Tag: mosambi

Returning home!

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!

Of the Ocean and the Beach!

Day 10:

All the four of us are lazy souls, so we wake up late, at every possible chance we get! We don’t have exams to prepare for or have a flight to catch, so yes, waking up at leisure is not that bad. (Warning; Don’t try this at home! If you get beatings from your parents for waking up late, it is not my fault!)

As we were lazing on the beds, watching Insta reels and FB posts, the caretaker assigned for us at the resort came up to our door, begging us to come have our breakfast! It was hardly 8 A.M. (Either he had other stuff to do or is a punctual guy!)

That’s when I took the matters into my hands, woke up both the kiddos, gave them baths. All of us were ready by approximately 8:40 A.M.

Our caretaker brought us 4 thalis filled with neer dosa, onion poha and slices of ice cold watermelon, along with yellow coloured kesar. I don’t know if people in Mangalore ate sweet for breakfast, but I hardly eat sweet 10 times throughout the year. I prefer sinful chocolates and sinful is not a brand name!

Anyway, breakfast was a bust. What is this Neer Dosa? I couldn’t eat it, even if my life depended on it. It was bland and soft to touch. I like dosa which is crunchy and crispy and nothing could change my prejudice against neer dosa, not even the chutney or the sambar. (I had to wash it down my throat with huge sips of water or neer, maybe that’s why it is called Neer Dosa!)

neither crispy nor crunchy – no second chances! – pic source: Google

The breakfast menu sucked big time, mostly because I am also not a fan of poha, but if it were batata poha, the breakfast would have been in my tummy in a jiffy, thanks to the potato, but onion poha was a no-no. (It seems, the caretaker is not a specialist when it came to making breakfast!) Interestingly, this caretaker guy thought that both my kids, who are less than 7 years old combined, would eat as much as us, adults. Their plates were exactly plated like ours, in adult portions! Such wastage of food, that too, the food which none of us like!

After our not-so-satisfactory breakfast, we rushed to the beach, applying 2mm thick sunscreen and continued playing till black spots began appearing before our eyes. (Playing under the scorching Sun can do that to your eyes!)

Three to Tango!

We returned to the resort, showered under the shower head and got into the pool.  We continued our fun in the swimming pool for more than half an hour, before returning to the room, taking baths again and changing into fresh dry clothes. It is hard to make the kiddos come out of the pool. Their favourite pass time is playing with water and they love swimming pool, more than anything.

The Ocean meets the sky in the background while the foreground has a cutesy pool.

For lunch, we had Veg Fried Rice, Paneer Sabzi and a foot long glass filled upto brim with masala buttermilk.

After an hour or two, we returned to the beach, with the plastic tools bought in Subrahmanya, to make the sand castles. I would make a sand castle and the baby KBee would have a hearty laugh after stamping and razing the buckets of sand, every single time. He would laugh out loud and once he is in his fits of laughter, he ends up with hiccups. So ya, its interesting watching him laugh between hiccups! (I know who he takes after!)

We also fought each other in the sand, took some pictures and again had brief fun at the swimming pool before calling it a day.

Baby with an Umbrella as a shield – KBee after a sand fight!

I took loads of pictures of Sunset and one Mr.X, an uncle of a close friend advised us that it is not a good omen to take pictures of ourselves with the setting Sun. So, there goes our beach photo session in vain! (We decided not to show them to others, lest they pass any such comments!)

Morning to noon – empty beach

Another click from my cellphone….

Coconut trees on a beach have a charm of their own.

We ate paper thin pulkas, dal tadka and had fresh watermelon juice to finish off the dinner. Both the kids are extremely picky, so the only juice they like having is that of watermelon and I too order watermelon juice if mosambi is unavailable.

With a completely satisfied stomach, we ended our day, with the background music of the rising tides of the ocean waves. Another day of leisure comes to an end.

P.S:

  1. Sorry folks if I offended anyone about the neer dosa, but honesty is the best policy and I follow it everyday of my life.  Andddd, people do have varied tastes and thank God for that!
  2. Even if Mangalore is a beach city, we didn’t feel the humidity at all, maybe because we dressed appropriately for the beach. Food for thought!
  3. The caretaker looked like a pukka South Indian, but turns out, he is from Assam and had relocated to Mangalore during the pandemic! That maybe the reason why his South dishes failed to impress us, whereas, pulkas and rotis were fabulous! I still can’t understand, how anyone can make a paper thin pulka! I am not giving neer dosa another chance though. It is completely opposite of everything I like, it is a no-go!
  4. Visiting a beach on weekday, from morning to noon is the best thing one can do. No human traffic, which means, we can have the beach to ourselves. Beach at Mangalore felt like a private beach for a whole day!
  5. Like I mentioned in previous post, never miss the masala buttermilk in any city or town of Karnataka. It is the best.
  6. Sometimes, when Mr.Bee and I drive to far off locations, with mountains and hills, we remember Charlotte and miss those beautiful mountains, we would frequently visit, every month! I miss you GrandFather Mountain, Gatlinburg and Mt.Soma! I miss you too, Pigeon Forge and Chimney Rock!

Cheerio, till the next post.

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