Tag: Mangalore

Returning home!

November 11, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Day 12:

Since it was a Sunday, the resort was full of people, coming in with their families, young and old. Every room was filled.

Today was the day of us travelling back to Bangalore from Mangalore. We had our baths and came down for our breakfast at 9 A.M. The breakfast was being served outdoors, thanks to the increased number of guests. (Eating outdoors reminded me of my village!)

I ate idli, the kids ate vada and Mr.Bee was more adventurous, so he ate the upma from the breakfast buffet! The summer staple fruit watermelon was available too. The kids had a serving each of watermelon. The serving bowl was the size of a chutney bowl at Chutneys, Hyderabad! I had a piping hot cuppa masala chai too. 

Chutney bowls to serve diced watermelon

We returned to our room, after asking our caretaker to help us move our luggage to the car. We started off from Hyderabad with three suitcases full of clothes.  Depending on the place, we would take out one suitcase at every part of our vacation, Here too, we had one suitcase and a bag of clothes along with our beach tools etc. It is no mean feat, bringing down the kids to the car (KBee is prone to running head on into the road and the traffic!) so we needed help of the caretaker guy. He got a well deserved tip too.

KBee, GBee and I got into the car and Mr.Bee packed the luggage into the dickie or trunk and we started our long drive. Google Maps showed us that we may reach destination in approximately 7 and half hours.

It was an uneventful drive, thankfully and we stopped at Ossoor at Sakleshpur. The restaurant is in a coffee estate and most of the points go to the beautiful ambience. The food could have been better. We ordered tandoori roti with broccoli curry and paneer sabzi. We were not sure which curry the kids would like, so we ordered two. Turns out, they liked neither! Kids had watermelon juice and I ordered mosambi. (By now I was sick of watermelon!) I had to drink it as soon as it came to the table, because mosambi turns bitter within 5 min. Mr.Bee had a piping hot coffee with his lunch. He had long drive ahead of him, so caffeine is helpful for his system.

We shopped a little at the gift and toy store in the estate, both for our kids and Mr.Bee’s cousin’s kids. While Mr.Bee was busy ‘Gpay’ing, KBee and GBee had fun running around the estate and I took my time looking at the surroundings! The best thing I liked was,seeing some couple  bikers who had come to have their lunch there. (It is our dream to drive a bike in Leh, Ladakh!)

Can you spot the puppy?

Anyway, we were on the highway, after spending a leisurely hour at Ossoor. We made another stop later to buy farm fresh jack fruit and baby cucumbers. I was salivating at the fresh produce.

Once inside Bangalore, we made a pit stop for snacking near Bangalore outskirts. I saw groups of bikers again, here. I forgot the name of the eatery, but it is a popular hangout, if the people and the parked vehicles are anything to go by.

Also, if you are a biker, Karnataka is the place for you. The tea and coffee estates, the ghat roads and hair pin bends make for a beautiful drive. I think we stopped for tea at 6 or something. By the time we reached the cousin’s place, it was already 9 P.M.

All we did was, take a quick bath and have dinner and hit the bed. The kids, though they met for the first time, bonded well, that too within the first 10 minutes.

Day 13:

We woke up, got ready and were on the road by 9 a.m. We hoped to visit the Dodda Ganapathi temple, but thanks to the traffic which started from the apartment itself, we had little hope!

We went directly to Mr.Bee’s office at Bangalore, chatted happily with his colleagues P and N, while KBee and GBee ran around in the plush lawns. GBee fell into a foot deep pit, where the controls for lawn watering equipment were present! (The tiny pit was hardly knee deep for a 6 year old, thank God.)

We later had Team lunch with Mr.Bee’s Bangalore team at The Big Baadshah. Everything, the food, the buffet menu, the ambiance, the mocktails were fabulous, impressive.

Baadshah ..oh Baadshah!

We later went to play box cricket,  where GBee had fun running around, getting in the way of everyone, while Mr.Bee played cricket with his teammates. I couldn’t join the fun, because KBee had a nap on my shoulder! (Generally, he only sleeps on his dad’s shoulder, but since his daddy was busy, he adjusted on mine!)

Once again we returned to the cousin’s home at 9 P.M, thank you, famed Bangalore traffic!

GBee, KBee and V had most fun that night, jumping on the beds, running around playing football and what not! At night KBee cried too, waking up from his slumber to complain of pain in his legs. Hectic day. Phew!

Day 14:

Returning to Hyderabad.

We woke at 5, got ready and were on road by 6 A.M. There was no traffic at all, since it was a weekday, the highway and the roads were practically empty. After admiring the beautiful hills and the windmills at the Karnataka – Andhra border, I was once again reminded of the Grandfather Mountain, which has similar topography and climate. The drive from Bangalore to Anantapur is a memorable one.

We reached Seoul Store, Penukonda by 9 A.M. Thanks to the KIA manufacturing unit nearby at Anantapur, there are Korean stores and restaurants near by. I bought myself some Korean products and toffees.

We had our breakfast near Anantapur, where the piping hot tea I was carrying to my table, fell on my index finger and burned it badly! (It was self serve eatery and I drink chai when travelling!) My long skirt got in the way when I was walking, so my skirt is the culprit!

Anyway, we had our lunch at a drive-in at Mahabub Nagar. The food was good. Even pets were allowed inside and I saw one old couple with their Pomeranian in their lap, eating some non-veg dishes and feeding the animal.

We reached home by 4 P.M. our first ever looongggg vacation came to an end at last!

P.S:

  1. Mr.Bee wanted to visit the Fort at Sakleshpur, but we missed it! We had to take a right somewhere but we forgot completely about it, until we passed it and went ahead for 5 min! It is difficult to take U-turns on highways, because we have to first search for an opening in the heavy vehicle traffic.
  2. On the highway, I came across many name boards of different homestays and estates. In between all that, I also saw FulJar Soda boards everywhere. Mr.Bee and I were skeptic about trying it, but later, on reaching Hyderabad, we were told that we made a grave mistake by not tasting the FulJar soda. It is a summer drink to refresh the parched souls! Don’t forget to try it, if you are in the vicinity of Ooty and Karnataka.
  3. I was happy looking at the leather jackets and helmets of the bikers and their beautiful bikes. It reminded me of the 2007 comedy movie, Wild Hogs, starring John Travolta. It is a favourite of Mr.Bee and me.
  4. GBee still remembers his cousin now and then, whom he considers his best friend too and asks us to take him there. He thinks we can go to Bangalore in an hour or two!

Till the next post, cheerio!

Little Krishna’s Udupi!

November 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Day 11:

Although it is a blissful life, waking up, playing in the beach and soaking in the pool and all, but we wanted to travel out for a little bit and visit Udupi. It was my idea to visit the Udupi Krishna’s temple and have the authentic local Udupi food and satisfy my curiosity.

It goes like this, during my childhood, my dad would take us on long drives and whenever we could, we would stop at the Udipi Hotel near Suryapet, which was then a major hub. I would always eat their puri and sabzi, which was always out of the world. Now that Suryapet has undergone a major makeover, the restaurant we would  frequent, has been demolished. I wanted to compare my childhood memory of Udipi Hotel and the authentic Udupi food, at Udupi!

Anyway….

We started for Udupi at 10 A.M, after having a couple of uthappam and the usual ice cold watermelon pieces (frozen for storage, apparently) with a cup of poha. I also had a cup of hot chai. The drive from Mangalore to Udupi was 20 minutes over an hour. The drive was pleasant and the traffic was mild. We had fun during the drive.

The huge kamaan, the arch at the entrance of Udupi had a chariot with Krishna as Saarathi and Arjuna, with his bow and arrow. It is a scene from the battle of Kurukshetra, Mahabharat. (It is not visible in the picture below, you can only see the horse hooves. This is the only image which is aesthetic. The only other image which is clearer, has been locked for free usage by others!)

Even I tried my hand at photography by clicking the Udupi kamaan, but I am at the best, a still photographer! Taking a pic out of a window, in a moving car, with a baby in my lap is too much pressure to perform! That is the reason I don’t have an ‘uploadable pic’.

The Udupi Kamaan – Source:Google

Sadly, we forgot it was a Saturday, until we reached the temple. The hoards of devotees waiting in lines for darshan reminded me of it being a weekend. I cursed myself for lazing around on Friday and visiting a temple on Saturday! Mr.Bee refused to go to the temple. He didn’t want to deal with standing in a line with a kid in his arms and another on his shoulders! (Whenever we visit temples, both the kids perch on their dad’s body, like birds!) I accepted defeat for the moment.

Since breakfast was not the strong point of the resort we are staying at, we were famished. We ate like a family of hens, which nibble selectively! As a last resort, I asked Mr.Bee if he was willing to return to the temple after a meal, to check how the crowd was and then think of darshan or not. He agreed, at last.

We let our car stay in the parking lot, since it is difficult to get good parking spots anywhere in India, much less tourist destinations on weekends! We hailed an auto, asked the autowala to take us to a good restaurant nearby and that was how we landed at Woodland, Udupi. For anyone interested, Udupi is a humid city.

At the restaurant, Mr.Bee ordered a North Indian thali and I, a South Indian thali. We always order different food, because we never know what our picky little eaters want to have. We also ordered watermelon juice, our staple. Sadly, GBee managed to disturb his juice and it fell, drenching my beautiful sunny green and pink tie and dye dress, which I love and incidentally, was my first time wearing it. I cried sad tears in my head, gave an in-promptu lecture to GBee about the importance of looking at where their hands go! (He has the habit of getting distracted easily.) The lecture was a success as GBee offered a sorry and some tissues to me! I was the highlight at the restaurant with everyone’s pitiful glances. I managed to clean most of the dress at the washroom and since it was summer, my dress was dry by the time our lunch was done and we were on the road. (Thank you Sri Krishna. You helped Draupadi by giving sarees and You helped me, by drying my dress on time! Of course both incidents are as different as chalk and cheese, but let me show-off my mythological gyaan! Incidentally, I bought myself a Kanchi saree. in Udupi.)

I think in the history of temple visits, this one stands out for us, because, we never eat when visiting a temple. We eat only after the darshan. But this time, we had a meager breakfast as well as a hearty lunch, before entering the Udupi temple. The darshan queues were parallel to the perimeter of the temple and we could peek inside to see the close to 50 turtles in the temple well.

The temple well as visible from outside – Source: Google

I bought a plastic hand fan and fanned away for the kids, mostly. The darshan queue is near the shops, so I managed to shop a little, while Mr.Bee waited in the line, to hold my spot.

The darshan itself took us ten minutes, but the wait time was close to one hour. I was happy, I could visit the temple. The main idol is only visible through the windows. I still remember the eyes of Lord Krishna. It was beautiful to say the least. The statue of Krishna is jet black and the eyes stand out. Here Krishna is in a child avatar, with a stick in His right hand, may be to signify that He was once a cow-herd!

After another bout of shopping for sovereigns, we were on the road, to Mangalore.

Mr.Bee had other plans, though! He took us to Pithrody. This is how the beach looks from a drone.

Ocean and River separated by a tiny village – Pithrody – Source: Google

The peace I felt here, can never be put in words! It was awesome. I even had my favourite choco bar ice-cream here and sealed the moment in my memory!

The coconut trees look like slanting lines…

After taking in as much positivity as we can from the nature, we started for the resort, at Mangalore for another bout of beach fun and pool games. We ended our day with a simple dinner.

P.S:

  1. If you are a keen observer, you will know I have been using two different words. Udupi, Udipi! Udupi is the original city in Karnataka one and Udipi is the stuff we normally get anywhere other than Udupi! (and I am referring to the food)
  2. Kamaan is an Urdu word, so people from other states, if you are reading this post, you may find the word new.
  3. Pithrody village in Udupi is the Key West of India! Key West is a similar island in the city of Florida. Mr.Bee wanted us to travel to Key West during our stay in the US, but we couldn’t visit, because I was expecting GBee then and my gynecologist warned us against visiting Florida in particular. We ended up visiting Niagara Falls!
  4. Let me add that the constructions in Pithrody are small scale and that is the reason the  shuttering being used is wooden. That is the first time I saw a wooden shuttering (only read about it). I have visited less number of villages and towns. So it is a new experience for me, as a civil engineer.
  5. The one hour we spent at Pithrody reminded me of the 4 day vacation we had at Maldives, another natural beauty!
  6. I almost forgot to mention Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA. It is the peninsula in Atlantic Ocean. It is like staying in the ocean. I saw many natural wonders here. So this is one of my favourites. It is also the first vacation Mr.Bee and I ever had. Magnificent, isn’t it?

The pointy tip in the ocean visible from space is Cape Hatteras

I still have so much to share about Udupi, but this post is already huge and I don’t want to scare off my readers! Cheerio friends, till the next post.

Days of Leisure

October 12, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Day 8:

We had been travelling for a week already and Mr.Bee is the sole driver for our trip. Adding to that, KBee and I were down with cold. I had taken a head bath and towel dried my hair, still, I caught a cold! (Carry a hair dryer with you, if you are going to visit a temple and have little time to towel dry the hair, thanks to the temple timings and travel constraints.) Hotels in India don’t provide hair dryers, except for super luxury ones, which have foreign visitors! (The Jaipur Hotel we stayed at, last year had hair dryers, separate ‘he’ and ‘she’ wash basins and Jacuzzi too, with two different doors to access the area! Such opulence!)

Anyway….

We woke up early, had our baths, had breakfast, rode an auto to reach the Kukke Subrahmanya Swamy temple.

A clean and peaceful temple town – Subramanya, Karnataka — Pic Source : Google

Although the distance from the hotel to the temple is walk-able, we preferred the auto, because it was quite sunny! (The temperature App in my cell showed it was 32 Centigrade and we are used to more than that in Hyderabad, but we were closer to the beach city Mangalore!) It is best to use the auto services than take the car and face parking difficulties.

We breezed through the temple, with it being an off season for visitors. We returned to hotel in half an hour, spending more time near the ATM to draw out some cash, than in the temple itself! GBee and KBee wanted to buy the beach toys which were readily available near the temple shops.

One set each for both the kiddos.

With this little purchase, we returned to our room. At lunch time, we went to the in-house restaurant, had our lunch and returned to the room. We decided to not travel anywhere for the day. We ate, we drank, we watched T.V. and overall had a lazy day. Our original plan had been to visit either Dharmasthala or Sringeri, depending on our mood that day. Interestingly, our mood that day was to be lazy. So we didn’t budge from our hotel room!

Meanwhile Mr.Bee got the car checked and cleaned, since we travelled in rains and the car mud guards were heavier by a couple of kilos!

With a simple dosa dinner, we ended our day.

Day 9:

After the much needed rest, we woke up by 8 a.m, freshened up and had our breakfast.  We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. We were on our way to Southadka, an open to sky Ganesha Temple (no structure is covering the Moola Virat, Maha Ganapathi), 35 km away from the Kukke Subrahmanya temple! (Visiting both the divine brothers Ganesha and Subrahmanya in the reverse order has been fun. I was happy, because both GBee and KBee are named after the said Gods as Ganesh and Karthikeya.)

A one-of-a-kind temple, without a Garba Gudi. Deity is visible to all, from far and wide! Pic Sourced from Google.

BTW, if you are up for it, there is a shopping complex with spices, coffee powders and antiques available and you can shop till you drop. We avoided the shops because the kids wanted junk food and we had to divert them with all our new found street smart attitude.

Well within half an hour, we ended our darshan and started our journey to Mangalore. Incidentally, when I turned on the radio, I could hear Malayalam songs, so between Subrahmanya and Mangalore, I think we also crossed the Kerala state border for a brief period of time.

The drive was less than 2 hours and we reached Mangalore on time for lunch. I was reminded of my Infosys Mysore roomie, RR, who worked in Mangalore for 2 years. God, I am out of touch with most of my friends! (Sad reality of stay-at-home moms, who also happen to be introverts!)

We stayed at the VAZCO Mangalore Beach resort. All we had to do was cross the 10 feet road to reach the sandy beach! (Best experience ever!) As we checked-in, I observed that the  resort was empty except for us and a couple! I was disappointed.  But since it was Thursday and  people generally don’t travel to beaches on weekdays, I decided to wait and watch.

We had yummy, paper thin Chapathis, with paneer sabzi and lassi glass-sized watermelon juice, to wash down our food! We had booked a family room which comes with a separate seating area outside our room and that was where we spent eating our lunches and dinners during our stay. The separate area comes in handy if you have kids who throw half the food outside their plates! The kids would eat messily and we could go into our room and sleep, while the service staff would clean it without disturbing us and our privacy, a win-win.

After the lunch, we rested for an hour, freshened up, wore our beach outfits with me applying ample sunscreen lotion. (Turns out, at the end of our beach holiday, only I didn’t tan at all. The kids and Mr.Bee had a Mangalore beach tan!)

KBee, GBee and I had a blast, making sand castles and Mr.Bee ended up being our beach photographer. We took a zip lock pouch with us to store our ‘so-called’ water-proof cells and the room key fob. Zip locks are life savers!

We returned to the resort, spent another hour completely hijacking the swimming pool. We had a blast. After washing off most of the sand from our bodies, we returned to our room and ordered garama garam onion pakoras with green chillies for added effect! Yummy! Even the fault finding kiddos ate in silence!

Onion Pakora with added green chillies – Soul Food!

We spent the rest of the evening watching T.V. and resting. KBee had been doing good. He didn’t have a relapse of fever and I was happy and thankful for that. (I met some other mothers during our course of vacation and they would judge me for bringing a tiny kiddo for a 10 day vacation. If we are prepared for food and medical requirements, no harm in travelling with a 2 year old baby. )

We really needed a break from our mundane life and thankfully, the vacation had done the trick of recharging our depleting batteries.

With a yummy yummy fried rice and lip smacking masala butter milk, we ended our day and slept like logs!

P.S:

  1. Don’t ever miss butter milk in Karnataka. Anywhere in Karnataka, buttermilk is to die for.
  2. Who knew a vacation can be at once hectic and leisurely!
  3. Queen Bee’s favourite food is anything with ample green chillies! Weirdly, green chillies make my mouth water!
  4. If you ever have severe cold or if you have breathing issues and allergies, it is always best to visit a beach area. The salty beach air works like a natural nebulizer and clears up even tough sinuses!

Till the next post… cheerio!

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