If you’ve been following me on Twitter (@9_6), you may have known that I had taken a trip to Mangalore for a couple of days.
This blog post is a summary of the trip. It is kind of lenghty, so I’m cutting it off from here for feed readers (aka “I’m only interested in the iPhone news yaar” subscribers. Absolutely no offense to you folks. I cherish you all. Really!).
The trip was sort of planned from a long time, much before my birthday, but the place we decided on was Ooty and we planned to go there by bike! After a few thoughts and some “I’ll-keel-you-if-you-go-by-bike” threats by friends and family, we decided to go to Mangalore by bus. It came down to just three of us though – Pranav, Shanks, and myself. The best part of the trip – we did it under Rs.2000 for each person. That includes traveling to and fro in the luxurious KSRTC Airavath Volvo, staying in a decent hotel, and travelling to all the below mentioned places in rickshaws, besides buying gifts worth ~Rs.300! Beat that!
Departure: 08.00 PM, 28th July; left home for Majestic. We sat in the last seat of the bus and made a HUGE ruckus. Well what did you expect? Just a bunch of excited 18yr olds after all. 
Cya soon Bangalore!: 09.30 PM; Self-explanatory.
Three Noisy Little Monkeys on a bus, 12.30 AM, 29th July; The three of us were wide awake, talking (well just me, with the GF on the phone), laughing, giggling, and squirming around in our seats while every-frikkin-body in the bus were fast asleep. Heh! 
Ghost Town, Hassan: 1 AM; I swear, this town did not even have a dog on the street. There was absolutely NO living soul on the roads of this small city. (And yes, I was still on the phone.)
The ghat section kept me awake through the night. Pranav was busy “gaming” on his cell phone. Only Shanks was able to catch up on some sleep.
Mangalore, 05.30 AM; Got off the bus and we were greeted by heavy rain that just came out of nowhere. I’m serious. One minute there was not a single drop, we get down, and it POURS down on our heads. We make a run for the hotel but realise it’s too far off. (There we were, 3 jack arses running around the city with huge bags on our shoulders). After some sense kicked into our heads, we stopped an auto. The auto wallah says – “Banni, Aiidhu nuuru rupaayi” (Come, 500 rupees). I SWEAR!! We’re standing there laughing our asses off at this guy who’s [supposedly] trying to rip us off. Only a couple of minutes later did we understand that he actually meant “Banni, Hadhi-muuru rupaayi” (Come, 13 rupees). Mangalore just gave us a taste of its Tulu-laced Kannada accent which we “big-city kids” had no clue about! :\
Breakfast, 9.15 AM; We had absolutely no clue where to eat, so just went to the small hotel behind our lodge. The total bill – Rs.72. 
That was the total amount for the THREE of us (all of us ate a LOT btw). Mangalore is frikkin cheap.
St.Aloysius Chapel, 10.15 AM; We visited the beautiful St.Aloysious Chapel.
Mangala Devi Temple, 12 Noon; Left the Chapel to visit Mangala Devi Temple (suggested by our “Oh I’m so religious” Pranav). Reached there, and it started to pour again. Mangalore is friggin weird. No warning of rain at all. And the temple was a utter waste of time. The main idol was closed off for visitors. So while our “religious head” went around the temple once, Shanks and myself were outside “guarding” our footwear from theives! 
Bharath Mall, Lunch, 1 PM; Not really a great place to go for lunch, but we had to book our return tickets and since this mall was right opposite the KSRTC bus terminal, we gave it a shit shot. Nothing great, but again, Mangalore is frikkin cheap.
Pabba’s Ice Cream Parlour, 1.30 PM; Sathya had provided me with a few places to eat. Pabba was this huge ice-cream parlour (which you will NEVER find in Bangalore mind you) that was, again, priced dirt cheap compared to Bangalore (DBC anyone?). We had some of the best ice-cream YEVER! And hey, we had a stalker too!! 
Somanath Beach, 3 PM; Without taking any rest we headed down to Summer Sands, a private beach. The auto-wallah forced us to go to Somanath Beach, stating that it has a better view (and it’s free, unlike Summer Sands). Hell, he was right alright. The view was simply superb! Standing on the edge of a hill 50 feet above the water and watching the sun in the distant horizon is stunning. Sadly, we left our cell phones behind (for absolutely no good reason), so no snaps of the Somanath Beach 
. We got wet, I cut my foot, but still had some fun while we got drenched in the rain.
A wet evening in Mangalore, 5.30 PM; Again, no rest, just a dress change and off we were to the streets of downtown Mangalore to savour some local chaat. Car Street was where we went to (thanks to Sathya again) for some Charamburi, a little Aangli Pachodi (refresh my memory Sathya), and another peanut-filled chaat (the name of which I find hard to remember). All of them had a little coconut oil in them (or as Shanks would say, an entire bottle of oil). We also had some bhajji filled with Maggi noodles! I know, WTH? (sorry, forgot the snap. Finished it off before we could take a snap. )
(PS. Bhajji is also known as Mirchi. It kinda looks like this. Now imagine that stuffed with Maggi Noodles.)
Next tweet from me comes only in the following morning. You can wonder why.
Taj Mahal, Breakfast, 10.30 AM; Had an amazing breakfast that consisted of a huge paper dosa, and the best ‘Bannana Halwa’ I’ve had.
Next tweet from me comes only in the night due to the damn network going down. But that didn’t stop us from having some fun! 
Read on (if you still haven’t closed the page).
Off to Kaup, 11 AM; Kaup is a small town which has a Light House, ~80 Km from Mangalore. We went ZOOMED by private bus. I can tell you that it was fun, and scary at the same time. Going on a private bus having no hydraulics, no air-conditioning, and a driver with absolutely no brains is kinda insane. The bus travelled at nothing less than 80kmph, with the speed peaking at >100 kmph most of the time. The bumpy road made for a good ass whooping. A bump, and we were literally STANDING in our seats. No kidding. 
Kaup Beach & Light House, 1 PM; The town was bathed in fish stink as we left for the beach. But really, that did NOT stop us from having oodles of fun. Let the pictures speak for themselves.
That was it, we came back at around 5 PM and headed straight for the hotel. Checked out at around 8 PM, did a little gift buying for our girls, and headed to Chicken Tikka Hallal at around 8.30 PM. And our Mangalore trip came to a close.
Well, almost. We just had to have a final laugh now. The bus was scheduled to leave at 10.30 PM, and we were still having dinner at 10.25 PM. By the time we went down to the bus stand, it was 10.40 PM. Yes, we had made the *last* KSRTC Volvo to Bangalore wait *exclusively* for us!
Don’t forget to check out:
- All the pictures of the Mangalore trip on my Flickr set.
- Did I mention Nerd Boi? You have GOT to check out his pictures. He’s the new super-hero in town. Really.
- And follow me on Twitter! @9_6
LOLZ MAN nuuru MUURU was damn funny