Preface

After the Christmas and New Year, my inbox has been bombarded with holiday offers for the next long weekend (Republic Day) in India. It is the first long weekend of the year. I had no plans for the 3 days, Karnataka Bandh added 1 more day to it. On Thursday(25th Jan), due to the strike I opted for 'Work from Home' and started my day with routine checking emails, news, steemit. Then I noticed meetup announcement by @firepower, I wanted to attend in Bangalore but missed it and now it was happening in Mangalore.

The Plan

I wanted to attend but it was within a short span of time, I knew it will be difficult to get tickets due to long weekend, folks in Bangalore know how the city looks during such long weekends. I shared this thought with my wife, quickly she was interested and that sprung up our travel plan. It takes about 8 hours to travel from Bangalore to Mangalore. We felt overnight Bus or Train would be the best option since we have less time and don't want to spend our day in travelling by car. We decided to leave on the same night(Thursday) because we wanted to be back to Bangalore on Sunday.

The trains were full, swiftly looking at bus booking websites noticed that the prices have shot up due to high demand(obviously for long weekend). Luckily, found a KSRTC special bus and quickly booked seats. The next thing is to look for a decent accommodation, it took so much of our time looking for hotels and we were not aware of any areas in Mangalore. The hotel prices were also high, some of them were double the normal price. Finally after so much of search & research, we found a good place, booked it and done. Next step was to look for places to visit and prepare a rough plan to fit into out timeline.

Then comes the huge task of packing, my wife did a splendid job and I had some office work to be wrapped up. The whole day(Thursday) is consumed by these hectic activities.

The Start

Our bus was scheduled to depart at 9:15pm from Yeshwantpur which is 22km from my home. The whole day was very busy, soon after packing called up Uber for drop at Bus station. We hardly had time for dinner, we had to skip it. We were on-time to the designated place. There was a huge crowd of travelers, many of them were waiting for their buses to head towards Hyderabad, Goa, Coastal parts of Karnataka & Kerala. After waiting for our bus, finally it arrived around 10pm and started our journey to Mangalore. The journey was good, chill since it is night time.

R Day - Republic Day of India

When I woke up in the morning, the bus was still steering its way though ghats and curvy roads. It was amazing view of sun rise and the green plantations along the road. This is the first time i'm visiting Mangalore. The first impression of houses, buildings, garden reminded me of Kerala. There was so much resemblance. I was excited to see the type of spacious houses with garden, the architecture, culture. I know that it is close to Kerala but never knew it would have so much overlap. Seriously, I don't know anything about Mangalore or any other city in Coastal Karnataka.

Got down at Mangalore at around 8:00AM and reached the hotel within 10-15 mins. To my surprise, rooms were clean and spacious. I got to know later that the hotel is newly built. It is well maintained. So, here I'm at Mangalore on Republic Day! I saw couple of Indian flags on bikes. Republic day is not celebrated with much fanfare like Independence day. I happened to witness Republic Day parade, if i'm not wrong the ground is called 'Nehru maidan' which is opposite to Police Commissioner's office.

Sight steeing

After getting refreshed, we had our breakfast. Booked our return trip by train for the next day(Saturday) night. We had prepared our list of places to visit but didn't plan on commute. I thought hiring a car or bike would be an ideal option so searched though the service providers like zoomcar etc but unfortunately none of the self-drive cars were available, then started looking for bikes, there were not many options available since they were also taken. Finally got one scooter from Bhoom. It was a sigh of relief else I would have to shell out more on cabs which are again priced higher during this long weekend.

After having delicious Mangalorean food at Giri Manjas, we headed to Panambur beach. Protip: If you happen to visit Giri Manjas, don't forget to ask for 'Kokam' rasam, it is simply superb.

Panambur beach seems to be popular over the other Tannir bavi beach. There were many tourists and the crowd was more (as expected) but it was not congested. I felt the sand to be different from what I have seen in Marina beach(Chennai) or any other beaches on Bay of Bengal side. There were water sports available, kids and teens were playing waves of the ocean. It was a great view of ocean with some ships sailing through.

It is always fun to watch kids playing in beach, building sand castles, collecting shells, jumping with waves, splashing water. They are priceless moments. Generally we do not visit religious places when we are on trip, so we had only Panambur beach on our list for the first day(post lunch). We stayed there till sun set.

There were many food stalls selling fish, prawns, snacks and juices. We wanted to eat something, so we tasted fish fry, pav bhaji, spicy bhel etc. The view of sun set was amazing, the reflection of sun on water made the ocean turn golden colour.

Off to an Island

We wanted to start early next day(Saturday) because I must be back by 3pm to attend Steemit Meetup organised by @firepower. The next sight seeing place on our list is St. Mary's Island which is 65km from Mangalore. We must take a boat from Malpe, which is 6km from Udupi. Initially we had planned to start by 7am but were able to start only by 9:30am. The reason for hiring scooter was to visit beaches along the way to Udupi but couldn't visit due to time constraint. The journey from Mangalore to Udupi was really nice, stopped in few places to see beautiful backwater/rivers along the way. Finally reached Boating office in Malpe around noon and had to wait for the boat to take us to the Island.

The boat journey toward the St. Mary Island was great, we saw Dolphins! Couple of small rocks along the way, then finally reached the island. This places was also clean even though many tourist frequent this place. It is well maintained, there are water sports activities available here too. There were lot of shells, this is the first time i'm finding land filled with shells instead of sand. The rocks were peculiar.

This place holds geological importance. It is very well known for its distinctive geological formation of columnar basaltic lava. The rock formation is really unique. As per wiki, "Scientific studies indicate that the basalt of the St. Mary's Islands was formed by sub-aerial sub-volcanic activity, because at that time Madagascar was attached to India. The rifting of Madagascar took place around 88 million years ago". Sounds amazing!

This place also has an historic importance!

According to folk legend, in the year 1498, Vasco da Gama landed at St. Mary's Islands on his journey from Portugal, fixed a cross on the island and named one of these islands, O Padrão de Santa Maria, as a dedication to Mother Mary, before proceeding to Kozhikode in Kerala. It is from this name that the islands got their current name.
source

Due to time constraint we had to rush, I had to come back to Mangalore for the meetup, otherwise we would have spent the whole day there.

Back to Mangalore for the Meetup!

We rushed back from St. Mary's Island without even having lunch, I was already running late. Zipped through the highway, and reached around 5pm. Then I got ready and headed to the Steemit meetup. I had second thought, whether it would be too late and everyone would have left already but still I wanted to give a try and luckily found everyone at the venue. I'll share the meetup experience in a separate post.

Wrap up and back to Bangalore

I came back from meetup around 7:30pm and by the time my wife had packed everything already, saved my time. We had train to catch at 8:50pm. Got an auto, reached railway station on-time. Boarded train and got into our seats without hassle. Finally the day has come to an end. It was very very hectic day. Next day morning arrived at Bangalore, and reached home around 10am!

It was very busy and hectic 3 days (including Thursday), we had never planned for such a trip in the last minute and had to rush. Indeed it was a good break. Hope to visit Mangalore again sometime later and try Pabba's Ice Cream Parlour recommended by @firepower and other Steemit folks, which I missed this time.

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