Day 3: End of God’s Own Country
Trip Start
Jan 25, 2012
1
6
8
Trip End
Jan 30, 2012
Suratakal, Karnātaka, India
Saturday, January 28, 2012
After an easy morning and heavy breakfast, we left the hotel at about 10 am. Once again I started the day. Mangalore, the first town in Karnataka, was the next destination. We had to find a beach ASAP. So we went towards Kappad beach, about 10 KM from our hotel.
The initiative was by Ameet as he wanted to see the beach where Vasco De Gama first landed in India. It was perfect start to our day. The Beach was a big surprise. It was about 3 or 4 KM long with almost no human presence or activity. This was the time to get into the waters. Ashish and I did. Alok clicked Ashish in various poses as he volunteered to be the calendar boy for us. The shoot took about one hour and ended up giving us some hilarious poses for our 'Kingfisher' calendar.
After more than an hour of great entertainment, getting wet and drying ourselves, I started the drive. My turn this time was to last just a few more minutes. Beer was the priority and once again Ameet took over from me.
On the way, we passed a town called Mahe which seemed like a fishing town and this is where we discovered a few very nice wine shops. We had to replenish our Vodka so we had to stop. There was something different about this place and only later we realised that his town is actually not a part of Kerela but a UT and a part of Pondicherry. It seems Vasco had wrongly marked it as Pondicherry as he thought he was on the east coast of India. What a strange reason for it to still remain a part of Pondicherry?
The drive was just as beautiful as Day 2. We kept on crossing bridges over the huge water bodies as drove along the coast. Next pit stop was at Bekal which definitely has some tourist attraction, considering there is Taj and Lalit properties built on the beach. We had coffee at the Lalit and after many photos of the picturesque nature we were off to Mangalore, via Kasergod, the last town of Kerela. This was the end of the God’s Own Country.
It was nearing 7 and we did not want to drive till very late again. Mape beach was a choice but it had no rooms and we did not want to spend the night in Udupi. We were just passing Mangalore when we saw a big hoarding of Red Rocks Beach Resort announcing, "Rooms Available". The beach was called Surathkal and that’s where we were going to stay that night, even if the hoarding was lying! We had our jeep after all.
As we waited for the receptionist cum GM to arrive, we started talking to 2 men sitting just outside in the open only to find out that one of them was the owner himself. Ashish and I introduced ourselves to Mr. Shetty and started chatting about the place and the kind of crowd he gets here. Ameet joined in and immediately asked if the students from NID come to the resort as well. The institute is just next door to the resort on the same beach.
To his question Mr, Shetty, the owner, replied almost with smirk, “not only students, even the professors.” His smirk became bigger as he pointed out, “there you see one of them coming in.” The professor, if it all he was, walked straight into the bar with him.
The resort was quite impressive and just a couple of minutes walk from the beach. There were 3 rooms (actually suites) available, and we took two of them. Our rooms were on the same floor but with separate approach steps. However the balcony was same. The design was a bit strange but then it worked for us.
Soon enough we were on our way to the beach after a short stop at the bar. It was evident that we were now in Karnataka. Beer, Breezers, and every other alcohol was nicely displayed and available! We chose our drinks and carried them to the beach.
Sun had set and the darkness of the beach was sort of disturbed by little light coming from a big lamp post behind us. The winds were strong and seemed to carry away the sound of music being thrown around by small speakers Alok was carrying. The sound of the waves and the wind made us forget all our tiredness as we reminisced and laughed about various incidents of the day.
That night, we slept a bit early so that we could leave at 7 in the morning. We had targeted to reach Goa and party in Goa the next night. It was about 370 Km drive and we wanted to end this on a high.
