Gokarna ! Fun, Food and Friends

Distance : 450 KMs apx

How to go : I traveled by Bus, but one can drive down too.... But trust me Sleeper bus was really Good It takes apx 12 hours to go from Bangalore but you wont eve realize because these buses start at night ad are comf enough to by the time u getup u you are in GOKARNA.

Where to stay: Well there are lodges and rooms available in the township of Gokarna (Suggested for families) but if you are with your friends one must stay in Shacks only there are many in Kudle and Om  Beach but during season there ca be shortage and they usually cost around RS 600 per day.

Well enough of description given let me start about my journey (if you are thinking about food then dun worry there is enough of it coming up :))
So the plan started pretty long back once we realized that we have a holiday coming up which is on Thursday so the idea was to add a leave on Friday and start for our trip. I always wanted to go to this place had heard about this place from my friends and of course Tina so i asked Tina what are her plans and asked about if she is in for Gokarna apparently she was also planning for gokarna and thus the plan was on !

Once i returned from Hyderabad i had just two days and i who is certainly not a back packer managed to stuff up all my clothes in two HUGE bags and my camera and the tripod stand. Paran and his sister (Indrani - hereon referred as didi) came to sony signal picked me up then we picked up Karishma and we reached gandhinagar. Had nice fish and rest of the stuff i forgot (Good omen to eat fish before you start anything). There i met Rwittik ( Didi's husband - here on referred as Gangnum) and then came Tina and Rakesh. And we hopped on the bus it was my first time especially on a sleeper bus and i just LOVED it. Well i don't remember much but the fact that my window had a brain of its own and was opening itself in every 5 mins, anyways i managed that with my hand and slept off.
When i woke up i saw beautiful mountains all around, lush green and a narrow black stream of road, so picturesque. Then slowly everyone woke up and finally we reached our destination "Gow Karna - GOKARNA" we hired two auto's the lean ones that is Tina, Paran, Karishma and Rakesh got into one auto and Me, Didi and Gangnum got into the other. Initially lovely uphill and downhill roads and then came the bumpy ones, Felt that the auto can just get scattered into pieces any moment. Anyways we reached a plateau a barren land with no signs of sea or beach anywhere but the air was sultry ;) which was a hint that i was near. We started walking well lets say climbing down the mountain and all of a sudden there i saw the lovely, serene, clean beach called "Kudle", Paran had spoke to a person who owns few shacks there so we directly went which was right on the beach, my body said go to the room and heart said leave it all just jump in the water, well i listened to my body and went to the room. It was beautiful, clean with western toilets and a HUGE bed, well ventilated with millions of mosquitoes. We quickly changed and got into some skimpy clothes and we all went to EAT.
The shack served great Israeli food, i ordered baked beans breakfast with lemon tea and rest all ordered different stuff, we all dug into each others food. Gawd let me just state once for all that one you eat there you just cant eat anywhere else the food is so damn good. I wanted to touch the water so i finally went running touched dipped my feet and then came back, me and gangnum went to play Frisbee for sometime in the beach and it was just play time from then on. After sometime we all were in the water playing the "Monkey in the middle" and what not! It was absolute gala time. We returned took shower and went to eat lunch it was a beautiful place with nice seating joints walls painted with Shiva and full of fire ants (fortunately they din bite us)  we kept planning what all we have to do for three days, well to start with we went for Shopping :). Suggestion to all, if you go to Gokarna you must shop.

Terrific trekking to Madhugiri

The Columbus day off on 8th October came quite handy for a traveler like me... Reached home from work around 12ish on Friday with a relaxed feeling of "NO WORK" for next three days .. din really have much in mind.. so usual Saturday doing household chores.. And out of the blue i start chatting with Donnie (My school friend) and guess what we plan a trip in 4 minutes conversation. Donnie mentioned of his friend Anushree would join too but Alas ! she couldn't (Anushree next time.... come what may, U R coming with us !... period ). So I fueled up the car, charged the battery for the camera, and went to bed early to start for Madhugiri (Yup that's the place !) The plan was that I would pick up Donnie on the way and then we would move as his place comes on the same route.
5:00 AM - The Day Began
I have an inbuilt alarm in my head and i just got up exactly at 5:01 realizing that I promised Donnie i would start at 5 ;) but of course i couldn't so I quickly took a shower packed by stuff took a bottle of water and the Journey began.
Destination : Madhugiri Fort near tumkur.
Distance : 110 kms from Koramangla 6th block.
Road : Very good NH4 except a patch of 2 kms (Super Bad).
I reached the petrol station opposite to the platinum city as I was suppose to pick up Donnie from there. While waiting I started cleaning the windscreen as the Wiper in my car isn't working :(. Anyways he showed pretty quick. We both were quite hungry and the McD which was adjacent to the petrol pump added fuel to the fire but at 6:50 AM they were certainly not open. So we finally started again at 7:00 AM sharp.
The road was great we were on NH4 which goes to Pune via Tumkur. All thanks to Google map. The weather was so great that Its absolutely impossible to express... I was windy, cloudy, drizzling at times and the greenery !!! The very view of the looong stretch of road where you don't get to see the end and all you are suppose to do is just drive !!!
Our huger made us stop and enter Kamat Upachar we had Idli wada dosa tea and coffee... and hopped on the road again ! On the way we had few stops here and there and guess what our love for the road made us skip the road which takes us to Madhugiri Thankfully we realized and took a U turn and got on the right track.
After we took the turn we were pretty much considering every mountain as Madhugiri until we saw a mountain which was so huge that half of it was covered by clouds and we could see some structures here and there and That was it Donnie started clicking and I pressed the accelerator.
Finally we were there. We took the Bag the tripod and the camera. The biggest mistake we did was we did not carry water with us (we realized the price of every drop of it)
Initially there was a paved way to walk on then began the stairs (which gave me a though of oh god again climbing ... how i wish what was awaiting ... then i would have thanked) after few steps the stairs went missing and all we found is some carved markings to place the feet.
Initially that seemed fun but later when we saw water flowing through them we got scared but thankfully there was a railing to hold and climb. We were taking rest at every 20 steps and calling it a good spot to capture in the camera while the actual reason was we needed to catch breath.
While we were doing all this we met a group of school children from a nearby village accompanied by 2 teachers and as my friend rightly mentioned they were descendants of Superman ! What energy man .... The climbed the entire mountain talking singing gossipping all the time and after reaching on top they danced sang ate their packed food from home in boxes and and climber down Happily !!! we both just stood AMAZED !

Well so on out way to climbing the stairs slowly disappeared and all what we found was a rod to cling on to and some markings made where we could step to climb ahead. After a certain steps we was so scary that we felt we were 60 degree inclined and leaning forward from where all u see is a steep FALL... I decided i will see one step at a time and march ahead.. anyways we crossed that and after sometime even the footstep marking were not there neither was there any rod to cling on to its just you and the Slope...
Finally when we reached on the top It was Just Beautiful !!!!
All mountains around and breezy.. with small puddles of water all over We were ON with the camera and our eyes trying to capture as much as we could. While we were doing all this one thing continuously haunted me was the fact that we would have to climb down all the way back in the same manner and that was just scary !!!
Oh  by the way i forgot to mention while climbing my trousers tore off and It was HUGE tear... thankfully ppl were bothered about their life more than what was seen underneath my pants so i was fine..
So after sitting for quite sometime we felt it was time we face the fear and start climbing down I tied both my shoes to my waist and Donnie kept his in the bag and we started with out journey with an extra Fanta bottle which we couldn't throw considering we did not want to litter the place to it was in my T shirt. So me + empty fanta bottle and donnie + bag + the camera stand and guess what climbing down was actually easy. I certainly can not negate the fact that at times i was scared but not as scared as climbing Finally we got the steps and then the road and it was such a HUGE Relief..
We first rushed to drink water ... and it was Life we drank not water then we drank bindu and then we started our journey back to Bangalore. Road was cool as usual fully content eager to load pics on facebook and show the world. Talking about those kids and listening to Swades we were returning to the City.
and then we had a food stop at KFC and we had bucket chicken :) then returned to Donnie's place and started seeing the pics......

So... after quite a long time I have come back to write something...

Well obviously I have been pretty busy... which made me not to visit here often... I thank all those who had patience to wait and all those who read.

So i haven't been able to travel much, the only travelling i have been doing is just to and fro between Bangalore (my work city) and Hyderabad (my home)... but the good news is i have been Cooking ;)

So I will not start sharing my cooking recipes... I will start with my favorite ... basil chicken