Malabar Hitch-h(B)ike

3 P.M on Sept 29 of `06, 4 more hours and the long weekend (long because of the Mahatma`s birthday) would descend upon us, Anup and myself and also et all. That`s when both of us felt staying in bangalore over the long weekend, is the worst thing we could ever ever do! Finally after my mood swings(now thats as normal as the sun rising everyday!), we decide(anup decides & I nod) that at daybreak on 30th sept we must be in mangalore. Hmmm.. sounds exciting sitting on my cosy chair in office!!

In no less than 6 hours, we began to bite the dust(reality)! The Majestic Bus Terminus overlooking a long weekend is no less than a khumbh mela gathering. Despite all the chaos, the two dudes at majestic just refused to board "any" bus to mangalore. Finally we found our moolah in the form of a KSRTC volvo! wow! how cool is that!! here are two people on the verge of sitting next to a beedi breathing driver and in a flash they find themselves in plush interiors. Ok, there was one thing we had to adjust though, the destination of the bus! The wasn`t going to take us to mangalore, instead would drop us in virajpet! My geography matched with the volvo conductor`s geography, he said 80 kms from virajpet is mangalore, Roger that!!! Dawn brought some hard facts with it, virajpet to mangalore is another 170 kms and this is not the first time that my geography went horribly wrong. 5 AM to 11 AM on 30th sept was spent on a whirlwind bus to mangalore.The entire coorg district lay in our way to mangalore, and the beautiful surroundings really livened up our spirits. So Bangalore-Mangalore, 12 hours flat, pretty fast huh!

Mangalore, Malabar coast - Bangalore`s younger brother in the true sense, also a touch worse with its hilly landscape and high humidity! What else could we do in a place like this than go to a Pizza Hut and hog on a pizzas served with a phoney smile! Right from the moment we started this trip we had a bike journey on our minds, the two kids on the block were overawed by Motorcycle Diaries, yes the movie which introduced the legendary Che Guevara to the two of us. To our dismay, bikes are not hired in mangalore. Anyway a filthy 6-wheeler wheels us to Udipi. Why Udipi, apparently there is a beautiful island off the Malpe beach in udipi, this is what anup knew about the place, this guy knew a lot more even after this point, super I say! As far as i`m concerned, you get great south Indian food in Udipi, “Udipi Hotels are the best”, I was brought up listening to that from young and old alike.

Udipi had a pseudo buzz to it on the day we were there(still 30th sept), now I call it pseudo because the people did not really look like they were in a hurry, a local political leader gutting his lungs out at the town center, made them hurry, wonder for what! The politico really didn`t affect us though, because at 3:30 in the afternoon, both of us felt we are wandering around aimlessly(better late than never!), so Lord Internet finally comes and gives us some direction at that point. We decide to hit malpe beach and catch the late night train out of udipi. A long lovely beach welcomes us to sit back and gaze at the sunset. The sunset really sets the mood, it really does. The diving ball flushes out a mirage of thoughts. Since the adventure index of the day was low, we decided to take a long walk along the shore. We had to cross a canal merging into the sea, crossing under daylight was alright but crossing the turbid waters under the moonlight was also not very tough. Fine ok, the adventure index for the day stays low, real low!

After the soothing beach, dinner and we headed towards Udipi Railway Station. A 3 hour wait at the station awaits us. The wait wasn`t all that boring, thanks to some very pretty faces from the nearby Manipal college. So a short nap in the railway station(not the first time, Chennai central, numero uno!) and a longer one on the netravati express puts us straight into the land, for which the Lord Almighty is the brand ambassador.

So why on earth are we in kozhikode(kerala) on Oct 1st? Firstly nothing against Oct 1st and secondly my dear friend anup was super confident of hiring a bike here in Kozhikode. Being a Sunday, the tourist offices were closed and with our broken malyalam we managed to catch hold of this guy Habeeb, who might hire us his bike. On the southern most tip of the public beach, we meet this chap habeeb, who was very cynic initially about hiring his bike to us, finally got along well and agreed to rent us the bike for two days for a 1000 rupee deposit and 300/day rental and fuel on us! I cant explain how ecstatic we were when he said yes! We dumped our luggage at habeeb`s place and set off on what was to be the most exciting journey ever, till date!

Kannur (93 kms north on NH 17) by dusk, was the order of the day. We set off around 11 in the morning and stopped by initially at a fishing harbour, everything about this journey was a first for me. Chatted up with some local fishermen and set off again traversing the beautiful country side, vadakara, quilandy just to name a few towns. A small detour from the highway took us to an art of living ashram(under consruction). The location of the ashram right on the sea front, the more we spent time there, the more we fell in love with the ashram. But then, my doubts on the authencity of pandit ravishankar didn’t vanish! We had a tough time with the lunch because neither of us are fish lovers and fish is the only edible food available.

At around 2 in the afternoon ,we cross the kerala border to enter Mahe, a territory of pondicherry. Mahe has a share of about 5kms of NH 17, goes to show how big or rather how small the town is. Being a union territory, both petrol and liquor are dead cheap, unfortunately both the commodities don’t go hand in hand! We went to this tagore park(only hangout) in mahe to find the `entire` town drunk.Each one in their own psychedelia! Mahe was actually a disappointment though, nowhere even close to its illustrious brother on the bay.

Nidthu! Stop! Stop! Oh oh trouble we thought, when the cop stopped us as soon as we entered kerala again. He stopped us for crossing the yellow divider line(now when was the last time someone noticed the yellow line!), just an excuse to check if we were drunk! Soon we reached a drive-in beach, you can actually drive your vehicle on the shore. The venturous ones can drive down to the Horizon! Anyway I was more than happy by-hearting the name of the beach though, it was called Muzhapilangannad.. oh you bloody beauty chaitanya, how on earth could you remember that!!

Further still we lazed around in avoidable thalassery, a little trivia here, thalassery is the fashion capital of kerala(source of trivia- Anup!). Just around sunset time we reached kannur and watched a botched sunset from the public beach. After numerous pictures, we criss-crossed kannur three times just to decide the roof we were to settle under for the night(this is the only accommodation we took during the entire trip!).

We woke up the next morning from the cannanore lodge(bang opposite the railway station) at 4 30 AM, the sun wasn’t out yet(obviously!) and it was pouring heavily since last night. Forgot to mention, anup actually woke me up at 4 30! He insisted that we must go as per plan and the plan was to brave all the rain and bad headlights and reach bekal fort to watch the sea hurtle against the fort! I was a bit paranoid about driving in the rain, but trust me, my adrenaline was pumping so hard, I couldn’t care less for the rain! There was a lot more exciting stuff happening out there. But when we finally reached bekal fort(aprox 90 kms from kannur) I couldn’t help but thank anup for waking me up so early. At 7 AM on Oct 2nd, melodrama surfaced, the villain(sea) was in full fury, trying to grab the princess(land) , only to be stopped by the protagonist(the fort). We witnessed the melodrama for almost 2 hours and left as soon as the crowds were building up to do what we just did over the last two hours. Puttu kadale and idiyappam for breakfast at nearby kanhangad(now try getting this pronounciation right???) From then on it was just a battle with time and monsters(public transport vehicles in kerala, you got to experience having them as traffic companions to realize their monstrous nature!) to hit kappad beach by sunset. Payanoor and et all passed by before we halted for a sumptuous rajasthani lunch in kannur! Now that’s a huge bonus, an unlimited meal at Rs 25(if only a bed came at a special 50% off after the meal!). The journey is soon to coming to an end here folks!

After enduring a lot of rear pain, we were glad to have reached kappad to just laze around on the clean sands and enjoy yet another beautiful sunset(you can grow tired of anything, but not nature and its pristine beauty!). Another 15 kms from the kappad and we would reach where it all started. This last 15 kms neither of us spoke a word, we were probably feeling too bad that its all coming to an so soon! But hey, I bet we can repeat this!

8 PM, we enter calicut and finish the bike formalities and quickly hire an auto to the bus stand! This is not the first time it is happening to us that there are absolutely no tickets to Bangalore. Oh wait a second, did I say finished the bike formalities, how I wish it really was, to my surprise I find habeeb in the bus stand searching for us. I gave the bike, how about the keys!!!! Well it was very nice of habeeb to understand my tension(how to get to Bangalore) and not accuse me of theft and bash me up on the streets(gosh imagine that!)
Anyway, we boarded a bus at around 10, lucky to get the first class seats , the doorway and the engine top!! Aarggghh… body breaking! But dreaming all the way to Bangalore about the wonderful three days!!

The dream was jolted by a “meter double charge” cry from the auto-wallah at kalasipalayam. That’s when I told myself I could construct a lot more dreams only if I did my Monday to Friday duty well! Common one needs some inspiration to get to office after such a lovely trip and I found one in the zeal to construct many more such dreams. I`m right on the job!