Bekal Fort and Valiyaparamba Island

Every time I watched Tu hi re song from movie Bombay, I was tempted to visit this beautiful fort in north kerala, an overnight journey from Bangalore. This time we decided to hire a vehicle to accommodate 12 people.

 

Friday night we gathered in Suhas’s house in srinagar. Count reached 10 and the clock ticked 9, but the momentum of the group was slow. May be because it was still difficult to leave behind Manu and Bavana who were not joining us to the trip this time. Finally after tempting manu as much as possible to join us on Sunday, we said bye to both of them. Dinner on the way to mysore. Somewhere in the mid night Shiv boarded the bus in mysore. None had a sound sleep except for Suhas, the sound told us all hmmm (sukha purusha kano neenu). When Vehicle had stopped moving I was still dreaming that the vehicle had broken down due to some problem and the rest of the people in the bus were trying hard to push the complaining vehicle. Well fortunately nothing like that happened & I was surprised to realize that we were already in front of the fort by 6:30AM.

We freshened up in the resort close to fort. Stretched for a while and settled for Breakfast. He took his sweet time to serve us variety of dosas, tea and coffee. The group had nothing less to chit chat. It dint look like stopping. Kushal joined us here from mangalore. Few among us reminded the reason of visit was not to relax in a hotel but in the beach. We then lazily moved towards the fort. Visited the temple inside the fort. Read the long history about the fort informing about those who ruled this place starting from Ikkeri keladi kings, Tippu Sultan and then by British. Sun was at his peak shining, the view was never ending and the beach was calling!!! Crowd was not much in the beginning. It was all yours. The herd rushed to enjoy the waves throwing themselves into the gushing water. Few were happy walking on the shore, exploring the fort. It was a perfect day to get tanned.

 We watched fishing boats heading to their work, waving at us. Few had to attend calls from office. Perfect Holiday! Office calls in swim suit… happening??? We sipped in lime soda, pineapple to quench the thirst. The fort has that perfect setting for the men with camera. Nothing could stop them, nor the people who were getting clicked.


We left to Valiyaparmba Island, 40kms from bekal fort towards South. A 10 min ride on a ferry takes you to this remote island. We were perplexed as to why we wanted to come here, or what was there here which brought us here. After a little interaction with local people, we caught hold of Shabaz who took us to the beach behind this Island. The herd was once again glad to be treated by a beautiful beach. None on the shore again. Plenty of star fishes lay thrown the shores, we spotted a jelly fish too. Joe touched it and after few seconds screamed… WOW!!! Quick reaction!!! May be she imagined it to become alive.

This beach had strangely very uneven depths. Somewhere inside the water the sand was higher than in certain places towards the shore. The color of the sand also changed drastically.




The Sunset was amazing!!!

The last ferry back to the main land was at 5:30PM, So we hurried back missing the lovely sunset behind us. Meanwhile we had to catch up for the movie ROCKSTAR by 10PM in mangalore. Just on time, we grabbed the tickets and took a seat in front of the huge screen. Flaunting music, it was a musical spa for three long hours. I enjoyed the movie for its music & Ranbir. 12:30AM walking on the empty roads of manglore. It was 2:30AM when we explored for Kalpana residency in udupi for the rest of the night stay. After settling down, five of us reveled playing UNO. Well Suma was an easy target this time. By 4AM, few rolled on the floor sleeping. Others managed on a sofa and the lucky ones got a bed.