Madikeri -> Mangalore -> Udupi (20.11.24)

I didn't feel like leaving Madikeri. A small town with one main road, slow traffic, laid back people, amused policemen, low pollution, cool climate all year round, soaked in greenery, and totally off the tourist circuit. So, throughout the 170 km journey today, I was mentally throwing a tantrum.

Breakfast at the Mercara Golf Club (8.30 am)

Don't panic, Mercara is the local name for Madikeri. Anyhoo, to drown my sorrows, Piyush took us down to the Golf Club, where he is a member and where he goes down once in a while to waggle a nine-iron at the ducks. A more lovely piece of greenery I have not seen, nor tasted a yummier grilled egg sandwich. Most of the caddies, whom Big P practically knew by name, were groom Bangladesh, inwarded through Assam. In fact as per Big P, most of the labour at Madikeri was like that. I felt quite at home.

Lunch at Mangalore (1.30 pm)

I could see thay our route was practically bypassing Mangalore. When the ellipsoid anti-orbit came closest to M, a fine-dining joint rise out of the mist on the highway, appropriately called 'Mist'. We veered in because Panna was fed up of joints with Pure Veg in the nameplate, and here we could lunch lightly off a grilled peri-peri burger (Panna) and a pasta alfredo (I). In fact, I was pleased to now that there WERE a few establishments touting fine dining on the highway, which is not generally expected, and definitely not near Udupi which is the one who lent its name to the fast food australis.

Sri Krishna Matha at Udipi (3.30 pm)

This very famous temple was founded by the vaishnavite saint Madhavacharya, the founder of Dvaita school of vedanta, in the 13th century. The styling is different from the temples in TN and Kerala. The interior decorations are quite detailed and resembles a living ashram.

Sunset at Udupi (4.30 pm)

Udupi has strip of drivable land with hotels, which is a fantastic place to stay on, but very costly. So we opted for a place, Riverside Homestay, that on the mainland, next to the strip of water. It was a simple accomodation, but around sunset, a boatman rowed us across to the strip of land, and after a long time, we saw a sunset in all its glory.

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Gokarna, via Murudeshwar.

Photo credits: Panna Rashmi Ray

Kolkata -> Cuttack (28.10.24)

Travel to the south involves transiting in Orissa, usually at Bhubaneswar. This time, we halted at Cuttack, just for some variety. This distance of 425 kms is done by pro drivers in 9 hours of no-break driving, but I was expecting to take longer. The usual breafast and lunch breaks add around 1.5 hours to the trip. My additional imponderable was the condition of the highways, given that Dana had spread her wings across Orissa just a couple of days earlier. A few videos of Balasore and Bhadrak bobbing up and down in the waters had not done much to boost my confidence. But I was impressed. No impact on roads up to Cuttack, a bit of flooded fields here and there, and (here I did a double take), very few speed cameras. Either the gale had blown them away, or, what is more likely, Orissa govt took them down to prevent that bunch of costly equipment bring scattered all over Jharkhand. Breakfast at Kolaghat (8.30 am) We left at 6.30 am and had breakfast at Kolaghat (H. Anand s...

Puducherry -> Pitchavaram -> Tharangambadi -> Vailankanni -> Thanjavur (6.11.24)

Now now, don't get your knickers in a twist! These are not the list in a memory game designed by Shashi Tharoor while campaigning at Thiruvanthapuram. These three stopovers had been suggested by a friend who had backpacked these areas, and I promise you, each one is a gem! Today's drive was 300 km, for which a straight run might take 6 hours. We managed to stretch it to 11 hours! We left Puducherry at 7.30 am, foregoing the free breakfast being offered by the hotel (for roadtrippers, that's a big sacrifice). By and large, we travelled down the coast till around 4 pm, then cut west to go to Tanjore (see map above). After Cuddalore, NH gave way to SH, then to simply H, but the quality of roads in TN continued to be very good. We saw a lot of road work going on, which meant lot of diversions for us, but the rate at which dual carriages are coming up in SHs is really impressive. Weather was sunny and hot throughout, probably because thunderstorms had been predicted....

Gudalur -> Sultan Bathery -> Pookode Lake -> Banasura Sagar -> Wayanad (18.11.24)

8.30am-5.30pm 140 km 5 waypoints 6400 to 2400 ft All right, this might have given you a numerical grip of today's travels. But, believe me, this tells nothing. This tells nothing of the pure sensual delight of a travel in the hills. As we left Gudalur today morning, after our usual dosas, the air crisp and biting, windows down, our GPS took matters into her own hands and we surrendered to her directions - go where you might - while we sat with silly grins on our faces as scenery after scenery flowed across the fantastic movie screen called Nature. Though some of our routes were on busy routes, a lot were, thankfully, on practically empty ones, where we were given a private show, be it the morning sun hitting our eyes like a strobe as we travelled on dappled mountain roads, or miles and miles of super-green paddy fields floating up from infinity as we topped a rise, or a lake backed by mountains that slowly faded layer by layer - each one of them drew an involuntary ...

Dakshin Mahayatra

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