My First Post

I have been planning to start blogging since a while but that much needed impetus was missing!To the rescue came the South Canara trip with college friends, just a day after the C# exam. Also exciting was the fact that there were friends from Bangalore joining me on the trip.

After a long wait,the train finally chugged into the Mysore station and all of us scrambled in,hoping to get comfy berths next to each other. But that was not to be! Almost an hour was spent on swapping berths with other people but we still did not have adjacent berths and we had so much to talk and catch up!! So what did we do?We huddled up near the door and spent the entire night chatting away, much to the disgust of the sleeping co-passengers, got off at stations and imbibed caffeine and went click-click with our cameras.

Once we reached Mangalore we freshened up at a friend’s place and headed to the Campco factory in Puttur.The heady smell of cocoa welcomed us at the entrance and we knew we were in for a treat!The friendly guide took us through the entire chocolate making process and gave us stuff to taste from each stage.We loved it and gorged greedily on chocolate. It was all wonderful initially, but as the quantity of chocolate consumed increased,it started looking more and more repulsive. So much that, at the end of the tour, most of us were swearing to go off chocolates for a few days.

Then came the Ananthapadmanabha Swamy Temple near Kasargod.Legend has it that getting to see the vegetarian crocodile residing in the pond there is a lucky omen, and were we not lucky or what!We caught sight of it, clicked pictures and then rested at the temple.All this took so long that we would miss the sunset at Someshwara beach but for our driver! I cannot forget how he raced against the sun and made sure we reached the beach on time to catch the breathtaking view and do some contemplation staring at the drowning sun. The exciting day was finished off with Ice cream at Ideals.Special mention to the Chikku ice cream which is really yum.Why don’t we get to eat it in Mysore?!

Day 2 began with swaying on the hanging bridge at Kote road.From there we went to the Kodi Bengre delta and it was time for more sand and more water.We ditched the plans of going to Pili KuLa in the last minute and voted for the Pharangi Kudru ,a private island maintained by our driver’s friend. A half an hour boat trip took us to the island where we were welcomed by the owner’s dogs. It is a place where you can spend your entire weekend and also learn fishing if you have the time. The driver then took us to Pajaka-Madhvacharya’s birth place-an ancient house whose cool interiors were a welcome break from the sweltering sun. An ideal pit stop to catch that much needed rest. Malpe beach was scratched off our list coz the crowd there was scary!Instead, we went to the Kedaki beach close to it. Being a private beach, there were hardly any people.We got into the water and had the time of our lives!

While the second day’s itinerary was chock-a- block with places, we had only two places to visit on the third day before taking the train back to Mysore-The St.Mary’s Island and the Udupi Temple.The former gave us ample opportunity to pose and take pictures while the temple finished off our trip on an auspicious note.All I could pray for was super duper marks in the 7th sem exams!!That reminds me, I still have another exam left on 19th jan Why don’t vacations just last forever??!!