Journey-1 : Udupi Malpe and Goa

Well. Time for another blog. This time I thought that I should actually do justice to the wandering I do, by actually sharing certain photos and stuff here. I mean, journeys are lovely, aren't they? Then why not share a bit of all of 'em?To be honest, NID routine gets really boring sometimes. and it's raining here nowadays. Everytime it rains, I see nothing less than people backing off and ruining plans. Bleh. I think of why people dread rains so much; perhaps beautiful moments have less takers.Anyways, I am jobless as of now. And for that EXACT reason, I love travelling.So when I thought I needed a break, my very good co-jobless, classmate, co-traveler etc etc, ensemble no.1, Sowmya was the first one I approached, wistfully informing her of a trip down the Konkan coast through Udupi, Malpe and Goa. There's no prize for guessing her answer.We book tickets, literally waking up early so that 'tatkal' gives us hopes. On the day we are leaving, another jobless person, Anjani, on consistent and constant nagging from fellow inspirational people, decide to join us. No tatkal available, she has to take a general ticket. She sat with us in the sleeper coach waiting for a TT and that weirdo never turned up. Soon, the smarty slept off in my berth! :( The hardships of adjusting on one berth I tell you. It was still raining outside. Goodnight world.

SO now, morning 7:00 we reach Mangalore Junction. Now from there, we have to take a bus to Udupi. Udupi is a very small town. it's equal to the Guruvayur for the Kannadigas. Udupi was rainy then, it still is, I presume. Real Chilled weather. After reaching Udupi and freshening up, I pick up my camera and we move towards the first restaurant we saw. Awesome Udupi coffee... mmmmm inspiring! As we move out, drums and nadaswarams are on full throttle outside.

There was some procession happening; orange sari clad ladies, swarmed the thin lane that drew down the temple. They were chanting some mantras from small books. Middle-aged and Old women equally seemed engrossed.

The clouds were grey-orangish then.

We enter the temple in the evening. It's a beautiful Krishna temple there. Fully lit with little lamps around, it was splendid to look at her and the way chants rose, you seem like you are covered by millions of those. Everything around gleamed. Lamps struggled to flame and flicker in their oil-less wicks. Gold on the Krishna statue shone. Old women gathered and sang praises. The temple bells imitated pendulums. Priceless. On the way back through the rain-water filled street roads, we awe at defecating cows and their dungs. Repulsive too.

Woodlands hotel there had the BEST ghee rice ever. And awesome Kannadiga Thali. Yumm. There broke a thunder-lighting at once.

Malpe

Malpe is a clear, simple beach towards Gokarna (another journey I'll account soon). It's much cleaner a beach for the beaches in Chennai, Bombay or Kerala we witness. Next day's stop was Malpe. We catch a local bus from Udupi to Malpe and it takes us direct to the beach. It wasn't raining that day and thank heavens for it. Maple is remote and hence only a few tourists access it. We walk a distance and see a Gandhi statue, with many dogs around and a few crows who loved Gandhiji statue's head.

At Malpe Beach

A very clear beach, less dirty, like any other Konkan beach. We wander, the clouds were gathering and mist was drawing in. For after an hour and a half wandering through the wet sand and battling the waves that broke, we return to Udupi.

We hurried packing to sleep off early as we had a train to catch from Udupi at 6:00 am to Madgaon, to a rainy lush green Goa. Temple bells ring, not so far. All's well with the world.

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PICTURES- Copyright Gayatri 2011