Trek from Mobor beach to Velsao - Day 3 & 4

The real trek was to start today from Mobor beach to Benaulim, a 12km walk along the beach. I used to always dream of walking on the beach bare foot all the length of its shore. Every other second a wave comes and washes away the sand below your feet. The moment the bus dropped us from base camp to mobor beach, we threw our luggage on the share and jumped into the water. The strech of virgin beaches in goa had started treating us, leaving us alone from the otherwise crowded beaches.

We all had lovely time enjoying the natural acupuncture while walking. The sun was scorching as if angry with us. Probably that’s how goan weather is, but it was tiring to bear him. We were dead tired and stopped at every shack we came across. The lunch packed were again poori and aloo subzi…. No!!!! We pushed them into our empty stomach. After another round of swim in the beach, we all started walking again towards the next camp. All one could see the endless sea and the never-seen camp. We were desperately looking for the YHI Camp board which came after a long long time and that was 4:15 in the evening. So we had walked from 10:30 in the morning till 4:15 in the evening with an hour’s break for lunch.

We were welcomed by the camp leader in Beanulim. Welcome drink used to be RASNA served at 4:30. Two small rooms for girls and a big hall for the guys. The camp leader’s tent was adjacent. Camp had no bathrooms, so no bath. HUH!!!

After hot cup of tean and pakoda, we started exploring the place around. We were told that Benaulim had a good market. Wanted to visit it, but we choose beach over the market and went straight to the beach to watch the sunset. Sat there till dark and walked back to the camp. By 8 delicious dinner was served. Catched sleep early coz of the tablet which went in to cure my throat infection.

Next day morning, I had blocked nose. It was difficult to imagine a hard day of trek. I had to force myself get up and start the day. Anywys no worries of taking bath :P we freshened up and lined up for chole bathura. Packed lunch and started our next day trek to Velsao.


Strangely nobody went even close to sea today. Ha ha we were tired of beaches by now. Sun was even more sharper today. But the distance to be covered was much lesser than previous day.  So we took long pit stops more often. The group moved at its own pace. I was dead tired today, I was blaming myself for not working out properly before going there.

 We took shade under the coconut trees lined up along the shore. The moment you halted for rest, I would fall on my back resting on the luggage and within no time grab a nap. Most difficult part was to lift back the aching shoulders load them with the fat luggage and start walking again. I hated this part.

We were left just a half an hour walk to reach the next camp site. We found life guards house to have lunch and relax. We had lunch and started chit chat with the few others who had stopped for lunch. Sitting on top of the guards house we could get a nice view of the beach. For better connectivity Mr Wifi sat on the tower waiting for better signals. Ha ha!!!! Ashish, Mohit aka Wifi, Survesh aka Par Par paresh and Parimal, who sings so good.

Reaching camp, Velsao camp was lovely, facing the beach. A perfect evening to spend on the beach and enjoy the last sunset of the year. I could not stop myself from throwing into the water. No regrets, for now I know what I would have had missed in that case. I had gala time in the beach.

Well, taking bath in after a dip in salt water was a must. This was new variety of bath.... no further details. The bath was refreshing, so was the tea too. Charging points were available here, I managed to fill in some life to my dead S2 for I had to make or receive calls for the night. Post dinner we had plans for Camp fire on the beach, a real camp fire ha... Not like the one in base camp with few bulbs HUH!!!  Goa has a ritual of burning an old man while they welcome the new year. The story seemed interesting to me, like this old man who has a cigar in his mouth and a bottle in his hand is burnt implying that we leave behind all our bad habits and start the new year as a better person. Well the story remains just a story most of the time. We played anthakshari till it striked 5 minutes to 12, this was the best part - that crowd crossed all craziness by creating our own forms of the same, sang the same line hundred times, searching for songs on our phones, at times guys danced in excitment "chumma chumma de de ...." OMG!!! it was. Clock ticked 12 finally, all started shouting a countdown and announced a new year... My watch still showed a minute left, anyways our phones started ringing. Every body around exchanged greetings. We walked close to the sea, enjoyed the crackers throwing colors in the sky ...a nice place to start a year ha!!!! We walked back to our tents but the phone calls never ended. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Unseen Goa In detail - Day 2

Hot tea at 5:25AM. You need to be ready by then to have it. I had to forget sleeping till late for the rest of the camp. After a warm up, We were ready for the rock climbing and rappeling. This was my second rock climbing task after the one I did in Nilshi, Mumbai. I had fun doing it.

To get acclamatised to walking, we did a short trek to Dona paula, a lovely place. We walked from Miramar beach which was right behind the camp site for couple of kms. We reached a garden facing the beach. The guide who had come along with us, asked us to keep our lugguages on the benches and settle down on the grass. Quick round of short introduction of all the participants, about their previous treks through YHI. We were very few freshers. Majority of them had atleast done one in the past. I was surprised to know that many had done Sarpass, Sarkundi treks more than once. The age group was also diverse. Youngsters naturally out numbrered, but none the less there were many who were here enjoying their retired life. There were 26 guys from IIT BHU, Varanasi. 4 from Nagpur both doing their BTech. Many from bangalore including us. The guide had to choose amoung us as a leader, deputy leader and a environment leader. Rohit the most common name suggested for all the posts... I still don't understand why. Finally we had Vishal from BHU as a leader, Santhosh Sir as deputy leader who was accompanied by his beautiful wife Alka Aunt. Rohit had to become the environment leader. So you know his job... :) Interesting. By now we had atleast few names registered. The group started moving towards Dona paula. The sun was scorching forcing us to quench the thirst with a lime soda. Climb up a few steps, a lovely sight of miramar beach and the shore getting dreched by those small waves.

We boarded a bus from dona paula to reach the base camp. After lunch, we submitted our extra luggage. UNO had started playing its charm on us. We had a breifing session by Manoj Joshi. I was surprised to see this man, whom I imagined to be a young man after listening to him over fun, was a young at heart man with so much energy and zeal. He educated us about the history and geography of Goa. Noting down the route map for the trek which was to start from next day. Snake show was scheduled just to make us aware of the common snakes found in the goan forest. Lil about what has to be done if we come across this creatures and handle the situation if one gets kissed by them. Lotsa myths more than facts. Awesome queries and equally interesting replies. Our hero was brought in a sack, we were assured that it was a non venomous snake so guts played less role, all liked feeling his skin, holding him, posing with him. But the snake charmer was always careful enough to make sure that his dear darling was not hurt by any of us. Dinner time, yummy!!!!

Unseen Goa In detail - Day 1

         YHI was always in my top list for it being very afforable and being different from any other travel groups. Its a great opportunity to seen the unseen through YHI. When I was plannin my shutdown, I came across Goa National trekking expedition for 9 days from their  website. Seemed okey for me to take 4 extra leaves. Informed frens and as expected only few could say yes. Till the last minute we dint have the list of those who would be going to goa. Finally, lucky ones made it - Me, Su, Suma, Sumanth and Adi. We booked the transport and the programme almost two months ahead of the date. Got our leaves approved and waited for the new year holiday.

We planned to start from bangalore on 27th evening. Suhas, Manu, Abhi, Manas had come to see us off from majestic at 8:30PM. Suhas knew what he was missing now. We reached Goa by 9AM to report in Campal base camp, panaji Gao. Panaji bus stand was crowded, weather was contrasting to that of bangalore showing 33 degrees. We were now sweating inside a local bus to reach campal, a 15mins ride from bus stand. The buses in panaji will not move out untill they are completely packed with passengers. The conductors job is to use his best skill to fill in as many people as possible. The fares are super cheap & the driver is kind enough to stop where ever you want. We least effort we reached the base camp. It was close to 10AM. We checked in, collected our IDs searched for our alloted tents. My first impression lookin at the tents was like - "Am I spending the rest of my 9 days here... ???" Well it was my own choice to come here. There were family camping, biking guys, sailing team and the huge trekking crowd. Easily more that 600 people. The frustration grew after we looked around the camp and esp the bathrooms. We were forced to digest it. We freshed up, planned to go around the city for the rest of the day, as there were no activities. We collected our knapsack, bedspreads and inner sleeping bag. These added to our assets till the end.

Shubha from bangalore who was in the same bus as ours also joined us. We took a short walk to find a small hotel to have puri and bhaaji. We started to calangotte beach around 15kms from the panaji bus stand. Ride was a long one in the local bus sitting in the last row enjoying the view of the city with every house decorated for chirstmas. Calangotte beach was crowded like mad. One could sight people every where enjoying a ride on motor boats, banana rides, bumper rides and the parachutes a lil far. For coming in the peak season, we managed to get a deal of Rs500 for all the sports. We enjoyed all the rides except me having a tough time in parasailing, not while in air but sailing. I could easily decide that sailing is not my cup of coffee.

We had late lunch in a hotel near the beach, we took a bus back to panjim bus stand and to the base camp. We took bath in cold water. Sipped in hot tea and ready for the dinner. Dinner had chappathis, aloo baaji, rice sambhar, kheer. pretty much the same all the days. We were informed to assemble for briefing about the programme by the camp leader SP Chauhan, a handsome man. He spoke about the rules, camp site and about the next day plan. Then another round of bournvita surved, lights off by 11:30PM.

St Mary's Island

Second day was so lazy that i feel lazy to even write about it. I fought to sleep for some more time. Few were already in the udupi Sri Krishna temple. Around 9 the lazy bunch lined up for the darshan in the temple. There wasn't much of crowd. I like this temple. It's as  beautiful as the very god for which it stands for. Its even more treatful to watch it once the evening lamps are lite around the temple. Blissful to embrace & experience such atmosphere. We had breakfast in one of the hotels inside the temple complex. We packed chapathi for lunch. Back in room, others were ready for the next place but we the lazy bunch of 6 were still enjoy the nap. Some got their head massaged while others proved good massagers.  We soon realised that we need to hurry. Postponed the rest of the massaging plans  to later point of time we started to St Mary 's island. 

 My second visit to this beautiful piece of land. A perfect mixture of colors like sea blue, green , golden sand and clear blue sky. Sea pleases you by her various colors. Pillar like rocks are spread throughout the island. Mostly rocks are shaped hexagonal giving a feeling of being attended. UnLike all other beaches i cdnt stop myself from getting into water here. As always tried playing safe without going deep. But thanks to frens for they gave me confidence to put my ears inside the water and tred their best to make me float. Drank enough of sea salt... Yak !!! Comes like a shock when you gallop salt water at once. Your eyes burn. After several rounds of trying to balance my body floating i finally could do it. We all tried going inside the water holding breath and see the life inside water. The silence you hear inside water forced me update my gtalk status as "listen to the sound of silence". I read couple of interesting comments on it too... Loosing your self  for this new world where there was endless calm and cuddling waves.... No fool who love to grow up and head back to reality of noise. I was the last person to get out of water. This experience helped me make my decision to learn swimming more stronger. Yes this summer!!! We went around the island for the rest of the time we had before catching the last ferry back to main land. Pics taken here are great. Few among us were just physically back. All eyes gazed at the horizon, drenched in the colors of setting sun. One has to blessed to watch a sight like this while sailing. Sailing for days in an endless sea, dive to explore the jewels underwater... When when???? Now that i licked to like its taste, when will i fill my hunger for adventure. 

Sun set at malpe beach which was crowded like a hell . Fish served hot and icecreams to titiliate your taste buds. Drove back to hotel, checked out from our rooms. Delicious Dinner in karavali. We got back to our seats n slept. Cramping bodies in the morning had to be forced to get back in action at majestic. I reached home by 6:30... After a hot water bath and lil massaging, mind started recollecting thoughts of office & work.

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.

Zoom into the History of Bagalkote

We started our day 2 driving towards Kudalasangama. 49kms from where we stayed. It was a sunny day. Kudalasangama is the place where Basavana preached and more information is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudalasangama.  Rivers Krishna, Ghataprabha & Malaprabha merge at this place. Hotel Kamat for breakfast where Suhas became busy reading out the Vachana’s of Basavanna.

More exciting places waiting for us.. Here is the rough map we followed

Starting with School of Carvings – Aihole. Place which boasts for having 125 different variety of Chalukyan temples. There are stories behind each one of these temples. After the kings rule, each of those 125 temples were occupied by the 125 different families due to which each temple is named after those who stayed there. 

Patadakallu was our next destination. I remember taking guides in every place visited this day as it otherwise would have been just the same red rocks brought down into caves n temples or a creative structure built up to delight ones eyes. Beauty of each carving can be enjoyed only by understanding the story behind it. I personally liked every single structure which stood in this region of north karnataka. The fort built surrounding the city, those uniqueness in each temple and the wonderful story behind it. Worth travelling all the way to explore our rich culture n heritage.

 On the other hand, we were busy playing UNO in the back seat of the vehicle. Sometimes wondered if the trip was to badami or to play UNO . Again there were really melodious songs playing all time. I was forced to stay in the vehicle till the songs got over even after reaching the places.  After Pattadakallu we visited Mahakoota temple which has a small kalyani. There was a small stream running through this temple where people enjoyed a dip. The roads here were a lil bad making life at the back seat difficult, never the less uno made way. Then came my favorite place for which I was long waiting.... Badami supposed to be the college for architecture in chalukyan empire. The very sight of this huge rock both below &on top is like wow. Very picturesque. Red rocks, greyish blue water catchment  and those far hills covered with greenery is a perfect pic. Endless number of photo shoots and very good guide to explain the beauty of those four caves lining up, we dint want to move from this place. I love all all the pics taken here... 

One particular carvings in one of these caves was the one with a beautiful lady on one side of ShivaParvathi & a skeleton on the other side giving out a message needless to be told. Similarly there was this Swasthik carving on the sealing which is superb. The last cave has the Jain god Mahaveera statue.

It was almost close to dusk and we were left with our last place to visit. The Banashankari temple. Beautiful temple i felt nice inside this temple. Reason for this could be the AC inside... By this time we were relishing a cup of hot tea n naturally the thought for the next jaunt had to pop up. Hmmm .... We have a place in mind for November. Infact two places.. Jyothi was smart as she knew that these lazy souls would not gear up quickly especially after visiting place like badami... She dint do the mistake of giving us sweet time to recover from the hangover n pulled us to start our return journey to gadag. Took us an hour to reach her relative Pooja's place. After a quick freshing up we made a small visit to Panchakshari Matt. Where gavai guru stayed. I had lil knowledge about this place. He was a great saint. We must thank Jo for this opportunity. Back in Jo's place. Sat for a dinner ....yet Again there was a plethora of dishes waiting to reach our tummy...

The special attraction was the spicy green chilly.... I tired them for the first time in life.... What should i say... Spicy yummy ... Obviously .... We said bye to her family in a hurry to catch the bus. Boarded the sleeper bus. Then started the stories again. It was Suhas again sharing a very much awaited story. Sindhu was new to our group well not anymore.... She had lots to share about each of us n herself.... Sleep acquired us.... Loud suprabatha which people thought my s2 was singing woke all of us up. Manu hinted me stop that, promptly I switched off my alarm but subhalakshmi madam went on.... Surprisingly the bus reached on time to anand rao  circle. Dispersed in majestic.... The aftermath were not too much but yes the hangover was.... We again met on Tuesday ... After rottikallu this one too hooked me in its memories for a long time....

Zoom into the History of Bijapur

After a long time … yet another trip which gave me a hangover. Lost myself at the sight of Badami Caves, Gol Gumbaz and several other places around Bagalokot & Bijapur.

The idea of visiting Badami Caves & Golgumbaz had come to my mind when we were studying about these historical places back in our school.

Bijapur Express tickets till Badami got booked for 12 people. Only 10 of us finally boarded the train almost at the nth moment on Friday evening. Sindhu, our new member in the team had just made it to the train.  Train journeys are always fun. The team made noise even after being warned by a co-passenger. We were unstoppable. UNO, jalebi and a couple of small small stories from Suhas. Pooja joined our team in Gadag. She is this cute lil Jo’s cousin who became our fav by the end of the trip.

Trains as expected reached Bagalkot half an hour late.  We all sipped a nice cup of tea in Jo’s relative’s place. Reached our hotel Durga which was 12kms away from the city towards Hubli. After a quick round of changing, team was ready for a 70kms drive to Bijapur.

The first place we visited was Ibrahim Rosa. Very fantastic architecture adding to its beauty is the well maintained garden. The namaz read on of the tombs is very clearly audible on the other tomb. (Wow just when I am writing this… I can hear the Namaz. Yeah its 6PM & I am in my office …I love listening to it!!!) Rains dint spare us. Few enjoyed it.

Our next stop was in Barah Kaman. I was not convinced by the story behind stopping the construction of this monument. I was told that this monument after constructed would have been taller than Gol Gumbaz & hence its shadow might fall on Gumbaz. I wonder how can shadow of one building however huge can fall on another monument which are kms apart. When I tried googling around this reason… I found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bara_Kaman

Back in my school, reading about thousands of kings who ruled our nation & their best gifts they have left behind for us… Monuments!!! Gol Gumbaz is one among those monuments which flaunts for being a structural triumph. Even after centuries, this monument mesmerises by its unique acoustics. The Whispering Gallery takes you aback when you hear the person on the oppsoite corner so clear. Suhas & Manoj  shared a nice converstion. I also heard manu telling “Hey what to speak I have no words!!!” Imagine the level of excitement… Of course there are these endless shouting crowd which made me feel like coming out of it as soon as possible. Adi was tired sticking the coin onto the wall… It just dint stick while all others cd do it at the same place… Adi….If you are wondering why, I am with you…

Hmmm… Lunch time.. This time it was not just tiny rats running in our stomach… Probably there were gaint dragons too.. Coz it was already 3:30. As soon as we reached Abhi’s sister’s place for lunch, all I remember we did was to load our plates with those endless items. Nobody waited for any introduction or any formality. Me & Suhas were the last ones to leave our plates down. Once in a while each one said WAH…Hmmmm..awesome…What a lunch!!!!!  Abhi, I am coming again. I am sure others will definitely join. Well Abhi Thanks is too small, you took care of the menu I wanted. BIG THANKS TO YOUR SISTER!!! Not just for the hospitality but also for the support she has given you through…

Our dear Radhika was ill by this time. She seemed very amused by the idea of taking an injection and getting well soon. I feel like running away from the very thought of tablets.. far is taking an injection. Hmm… Reaching back to Bagalkot by 7:15PM to watch the light show in Almati dam. I wish we could have gone during day, it had a really good garden as Suhas suggested. Atleast for few good snaps.

Dinner back in our hotel Durga. UNO was a YES!!! This was the best part of the trip. Now If I think about our Badami trip.. first thought that comes to my mind is this UNO night. And the hero of the night was ADI… +4 +4 and one more +4s…. This happened not once …. He was rich throughout. No Place no vastu helped him… LOL!!!! Lovely kannada songs kept playing on Manu’s HTC… Sometimes me & suma managed to clear the interview or even a direct job in a China Company… ROFL!!! Guys I can’t stop laughing at this one!!!!  We finally said good morning and went to catch bed. How can I forget this, Thanks for the room freshner Adi, I don’t think we could have slept with that sugar cane smell otherwise.  My next post writes the day 2...