2K5 ROCKZ

After a horrendous journey we passed the gates of Shringeri, the math created by Jagatguru Sankaracharya at the banks of Tunga river. It was raining and raining like there is no end. We somehow adjusted our bags and went to have the free food in the temple. But it was all over and we just had to visit the temple and find a place to have our dinner. The hotel which was house full could find us some separate seats and we ate our rainy supper. Now, we have to find a dwelling for the night and for that we could find only some costly third grade lodges with. This was the most costly of our lodgings. We share two rooms and when we went into the bathroom, the water was the colour of brick (the same colour of all the rivers we saw) and therefore we decided to skip bath for the day.

The morning was beautiful with only drizzles pouring over our heads, and we had a visit to the magnificent Sringeri temple which is an epitome of Indian architectural beauty. The avatars all were depicted over the walls and with a photo session and breakfast we ran to get the bus to our next destination Karkala. The bus passed through the thickest of the thick forest of Kudramukh (might have heard of iron mining here) National Park. You could not see the sun here, not because of rain clouds, but the majestic trees over you. This is what you call a forest with rain showing its strength with fallen trees over the roads and electric lines all cluttered. Waterfalls and lush undergrowths soon faded away and we reached a town similar to that in our state. This is Karkala were you will see one of the largest monolith statues in the country.

We went straight away to view the Bahubali statue which was located over a hill (actually rock), where steps and the whole temple is carved out of rocks. We started our photo session in that beautiful locale and the thrill reached so high that some even tried to climb over the statue. This made the peaceful tantri there to call us back. To save money, we decided to walk back and found yet another temple on rocks. But before we could reach the top, we found two or three snakes crawling around our foot and we had to withdraw. And the thing was that the temple was not open at all. And after getting back to the bus stand we went in to hotel Sagar to have our lunch. It was one of the best culinary experience we had along our journey. The bearers asking us to eat more providing us with whatever we want and we all came out with our tummies projecting into the air.

It was a bloody hell place with nothing more but pollution everywhere. Dogs and crows coloured red due to the fumes and some powder. Lorries and trucks everywhere and dust thronging in the airs. Walking through the disheartening atmosphere for about 1.5kms, we ultimately reached the sea. While we were on to enjoy jumping into sea, another board came into our view.

“Don’t swim here, its too deep”

1999-2005: 40 2006:11 2007:8……. And it went so on. And this was the list of deaths here always updated. But it was a beautiful scenery there with big ships passing just behind us and the sea roaring over until the sky turned so dark that even we felt frightened.

At last we decided to turn back and obviously ran to get a bus in order to visit Kasargod today night itself. With the snails walking behind we went in the first bus and reached somewhere near the KSRTC bus stand. On walking to the stand, there stood the Bharath mall in front of us. So to have some fun and see some colours we entered and paced through Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Big Bazar, Baskin Robbins and so on without buying a single thing. When we felt the time was too long and we had too short time, we went to catch a bus to Kasargod. Unfortunately, the last 5 buses from Kerala has not reached the stand due to some road block. But we were fortunate and enough to get the seats on the first bus that arrived. We flew over the Netravathi river and ultimately reached our home state Kerala. Just as you cross the border the views and scenes become completely different and you can see the familiar Kerala roads and shops everywhere. It took us more than 2 hours to reach the Kasargod town.

Now we had a lodge with expenses at par and had a walk around. The only hotel opened that night was a fast food center. There we had our first non-veg meal of our tour. Everyone was busy tearing off the meat from the bones and we decided to have our biriyani tomorrow. Everyone tired off the busy day behind fell into deep sleep. The Bekal fort would not open until 10 and we could sleep the hello out….

Today we have to see nothing other than the Bekal Fort. Getting to the route through a bus was easy. And only a few had been there in the rain to visit the fort. It was one of the most beautiful sights your eye could ever witness. The greens in the background of the dark fort walls and the sea flowing and splashing into the fort. So we advice, monsoons is the best time you should visit bekal Fort. Otherwise the beauty imbibed it can never be met. We had quite a great photo sessions there with the sea, with the walls and with the greens. Our estimated time had far expired and our extra time there reached to over 2 hours. We never expected we would spend so much time there.

If we are to catch the train at 3.30pm we had to reach the hotel by 3.00. But unfortunately, we got a bus and it took the longest route through which you can reach the town, over an hour (it took just 20 minutes to reach the fort). We had our biriyani as planned and checked out to reach the station only to find the train is one hour late. One hour passed, now the train is half hour late. Then 20 minutes, 10 minutes and another train arrived. In a confusion, at last we decided not to enter it. And just 10 minutes later our train arrived and we were the only souls to get in it. We lavishly sat and the train even overtook the first train. When we reached back and checked our purse, we had only spend Rs. 1300 for the entire trip. The return far far exceeded the expenditure. This was one of the most experiencing and experimental tour of ours. The things we could read in the newspapers across the places were that 'Rain plays havoc' '5 died in heavy rains' '3 die in land slides and so on'. We would never recommend these places to anyone, but we would always recommend to go touring while its raining. The one thing we understood we understood when we returned and though was that '

"We were not chasing the monsoons"

"The monsoon was chasing us"