening bus back to Bangalore. Risaf got the to and fro tickets booked through KSRTC. It was decided that everybody has to reach the Majestic Bus stand at 6.45am on 17th Jan. Myself and Risaf were in night shift duty on 16th Jan, so finished our work and left at 4.45am on 17th Jan. Went home, packed the dresses, loaded the camera and after getting freshed up left to majestic on my bike. On the way picked up Risaf and while we were going to majestic we got the first set back of our trip, Sreejith called up and said that he will not be able to make for the trip as his stomach is upset and not in a state to travel.
DAY 1 (17th Jan 06) : We reached majestic, parked our bike at pay and park place. The other three guys - Tevi, Jayakumar and Nishit came on time. We all boarded the bus and made ourselves comfortable at the respective seats. The condition of the bus was horrible, it was a ultra deluxe bus but the outer body of the bus was full of rust and cracks. The glasses were sealed with adhesive tapes and glues :).
The bust left the Stand at sharp 7.20am. The sound of the engine of bus was very loud and the speed was worse than our local BMTC bus. Risaf and Jayakumar were soon lullabied to sleep maybe due the sound of the engine or due to the night shift on previous day. I was enjoying the sight seeing through the window and once the bus came out of crowded Bangalore city premises, it was a great relief to watch the greenery and the small mountains etc. I was continously taking photos of the scenic beauty through the moving bus. At 9.45am, the bus stopped at a road side hotel at Adichinchunagiri area for Breakfast. All of us were very hungry because none of us had anything in the morning, not even tea. All of us had idli, vada sambhar for breakfast. Actually I wanted to have a Masaladosa but it seemed that I will have to wait, so switched over to Idli, Vada. The bus moved ahead and we cracked a lot of joke with the bus conductor about the condition of the bus. We had a gala time cracking jokes, some very animated discussions and at times breaking into peals of laughter and also enjoying the beautiful sight seeing on the roadside.At 10.30 am we got a break at Hassan when we all took time out and brought some snack items and fruits. Risaf and Trevi got hold of sudoku in Times of India, and we were enjoying the fresh air that was striking us and making us feel like a free bird in open space. We reached a place called Nelliyadi at around 2.00 pm and had lunch from a hotel which was horrible, somehow we just had rice and curd and moved ahead. The bus took the route of Hassan – Sakaleshpur – Mangalore. We continued our journey talking about different subjects. The journey was not different to other journeys until we entered the area of Sakaleshpur. From here the journey was different in two ways; one the quality of roads was not good due to poor maintenance which was a challenge to our backbones and secondly we entered into an area where the beauty of nature is mesmerizing. My eyes were locked at the windows to capture the beauty of the nature. The coffee estates, the pepper plantations, and trees are really good and the roads are horribly bad. When we neared Mangalore, we had to undergo one more test at BC Road of Mangalore. The condition of the road was also very much worst and somehow we reached Mangalore. I enjoyed the small rivers that were flowing parallel to our bus route near the Mangalore area. After crossing the Mangalore are the bus was amost empty. The bus conductor informed us that the bus stop of Kaup Beach comes ahead of Udupi bus stop, so we planned to get down at Kaup. We got off the bus and inquired the auto rickshaw driver about the beach route, he informed that it is around 3 km. Five of us adjusted in a single auto and reached the Beach. The glimpse of the vast sea and clean beach made us forget all the tiredness and refreshed us with new energy. We enjoyed the sheer beauty of nature, sounds of the waves, sensuously caressing breeze. The beach was not crowded and the sea was also calm. It was around evening 5.00 pm and the sun was slowly going down. The main attraction was the lighthouse situated on top of a 12-metre-high boulder and the majestic 34-metre tower is painted with white and black bands. We climbed the winding stairs of the tower and reached the top of the lighthouse. The view from the top was breathtaking - the sight of the sea, the scattered rocks and the aerial view of the green land was a fantastic. We watched the sunset from the lighthouse - the hot red sinking into the sea. The waves were hitting the rocks and the roar of the waves was as if the sea was crying. We climbed down the lighthouse and had a walk along the beach. Walking on the soft beach sand with waves kissing our legs was a different king of pleasure. We then played football on the beach, not with a ball but with a empty plastic bottle. It was getting dark and we went to a small hotel on the beach and had some snacks. We took a auto back to the bus stop and we immediately got a bus to udupi which is only 14 kms from Kaup. It was around 7.30 pm when we reached Udupi bus stand. We went to a nearby hotel named 'Udupi Residency' , took two double bedrooms. The rooms were cheap and well maintained. Our clothes were full of sand from Kaup Beach and we were very much tired of the travel. All of us had a nice bath and freshned up. After taking bath we had a small walk in the streets of Udupi, the city looked very clean to me and the roads were quite wide. All us were feeling very hungry as we did not had good food during our travel, so we decided to have dinner at the hotel where we were staying. We ordered ......fish fry, fish curry, prawns, rajali kabab(that was delicious), navrathan kurma (it was horrible), steamed rice, chicken item etc. The dishes were not too good but as were very hungry we were attacking on the dishes over the table.We went back to our home at around 11.00am and went to bed as we had to get up early the next day for the remaining part of the trip. So I just closed my eyes with the picture of the scenic beauty during the travel, the view of sunset from the light house and the sound of the waves vibrating in my ears.