The 1800km Coastal Karnataka Roadtrip – Part 1 – Bangalore – Mangalore

I’ve always wanted to go on long road trips, but with both Jo and me working, trying to find a contiguous block of holiday has been rather difficult. With me taking a break and Eid holiday coming during middle of the week, we got a chance to do our road trip.

With a date set, we next wondered which route to take? We considered Coastal Karnataka(Bangalore - Goa - Mangalore - Bangalore) and Tamil Nadu(Bangalore - Madurai - Kanyakumari - Thanjavur - Chennai - Bangalore), but eventually decided upon Coastal Karnataka after consulting with resident travel expert Ashwin. He also suggested few additional places(OK, he suggested a lot of the intermediate places) and we decided on this route and timeline.

Date	Day	Start Time	From	To	Via	Appx Drive Time	Comments	Accommodation
2-Jul-16	Saturday	5:00 AM	BLR Residence	Mangalore	Hassan	8 hours
3-Jul-16	Sunday
4-Jul-16	Monday
5-Jul-16	Tuesday	9:00 AM	MLR	Malpe		2 hours	Start in Morning reach Udupi 11:30. temples ~2 hours, stay overnight Malpe	Malpe Sea Front Cottage
6-Jul-16	Wednesday	9:00 AM	Malpe	Kavimane	Agumbe	3 hours	Reach Thirthalli by 12 Lunch at Thirthalli Visit Kavimane. Starting early from Malpe might give some fog/sunrise views via Agumbe
6-Jul-16	Wednesday	2:00 PM	Kavimane	Jog	Anantpur	3 hours	Reach Jog by 5:00 Overnight at Jog Check with personnel at Kavimane or someone at Thirthahalli regarding which of these two routes are better for Jog: Route 1: Thirthahalli - Kodase - Hosanagara - Sagara (via SH52 & then SH77) OR Route 2: Thithahalli - Ripponpet - Anandapura - Sagara (via SH1)	Mayura Gersoppa
7-Jul-16	Thursday	8:00 AM	Jog Falls	Palolem	Honnavar	4 hours	Jog view for 1 hour Reach palolem by 1pm Just before Honnavar, there is Idagunji Ganesha temple, incase you can visit	Art Resort Goa The Tubki Resort Castle House Zappia Cove Palolem Beach Resort (few complaints on room quality) Some comments I read around was Patnem Beach is better than Palolem Beach.
8-Jul-16	Friday						Palolem/Goa	-
9-Jul-16	Saturday	9:00 AM	Palolem	Bangalore		10 hours	Route 1: Karwar - Ankola - Yellapur - Hubli (incase you want to visit your relatives) Route 2: Karwar - Ankola - Yellapur - Mundgod (TIBETAN SETTLEMENT) - Bankapur - Haveri

Bangalore - Mangalore #

Our travel day was finally here. Trip meters reset, fuel filled, car serviced the week before, spare tyres checked, some snacks, biscuits and chewing gum for the road we started from Bangalore.

We usually stop for breakfast at a place right after Nelamangala, soon as we hop on to Bangalore - Mangalore highway, but surprisingly this place had not yet opened. Tummy rumbling, we decided to move on to our other usual place about 10km before Kunigal.

20 minutes later, we arrived at our spot, “New Golden Breeze” restaurant only to find that even that had not yet opened. I’m not sure why that was the case, but anyway decided to move on and have food at Kamat near Kunigal. Before reached there, we came across Sri Siddalingeshwara Cafe(lol) which seemed good enough and we stopped. Before we went in, I had a look at the scenery which reinforced how beautiful the roads are during monsoons.

The restuarant was a bit crowded but we ordered Thatte Idly & Vada and some filter coffee

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The breakfast was good, the idly soft and fluffy, the vada crispy and the filter coffee hit the right spot. As we finished our breakfast and stepped out, we spotted a kitty roaming from car to car. It was a shame we had to leave the cat back, seemed really friendly. Belly full and kitty pet, we decided to move on. Driving through the monsoons is a sheer bliss, especially if it’s not raining. Lush greenery everywhere, the cool breeze blowing, it’s really hard to not park your car aside and step out and soak in the breeze and the atmosphere.

We took the Hassan - Sakleshpur - Shiradi ghat route and barring few bullet tankers(aka the LPG tankers), the road was pretty much empty. We had our usual second pit stop at a different place - at Shri Durga International instead of our usual Surabhi NX

After having a round of dosa and coffee, we resumed our journey with the ghats coming up. Recently, a big chunk of the Shiradi ghats were concreted and thus driving through it was a pleasure and not the usual pothole ridden experience. The caveat however, is that the edges of the road are still not done and padded with mud. With rains, these patches erode away and leave a really steep and dangerous cut. Once the concrete roads were over though, the tarred roads had started giving away and was obvious they weren’t going to last long.

As we got closer and closer towards Mangalore, the tanker traffic increased and it ended up delaying our arrival in Mangalore by about 45 minutes. Once home a nice plate of fried fish cooked by Mom welcomed us(despite it being really difficult to get fish during monsoons).

Later on in the evening, I went over to my sister’s place to meet her and Shriya. She took me to a part of Mangalore, just behind her place, which I hadn’t visited since a really long time. The view of the Nethravathi river from there was fabulous.

Here’s a link to the 360° view from here. The remaining couple of days were spent at my folks' place, my in-laws' place and at Jo’s cousins. We went over to The High Wave(though initially it was supposed to be Froth on Top) for some decent food and good times with Jo’s cousins.

No trip to Mangalore would be complete without an Ice cream from Pabba’s.. so went over to Pabba’s, grabbed some ice cream for us as well as for family and headed back home

Part 2 continues .. Also enjoy a sample of drive through Shiradi ghats