All we wanted to do was to explore the driving pleasure of our new Hyundai Venue, needless to say it was a pure delight to drive it. So we just picked a destination and started our travel with no itinerary in mind, to North Karnataka, more precisely Uttara Kannada district.

 Day – 1

We started out from Bangalore at 05:30am on November 15th Friday, me being me was completely sick yet managed to drag myself for the road trip with the help of medication because travelling is healing.  After listening to google partially, we chose the Tumkur – Chitradurga – Davangere – Haveri – Hangal – Sirsi – Kumta – Gokarna route. Once we left the city we hit the Pune – Bangalore express way, may be it was our bad luck that there was some maintenance work going on here and there, so it took some extra time and also the last 200km stretch towards Gokarna did not have roads in good condition. The roads were like craved through villages and so there were a lot of cattle on the roads, so we had to drive very carefully in the last stretch.

We stopped in Chitradurga at 09:00 am for our breakfast and it was our first pit stop for the day. We were thankful as we never found any shops after that until we were near to Gokarna. The small bakeries on the way cost you more than MRP as they know they are the only shop around for some kms. We couldn’t pit stop for lunch as there were no restaurants on the way. Finally after Sirsi we found one neat and good place called Abhiruchi restaurant, we stopped for lunch around 16:30hrs and reached our resort in Gokarna at 17:30hrs

Gokarna means Cow’s ear, in relation to the name the place is full of cows. Wherever I turned there was a cow standing laid back relaxing in its own pace. Just like the cows the place is so laid back, lazy, calm and it is like nothing ever happens there. After 6pm I was wondering even if electricity is available in this town near Om and Kudle beaches, as it was pitch dark on the roads and beach. This same reason has attracted few tourists to the place who just want to unwind and relax with nature.

We had booked our stay with Coconut tree resort in Kudle beach road. As we already reached around 05:30pm, we tried to reach Kudle beach, but google madam had other plans and took us to Om beach, so we took a quick stroll in the dark and after encountering with some fun and fright with the cows, we went to Mantra Café for our Dinner and called it a day.

Gokarna – & His – story

It is a religious destination and it is considered to be one of the important hindu pilgrimage places. When I was a kid I have read somewhere that King Raavan wanted to be more powerful and so he had got an Atmalinga from Lord Shiva, which when planted in ground cannot be uprooted. But I never knew this story was based on Gokarna, As Raavan was crossing Gokarna, Lord Vishnu, afraid of the powers Raavan might get, tricked him into placing it in the ground by sending Lord Ganesha. Raavan being angry from getting tricked, tried to uproot the linga with all his might. But he was able to only break bits and pieces which fell in different directions from Gokarna, one such place is Murdeshwar. (Hence the name Mahabaleshwar as the atlimga exerted so much strength).

Day – 2

As soon as we got ready we walked to Kudle beach, with only 4 cows and 2 humans the beach was so calm and secluded.

Om beach is a 30min trek from there but we decided to go by car and  from there we went to Namaste Café for our brunch and then relaxed for a while in the sunny Om beach.

Around afternoon we felt we had enough of Gokarna and left the town to explore the other various towns around Arabian sea. We left to Murdeshwar, we took the road through Kumta, and we arrived in Murdeshwar in an hour and so. We mainly wanted to do this coastal drive from Gokarna to Bangalore via Udupi, with pit stops at various sea shores.

So Murdeshwar being the first, it left us in awe, even though there is a temple on the sea, the beach was so clean that we hardly found any dirt.  And there stands the massive Shiva statue gleaming and shining in all its glory, the sea and Shiva is truly a sight to the eyes. There are lot of water sport activities going on and it is also one of the best places to do Scuba in India.  After playing around for a while in the clean and clear waters, we left the town.

Our next stop was Maravanthe, rocky and clean beach with clear waters, but there were some waves and it was like the beach was ours for a while as it was completely empty other than some crabs crawling in and out of the rocks.

The road from Murdeshwar till Udupi was too good with many scenic views and finally after many pit stops we reached Udupi around 05:00pm and had our lunch in Sea view resort in Malpe Beach.

Around 05:30pm, we settled in Malpe beach to devour the sunset, the beach was a bit crowded and it was beautiful to watch the sun going home. We spent a couple of hours in the beach unwinding and then left to our stay. We had booked a room with Treebo hotels and it was pleasant stay to relax and to recharge for the next day’s long drive to Bangalore.

Day – 3

Around 08:00am we started from Udupi towards Bangalore. Our route for the day was :  Udupi – Mudbidiri – Charmadi ghat – Mudigere – Belur – Hassan — Kunigal — Nelmangala – Bangalore. The drive through Charmadi ghat was scenic and fun, the roads from Udupi were very good with lots of shops for pit stops .  We liked this route better than other one, even though it is a bit longer , it had proper shops and rest stops and good condition roads, also as extra icing on the cake it has lots of scenic views.  Finally we were home by 5pm after a very long drive and loads of memories from the road trip.

Road Trips are so much fun, like you are always on the go, exploring all the places on the way, sometimes it is not just only about the destination it is also about the road and the places that leads to it. Just like Life it is not about where you end up, it is also about the journey towards it ain’t it ??