Favorite drink during beach trek - TTTT 48

This year I completed my 5th beach trek. Yes its been 5 years in a row and people have vowed to black list me for other treks, if I participate in another beach trek!

I have always written about my love for the beaches, but I never have written about my favorite drink during the beach trek.

A beach trek is always under the sun, its humid, we are sweating, we all are losing loads of salt and we need to hydrate. Most of the time I drink water, plus electral, to make up for the lost salts.

But somewhere in the beach trek, we end up joining the main road which leads us to Kumta before we join back the beach, and its over there we get to buy some reinforcement liquids.

After a hard day's walk, I prefer to take Lassi. Yes, in the coastal area, sweetened curd is available in stores in a small packet of Rs 10. Simple and effective solution. Though its got sugar and loads of calories, boy, we would have lost so much that, this one gives the right kick and boost to continue our pending journey, towards the town and then towards Bangalore too.

So, its got to be Lassi. Though this time, I tried out ice cream and also a Jeera based drink. But lassi seems to be a level above the rest!

Cheers.

When we had a 6 year old on our trek - TTT 47

During my last beach trek from Gokarna to Honnavara, we had a 6 year old kid as a member of the team and he trekked all the way from Gokarna till Kumta along with us. He was the son of one of our trek team members.

Isn't that cool, starting early means a lot to a lot of people. Whilst everyone was kind of mediocre with their energy and their enthusiasm, this kid was at his best, enjoying the waters and the beaches.

Only time he felt home sick was during the return journey near Mavinagundi :)

Cheers, will upload a pic soon!

When we ended our trek early due to losing our way and then.... TTTT

When we loaded honey and jaggery (in our vehicle) while returning from our trek - TTT 46

I have been on numerous treks in the last 2-3 years. Each time, we do go by a hired vehicle, more often than not, it has to be 12 seater Force traveller, other time, we had 24 Swaraj Mazda and 30 seater TATA bus.

This time too during our beach trek we had a Tempo traveller. All these treks, though we visit places quite distant from Bangalore, we never load our vehicle with consumable stuffs during the return journey. 

Stuffs like, rice, vegetables or anything which is produced at the place of our visit and which can be ferried back to Bangalore and which works out cheap for us.

But there is a first time for everything. This time, we managed to source Jaggery and Honey from somewhere in the Sharavathy valley and we loaded them in Sagara. Opposite to Sagara bus stand.

It appears there is a subtle difference in the purest form of honey and packaged honey! 

Cheers,

When I trekked the same route for 5 years in a row (yearly once) - TTTT 45

After all this is something which I could proudly write about. It happened for the first time in 2013 and as of 2017 its still on!

I am referring to my participation in the annual beach trek. I had this so called affinity to beaches and it was not very evident until I was away from India. Even more is my affinity to the coastal area of Karnataka, especially Gokarna till Udupi stretch. It makes me feel grounded. It gives me time to contemplate.

Each year there are lots of groups which do beach treks along the coastline. This year too, I am happy that I was a part of another group. Not just that, it completed my 5th year of beach trek.

1. 2013 - Kumta to Aghanashani beach / Tadadi port (boat to Gokarna). (22 members).
2. 2014 - Apsarakonda to Bhatkal (Sri Durga Parameshwari temple Ilvekodi). (26 members)
3. 2015 - Gokarna to Haldipur beach. (28 members)
4. 2016 - Gokarna to Haldipur beach (13 members).
5. 2017 - Gokarna to Kumta beach (13 members)

Apart from one year, where I trekked from Apsarakonda all the way to Bhatkal via Murudeshwara of course, all the years it has primarily been Honnavara to Gokarna OR Gokarna to Honnavara.

Feels so nice to have been doing it again and again. Hope to continue it in future too. Given a choice, of course with the same group too! And guess what I never get bored of this route.

The feeling of being connected to this piece of coastal land is just tremendous, you can imagine, how tremendous, the feeling of me being connected to India is (no prizes for guessing and no sarcasm please)!

Cheers,

When a strange reason ended our trek - TTTT 44

There have been multiple occasions when our treks have ended ahead of time. Each time, it would be the lack of time, rains, tired teams, losing way etc etc. But this time was another awesome reason end our trek ahead of time or rather to not trek.

I recently had been to Gokarna, to take part in this year's beach trek. We managed to walk all the way from Gokarna to Holanagadde beach (after crossing river Aghanashani / Tadai port via a ferry of cours)  on day 1 and camped at a temple.

On day 2, we managed to reach all the way to Kumta beach and there you go we needed some help. There is a place where the sea manages to stretch itself into the town as backwaters and we needed to cross this one. It is a good 15-20 feet depth and needs boat. On all the previous occasions we could manage to source a boat from the nearby fishermen, who would be busy cleaning their boats.

But this time, with no availability of people around, our only option was to walk along the road leading to Kumta town. After walking for half a kilometer we found water to drink and clean ourselves, via a roadside tap after all. The person instructed us that a bus would be available over here any time soon.

And, we managed to reach the main road aka NH-66. Now people were in two minds whether to walk back to the beach or call it over. Lunch and play time in the beach plus Apsarakonda waterfall dip was pending. So this precedence took over, we ended the trek 4 kilometers early. 

But all in all I thoroughly enjoyed the trek, which was overshadowed by some great company, one person of whom had come all the way from Gulbarga!

Cheers,

When we were at the recieving end of a food giveaway TTTT 32.

Many a times, I have had the opportunity to distribute food which we had cooked in excess. I do not count it as huge number of instances but atleast few times. But till date was never at the recieving end of this.

Imagine a situation where you travel and you take your cooking utensils, you cook and cook a bit extra, instead of disposing off the food, you try to find people whom you can distribute the extra food to. Yes, exactly, this was the exact situation, I am trying to write about.

We had completed playing for sometime along the beach and also in the beach waters of ApsaraKonda. So it was time to get a fresh water bath at the ApsaraKonda waterfall.

We did have a shower at the Apsarakonda fresh water fall. While going to the waterfall, we noticed, few guys had parked their van and were having a late lunch. It was around 5 pm. We were wondering, these guys were lucky to have found a nice place and shade to park, cook and eat.

After we finished our bath and were returning, we were waiting for our van too, to come to the same place instead of we going there, also, few of our guys were slow in finishing their bath and hence we decided to wait, and we sat opposite but at a bit far distance from these people who by then had finished eating.

Within few minutes, few of their guys came and asked us if we would like to have biryani. We 3 people being vegetarians said no. But we asked few of our team members who followed shortly, and it turned out around 4 people readily acknowledged.

The people who had parked their van were from Harihara, the satisfaction on my friends faces after consuming biryani was priceless, plus in a way they helped a cause too. instead of wasting food, its always better to volunteer up!

Cheers,

When I ran out of the beach waters - TTTT 31.

One such crazy incident happened this time. Out of the number of times, I have entered the sea waters, I never felt insecure by the creatures crawling in the water. I have only been scared of the water dragging me into the sea.

This time, while we were enjoying the waves were in the beach waters, one of our team members got bitten by a jelly fish or not sure what creature it was.

He pretty much quickly got out of the water, I was bit reluctant to head out of the water. But I came close to the shore and stood up, where in I just saw the cup shaped creature pass near my leg. I assumed it to be the same thing which had bit him on his forearm.

At this moment, my scare knew no bounds and there you go, I just ran out of the beach waters, just to avoid one more round of conflict with that creature.

Cheers,

Beach trek 2016

Starting from the year 2013, I have been taking part in a beach trek, each year. It involves walking along the beaches, the coastline. The fun part is walking barefoot, with the waves hitting your legs, the sun, the tan, plus loads of dehydration.

This year was no different. And I traversed the same old route, Gokarna to Honnavara, only difference is that, we started from Kudle beach instead of OM Beach.

Covered few beaches, waited for ferry crossing at Tadadi port/ Aghanashani river, then camped at Holanagadde Sri Ramanajaneya Temple.

It was fun, just a bit lesser crowd this time around! Can't imagine one year has just flown by!

Cheers,

PS - Distance covered 37.1 kilometers,
Start Point - Kudle beach, Gokarna
End Point - Dhareshwar beach, Haldipur.

Other places of visit -
Apsarakonda beach + Apsarakonda Waterfall!

When a journey from Himachal Pradesh to Punjab took 12 hours during the day - TTTT 21

It was one awesome journey from Manali all the way to Amritsar. Yes it took 12 hours by road. And it was done all during the day! It was fun, but it did take away one precious day, which we could have explored Himachal Pradesh, never mind, we got to see Punjab as well!

Day started at 7 am when we got ready and packed our belongings from our homestay in Naggar / Himachal Pradesh. We managed to catch a local bus heading towards Kullu and from there we hoped we could get a direct bus to Chandigarh.

Kullu to Chandigarh shows 270 kilometers by road, so it would be close to 7-8 hours. We were hoping to hop on Volvo as going by ordinary bus in the hills would be much slower. Boy we managed to reach Kullu around 10 15 AM and then there was a Volvo bus heading to Chandigarh around 10 45 AM, booked the tickets.

The bus started on time and made all the way through the hills with loads of curves with pretty good speed. Only thing was, there were sharp turns to an extent where many people started throwing up. We managed to stop for lunch around 2 PM and then finally got down at Ropad/RoopNagar Punjab at around 4 15PM.

The main road where we got down and the bus stand of  Ropad are atleast 3-4 kilometers far. We managed to check out the Ropad Railway station hoping to catch a train which would make our journey quicker. But the only train to Amritsar was in the morning and we were left with no option but to go by bus and we walked all the way to the bus stand.

I was already feeling the heat. I was sweating badly and then we had to walk too with the luggage, boy it was tough, finally made in time to Ropad bus stand where we got a bus to Amritsar, All this was at 6 PM.

Distance between Ropad and Amritsar is around 190 Kilometers. I wondered if we could make it before midnight. We reached Jalandhar around 8 15 PM and the bus broke down leaking diesel fuel. We were put on a replacement bus and finally reached Amritsar around 11 PM.

What a day it had been. Luckily there were plenty of lodges around the bus stand and then got a room and finished dinner at around 11 40 in the night and slept off. Thoroughly entertaining day, considering we hopped on multiple buses, walked by foot, went to a railway station too!

Cheers,

When we ended the beach trek with a swim in the waters - TTTT 13

The best part of a beach trek is that, we get to take a dip in water whenever we would like to. But most of the time, people are busy walking so taking a dip in water all alone is not entertained.

But we generally do not miss out on a dip in water once the trek is through. This time too, we abandoned the trek around 5pm along Haldipur beach. So we boarded the vehicle and then moved ahead to some unknown beach before Apsarakonda and then took a dip in water.

Evening tides were pretty high and it was fun. Less crowd and entire stretch of beach all for ourselves. What more we can expect?

A pleasant end to the day and the trek. We then proceeded towards a hotel in Kumta for dinner and then by 10 pm we were ready to depart towards Bangalore. Another attempt in travelling to coastal Karnataka had been a success!

Cheers,

a pic from the beach!

When we cooked an awesome dinner on a trek.- TTTT 12

Beach trek is one of my favorite treks, the reason being, its relaxing. There is no need to hurry it up. There is no train to catch, no time restrictions to complete, come out, which usually happens when inside a forest. Plus anytime we get bored, we just end up saying quit since the road runs parallel to the beach!

So this time, on our trek from Gokarna to Honnavara, we decided to stop at Holanagadde Sri Ramanjaneya temple. The best part of this stop over is that, the temple is capable of accomodating many people. There is place to cook and a place to get refreshed. So before starting the trek, we had requested our van to come over to the temple premises.

With many people on board this trek, you can imagine a good fair amount of ration was in store.

We had many such vegetables alongside fair share of rice too. Evening menu was Bisi Bele Bath and sweet payasam. We had expert cooks on this trip and believe me, this dinner turned out exquisite. With all the dry fruits and clarified butter (ghee) it was second to none. Ate till stomach was full and then slept in the temple premises.

But the way preparation went it was just pretty awesome and we sat in a line and took turns to finish cleaning. And your's truly that is me was responsible for washing and cleaning the cauldron and few other utensils. By the time, I finished cleaning many other people had settled themselves up for a good long night's sleep.

And by the way, I have not mentioned how many people were there as a part of this trek group. Well the number of people we cooked food was 30. Yes, 28 team members of the trek and 2 including driver and cleaner. You can now imagine how many vegetables dry fruits and ghee has been consumed!

Cheers, one more such tale! and who would have imagined we would end up cooking and eating such an awesome dinner, something to cherish for a lifetime!

Cheers,

When I lost my way in a trek.- TTTT 11

One of my all time favorite treks is none other than the beach trek. No matter how many times, I do a beach trek, I shamelessly end up registering for another. This time was no common.

We were on the Honnavara to Gokarna stretch. I covered this stretch. But around this time, it was Gokarna to Honnavara, yup exactly reverse the stretch covered previously.

We were supposed to camp at Holanagadde beach, rather, camp at Sri Ramanjaneya Temple Hollanagadde. So on this first day, we had to cover from Gokarna Om beach to Holanagadde.

And in between we do encounter a stretch which needs to be crossed on a ferry since there is an absence of land to walk on!

And its over here your's truly lost his way. The tadadi port ferry line starts at the entrance of the village and it is a deviation from the main road.

Since I was coming alone jay walking, I did not find the deviation and instead ended up right in the village following the main road.

As I leapt ahead I could not find others and kind of freaked out. Few people who had seen me go this way, had followed me. And now, I was amidst the village.

Along the main road in the village, I could locate an area where the fishing boats were parked or a harbor kind of thing. These were actually commercial fishing boats. They brought fish from the sea to be transported by trucks. So I ended up amidst a bunch of fishermen, who were taking a break after hard work.

I enquired where was the ferry to Aghanashini available at and they pointed to me a location almost 400 m from where I was standing. They in turn asked me my where abouts, where I was from and what was I doing in the fishing yard.  I told them and proceeded to locate my trek mates.

There you go, when I reached the boatmen was shouting because the boat was getting delayed by us and believe me this was the last boat for the hour, next boat would be only after 1 hour or else we had to charter a boat for ourselves which would rather be expensive.

So I got in and there you go, full team was on the boat and we crossed river Aghanashani!
One more interesting encounter.

Cheers,

When we ate free food after the trek - TTTT 6

This happened during November 2013, yep, almost 2 years back. We had completed our Beach trek, from Honnavara to Gokarna. We had one round of play in the backwaters of OM Beach.

The time was around 6 PM. It was time to get a fresh water bath and then head back to Bangalore. Instead the group chose something else. A visit to Gokarna Lord Shiva temple. The time flew and it was around 8PM. We thought, let us complete the dinner (prasadam) which was being served very close to the temple.

We completed the dinner and started towards Bangalore around 9 15 pm. Reached Bangalore around 10 30 am the next day.

Well, that's loads of time. The reason being, well, it can fit into another tale (blogpost) after all!

Cheers,

And..it finally happened!

I was very much wondering, whether I would be able to visit the beaches during the year 2015. I had made it to Sharavathy Valley 3 times this year, but none of the times, I had descended down towards the beaches.

My road trip for the year 2015 fell out of the equation and my trip with cousins too did not happen. Chance was little of me making it to the beaches or for that matter coastal Karnataka.

But all of a sudden, I see this beach trek happening, register immediately. And alas, I get to the beaches, trek along the beaches, 3rd time beach trek, 3 times in 3 years, feels great.

Trek was awesome, people were awesome, 2 days and 3 nights worth well spent.

Started out at Om beach Gokarna and ended at Haldipur beach Kumta!

Cheers,

Mountain stroll - Day 3 and Day 4

The last two days were more of an adventure. Trekking through the deep jungle of Sharavathy valley, getting cuts because of thorns, carrying entire load into the deep forest, was an adventure in itself. We were guided by the GPS and we lost the trail and as a result, ended up not making it to Kodachadri peak.

Camped at an unknown place, followed dried river streams and on Day 4, exited through the Chakra dam after walking through the backwaters of Sharavathy.

Thus the 4 day trek came to an end. While coming back to Shimoga, we checked out, Nagara fort built by Shivappa Nayak.

Cheers,

Beach trek ILvekodi to Bhatkal - Day 2

After we decided to abandon the beach trek at ILvekodi, we took a dip in the water. Then we retreated towards the main road, not before passing through the Sri DurgaParameshwari Temple at ILvekodi. We had told our van pickup to be at the temple entrance itself.

Our van came and we proceeded towards Bhatkal for night's dinner. Veg people chose one restaurant and non veg people chose another. Once done with the lunch, we chose to buy around 18 packets of bread and jam at a Bakery in Bhatkal. This was all opposite to the KSRTC bus depot at Bhatkal.

Finally we made our way back towards Sharavathy valley, not sure which village we chose to sleep at a helipad which was kind a flat land. Laid our tarpaulins and slept for the day. Time was around 10 30 PM

Cheers,

Beach trek Murudeshwara to ILvekodi- Day 2

Beach trek from Murudeshwara resumed at around 2 45PM. The sun was its best, but we too had now got a hang of the beach trek and proceeded quite nicely.

Non stop for around 2 hours and we made it to Ilvekodi. At this place the river meets the sea and we had to cross over using a ferry. Instead we chose to end the beach trek as it was turning dark and we wanted to take a plunge in the water once more.

Hence called off the beach trek at Ilvekodi around 10 kilometers before Bhatkal I guess.But thoroughly enjoyed the beach trek this time. It was fun fun all the way.

Cheers

Beach trek Manki to Murudeshwara - Day 2

Started the second day around 8 AM, We did not have breakfast, infact the entire team of 26 was split into two. Team 2 comprising of 6 guys would bring in breakfast for us. So me in team 1 headed out of Manki village towards Murudeshwara.

Early morning walking along the beach was fantastic. There were fishing boats, fishermen sorting out their catch, lots of colorful scenes plus the waves, it was indeed soothing.

We reached this place, where there rocks and could not continue unless we moved on to the land instead of the beach. Over here we waited for team 2 while we plunged into the water. The waves were good, had loads of fun for around 30  mins. Then the other team arrived with packed food for all of us. Had breakfast and once again took a plunge in the water. Then crossed on to the road and couple of minutes again came back to the beach.

This time we had a clear sight of the big statue of Lord Shiva @ Murudeshwara. Indeed we were nearing Murudeshwara beach. But still it was a long way and the sun was beating very hard.

It was around 12 30 in the noon when we reached Murudeshwara, since being a holiday the crowd was like crazy.

Slowly the entire team gathered in smaller groups. We tried searching a hotel to eat, but all hotels were crowded. We were lost in the crowd. Finally could locate a hotel and eat peacefully, even though it was crowded..

The next leg of the trek started from Murudeshwara at around 2 45 PM. We took plenty of rest infact!

Cheers,

Manki village Day 1 - Beach trek.

Our day 1 place of halt was Manki village. We descended through the road which lead us to the church and then to the village, The christmas celebration was on at the village, we made our way directly to the beach over there.

On the way the villagers were very curious about the new found visitors/strangers to the village. Almost everyone knew each other guy in the village. So now when our new faces entered the village, people started inquiring as to where we had come from what was our intention where we are going to sleep tonight. Most of them readily agreed to help with water and even accommodation.

We were mostly interested to sleep on the beach itself, but the waves were so high, that onlookers warned us not to sleep on the beach. But we sat at the beach for a good 20 minutes watching the wave and talking and relaxing as well.

We did not have sufficient food for all, and as a result, few people chose to move to Bhatkal highway in search of food. Rest of them ate the ready to eat food.

I was one of them and I was part of the second batch of guys who made a move. The first set of guys went and the second set of guys started late and that too in the opposite direction.

We were all lost taking the wrong route. In the end asked a stranger who accompanied us to the main road and then we could find the way to the highway. The road to highway seemed to be long. We walked around 1.5 kilometers extra in search of a hotel.

There seemed to be no hotel in the Manki village or it was shut down. Upon reaching highway found a hotel where I ate Kushka rice and few others ate Chicken Biryani. Only that was available and believe me it tasted not bad at all. All this adventure happening at night 10 30, whilst all shops were shutting down.

Found our way back to the beach and slept around 11 PM in the front yard of a fisherman's home. That  brought to an end, one more awesome day.

Cheers,