Day 3: The long winding road to the falls

   The first half of the day was spent in leisure at Nirvana beach while the second half was spent driving through  ghats to reach the tallest falls in India, Jog falls.
   We were treated like royalty in our spartan tree houses. Without having to move an inch we were served coffee and then a sumptuous breakfast of puri bhaji and omelette in bed. Following the breakfast, we asked to have fish for lunch, which the owner of the resort promptly went out to get for us.

  We then went to have our first daylight look at Nirvana beach. This beach was just teeming with sea life. I had my first look at live starfishes on the beach. It was a delightful sight to see the five armed invertebrates move about slowly and disappear into the sand. Towards one end of the beach, you could find these starfish every few feet. Apart from the starfish and the crabs scurrying about, the beach had more than its fair share of live oysters. One area was literally littered with baby shells which moved whenever a wave swept over them. It gave an illusion of the whole ground moving. A bit further from the beach was a rocky area which harboured pools of water with all sorts of critters in them. There were many small fish, multicoloured crabs, some insects and shells of various colours in their relatively calm and crystal clear waters.

   While returning back to the resort, we met a couple of navy dudes with their hovercraft. They were relaxing under a hut on the beach and we had a nice long conversation with them. They were divers, the most elite people of the Indian navy. They described their various exploits, the arduous training they had to go through, their exciting mission and a bit more about their personal life. it was great fun talking to them.
   Finally it was lunch time and we returned to the resort for lunch. here we had a nice lunch of two species of fish we had never tasted before which were quite tender and tasty. The regular fishes had been exported to Goa and so we had the pleasure of feasting on these uncommon fish. After lunch, we packed up, paid our dues and bid a longing farewell to Nirvana beach.

   Our trip for the day was around a 110 kms a lot of which involved winding roads climbing up and down the valley of the mighty river Sharavati. The road occasionally presented us with spectacular views of a lush green valley with a deep blue river gently flowing through it as pictured above.The roads were winding and sloped and offered very limited visibility of oncoming traffic. However, we still made good speed on these roads and reached the top of the falls around 5:30pm.

   Jog Falls is the tallest free falling waterfall in India at 830 feet. During the rainy season, the whole force of the river falls down these falls. When we visited the falls four distinct streams could be seen. Two of these are direct 830 feet free falls and the water from these disperses into vapour before they can hit the ground. One other stream had limited water, but the biggest stream was a sight to see. There were two huge pools( nearly lakes) of water at the bottom of the falls.
   The government has constructed a nice staircase to the bottom of the falls to make it accessible to the many tourists visiting the place. It was not so when I had visited the place four year ago. The staircase is well maintained with nice railings on both sides. But its a long climb down and we were a bit out of breath by the time we reached the bottom. Another point to note was that due to the late commencement of our descent, we only met people returning from the falls and no one going in our direction.

       The view from the bottom was spectacular. The water falling from such a large height and disintegrating into mist was a sight to see. Somehow, we made our way through the large moss covered boulders lining the way to the edge of both the lakes of water at the bottom of the falls. We fumbled many times along the way and finally had to ditch our slippers halfway there to get a better grip. But the effort was worth it and it felt real great to dive into the cold refreshing water in the lake. After sitting for some time here we saw that the sun had set a long time ago and it was getting dark and we decided to head on our way back. The journey back to the base of the stairs was completed in half darkness with us jumping over huge slippery boulders hoping we would land safely. We were the only ones here at the bottom and all we had with us was one cell phone with a small amount of charge left on it, one wallet with some petty cash in it, no torch and one camera. We finally made it to the base of the stairs and by this time the moon had risen from behind the falls giving us some much needed life. We began our climb up the long long flight of stairs telling ghost stories on the way and trying to scare each other at the random sounds which sometimes disturbed the stillness of the night around us.
   When we finally reached the top, it was very dark and we were very tired. We hurried to a restaurant there where no one could speak English or Hindi. We somehow managed to order some south indian food and drink which tasted delicious given the very thirsty and hungry state we were in. After the light dinner, at the insistence of a waiter we went to a 'laser show' located there. There was a huge crowd of excited and screaming school children in the ampitheatre there. The show as such was not that great but the sheer excitement around us of the school children with their constant screams, cat calls and clapping lifted our spirits and rejuvenated us.

   We finally ended up finding real cheap acco at a youth hostel located just 0.6 km away(pictured above). We were provided a simple room with three beds till 7am(as there was a busload of school children coming the next morning) for a mere 200 Rs. setting our alarms for an early start the next day, we chatted away and played card games here till we finally fell asleep .

 
   

Day 2: A day of Beaches

   This day involved the least driving of the trip, only a tad more than 60 kms. We spent the whole day enjoying the beautiful scenery(natural and otherwise) of various beaches along the Karnataka coast.

    The morning started of bright and not so early. We crept out of our room to be greeted by the Gokarna beach already bustling with some activity. At the centre of the beach, near to the entrance was the only place which was a bit crowded. The rest of the beach had a very serene atmosphere and walking along it was very peaceful. Listening to the sound of the waves gently lashing the shore and watching some sea birds munching on the shore was a soothing sight. I also caught some baby crabs (pictured below) which is something I love doing.

    After feasting our eyes on the beach, we realized that we needed to feast our stomachs too. We found an ideal cafe to suit our needs. It was located at a height above the beach and under the shade of trees afforded a panoramic view of the entire beach while lounging on beach chairs. The place did not serve chicken due to the close proximity of the temple, but the brunch we had here was quite delicious. Sipping a cool drink and munching on a fine continental breakfast(pictured below) at such a beautiful place gave us a sneak preview into the lives of the hippies living here.

   The town of Gokarna was littered with hippies (like the ones below). They came in all shapes and sizes. A lot of the industry in the town seemed to be oriented to meet their needs too. There were numerous internet cafes and various shops selling flashy merchandise all throughout the town. An interesting nature of these shops was that they initially quoted a reasonable price for their wares and refused to bargain at all.

   After having a refreshing bath with piping hot water, we left the town of Gokarna behind us and decided to proceed to the famous Om beach located nearby. After a short drive which through a snaking road which first climbed a hill to welcome us with a beautiful view of the sea, we finally reached Om beach. Due to the fact that this beach is famous and the day being a Sunday, there was already quite an amount of rush at the beach and we barely managed to find a nice parking spot along the narrow road leading to the beach.

   Om beach gets its name because it is shaped like the like the Hindi character Om when viewed from atop. A part of this beach has a rocky shore and some other parts have a ice shallow waves where one can play in the water. After having a look around and admiring the beach and its inhabitants, we grabbed a couple of breezers ad settled under the shade of some trees located all along the edge of the beach. It was soothing to get away from the scorching mid day sun and we lazed around there for quite some time.
   By the time we left it was early afternoon. We decided to see some beaches further south and headed off in our car. Letting google maps guide us, we set our sights on what looked to be a beach located at the edge of a narrow peninsula. After a long ride to a small town , we took a road leading the end of the peninsula. This road offered views of the sea on both sides. When we reached the end of the peninsula, it turned out that there was no beach there. There was however a jetty(pic below) and a small hamlet here. We sat here for some time clicking pictures of the numerous small sea birds circling there.

    The sun was approaching the horizon at this point and we wanted a nice place to stay for the night. An exciting option available to us was to pitch the tent we were carrying at some beach along the way. But fate had other things in mind for us. We had received the mobile number of a resort where one of our friends had planned to stay but repeated call to this number lead to no answer. We turned our Alto around and set off in search of a beach to sea the sunset on as well as spend the night on. As we neared the start of the peninsula, we received a call from the owner of 'Nirvana Beach Resort'. He told us that his resort was indeed on the peninsula and guided us there. After another U turn and a hurried drive along the peninsular road, we finally reached nirvana beach just in time for the sunset. The beach side road traveled around 15 feet away from the beachfront with pine trees covering the patch in between. As soon as we reached this road we parked the car and made a beeline for the beach to catch the first setting sun of our trip.

   As the red orb slowly hid itself from our view, we returned to our car and set off for Nirvana beach Resort. We met the owner of the resort on the way there who was a very jolly man who was going to the market(around 20kms away) to get supplies for us. He asked us what we wanted to eat and told us to enter the resort and make ourselves at home till he came back.
    The resort was an awesome place. There were two forms of accommodation- treehouses and huts. We chose the former. The tree houses were located just at the edge of the beach and offered a complete view of the beach. There were many parts of the stay at the resort that we enjoyed like the fantastic stories and views of the garrulous owner, the hammocks and rabbits around the place, the nice ambiance with  small statues around as well as the delicious non-vegetarian meals that we had. After dinner we went to the beach where we observed the movements of hundreds of crabs in the moonlight before finally settling into the tree houses for the night.

Day 1: Loads and loads of NH4

   This was the longest driving day of the trip with a distance of greater than 600 kms covered within 12 hours. A lot of the route was along one of the sides of the Golden Quadrilateral, the NH4. This road puts most other roads in India to shame with its relatively pothole free surface and comfortable width of greater than 2*2 lanes throughout.

   The first leg of the journey was from Pune to Kolhapur. During this time the road is made of tar and consists of 2 lanes on each side throughout  There are some stretches of traffic(slow moving trucks :( ) and some rough stretches of road on the way. We had already been on this road on a previous road trip and knew what to expect. Due to the presence of traffic, one only occasionally gets to travel at 100kmph+ speeds on this part of NH4. However, much to our delight, NH4 only got better as we progressed along our way.

   We cruised along the highway at quite a rapid rate, zig zagging through slow moving trucks along the way. A major waste of time was the long at boring wait at toll stations like the one pictured above. The toll stations in Maharashtra charged a higher toll(Rs.70-120) and took a lot of time to go through, while the toll stations in Karnataka were not only cheaper(Rs.20-40) but also very fast and efficient.

  This was my first major experience at highway driving and I enjoyed it. Weaving through trucks sort of reminded me of the childhood racing games.

   Like I said before, the highway just got better as we traveled along it. From a 2*2 lane road made of tar, to one made of cement, to a 3*3 road and then finally a 3*3 road with two service roads running besides it. It gave a glimpse of what the Autobahns in Germany may be like. 

  

   

      Along the way, we caught sight of what seemed to be a palace upon a hill. It was visible form 3-4 kms away. As we approached it, it attracted us towards it with its magnificence. The "palace" was located just of the highway. We took a detour towards it and were welcomed by a jovial security guard who invited us to see it. It turned out that our palace was actually the 'Suvarna Souda' which was the recently inaugurated building of the Karnataka legislative assembly at Belgaun. It was a splendid white structure with an ornate golden Ashoka chakra sitting on top of it. It was spread over a large area with well maintained lawns and afforded an awesome panoramic view of the surrounding area. 

     Finally near Hubli, the time came to depart from the beloved NH4 pictured above. We saw a shortcut which would save a some kms and decided to take it. However, this turned out to be a decision for the worst. The road seemed to exist only in the map. What was first a tarmac road, quickly disintegrated to gravel and finally to just a single lane of muddy rocks. Progress was slow on this road and this was by far one of the worst roads we experienced on our trip. Whatever time we had saved by racing through NH-4 quickly disappeared as we had to travel quite slowly on this road.

   The horrible road finally ended and we reached a  state highway. By this time the sun had touched the horizon and it was starting to get a bit dark. The state highway was a 2 lane road with a single lane on each side as shown in the image below. This made overtaking slow moving trucks an buses an arduous affair. This was my first time at night time driving along such roads. With experience, I slowly got better at overtaking vehicles safely on such narrow roads.

   We finally left this road to follow a narrow road for 10 km road to Gokarna beach. This was a deserted single lane road with only us on it and darkness for miles around. Finally with the help of Google Maps, we arrived at our destination. As we reached the town the final stretch of road was through an extremely narrow lane lined with houses, stalls and temples. Navigating though this was complicated by the fact that a couple of busloads of school children had chosen the exact moment of our arrival to take to the streets and block our way. Somehow navigating through the sea of human traffic we finally reached our first destination.

   It was 7:30 pm by the time we reached and after 11 hours of near continuous driving it felt great to land my feet on solid ground. We parked and ran towards the beach. The sand here is very soft and silky and is not at all sticky. After quite a while of taking in the beach scenery, we headed back to the town in search of food and accommodation.

  The small town of Gokarna was filled with loads of hippies. The streets were also lined with small shops selling trinkets and other souvenirs. We also spotted some restaurants along the way but all of them seemed vegetarian. After taking a complete tour of the village, we finally settled in to dine at a rooftop veg restaurant. The food here was extremely cheap(Rs.8 for an ice cream scoop) and we were the only 2 Indians there amongst a number of foreigner couples. After a sumptuous meal we went around in search of acco which we finally found at the place where we had had our dinner. At 350 Rs a night, we found a cosy room to rest our aching bodies and prepare for the rest of the trip before us.

Day 0: From the city of dreams to the Maratha capital

   The journey started on a lazy Friday evening with the sort of delays expected from a Kingfisher Airlines flight. A journey supposed to start around 7 pm to make use of the last remnants of sunlight ended up starting  past 9 pm. The days trip was supposed to be from the home of the car in a cosy suburb to the north of Mumbai to the IT park at Magarpatta located a bit west of Pune. I will be attaching pics of each days journey throughout the blog.
   The delays started with the overcrowded locals along one of the Mumbai's lifelines running a bit late. This was followed by the discovery that the car was covered by a thick layer of dust and grime due to quite some time of disuse. The cleaning of the car to make it just fit enough for driving did take a some time though it only involved cleaning all the windows. After battling through the layers of dust to make the front and back windshields transparent enough, I set off. The car was low on fuel and some of the tires also seemed a bit sad. So a long trip to a petrol pump to fill her belly up with petrol and her tires up with air coupled with  the fact that one of the tires had multiple punctures further added to the delays.

     I turned on Google Navigation ( a friend to be relied upon for large parts of the trip) to my destination and set of with a great smile on my face. After some boring driving on some crappy potholed roads, I finally reached one of the most beautiful roads in India pictured above, the Mumbai Pune Expressway. This road is fun to drive on and an ideal place to test the top speed of your car. It was great fun racing along the expressway at 120 kmph and reaching a top speed of 160 kmph( The speedometer of the Alto only goes upto 180 kmph so I was amazed that the car was able to reach this speed(my personal best)). The fact that the roads are lined with reflectors everywhere and were only sparsely populated by traffic was indeed a welcome relief.
   After the exhilarating drive on the Expressway which involved some of the fastest driving I have done in my life, I reached Pune city and finally Magarpatta city at midnight. I was happy with the cars performance and looking forward to a well deserved rest and the eventful road trip ahead.

The car..

  Our trusty steed for the upcoming 6 days was the Alto K10 from the stables of Maruti Suzuki. Despite its smaller size, this car does pack a nice punch and was a pleasure to drive. It was capable of handling high speeds, tight corners and had a decent acceleration as well.
   The car packs a powerful 1000cc engine under its hood which is more than capable of accelerating its light frame. The car was well tested during the trip. It clocked a top speed of 160 kmph on the Mumbai Pune Expressway. It was able to sustain 110 kmph+ speeds for long periods of time on the magnificent NH4 highway. It handled well in the twisting and tuning Western Ghats. And it delivered all this at a very nice fuel economy (which is amazing with the AC off but does suffer a bit with the AC on).
   For more details about the car have a look at the CarDekho specifications or have a look at the nice review given at TeamBHP.
   The pic below shows the car at the start of the trip.

The route...

      The both of us not being great planners, the plan of the road trip was not well defined at the start. We had just decided to go where our hearts took us to. However, as per our previous plans we had thought of first visiting the Gokarna beach in North Karnataka.
    The trip started near a place just north of Mumbai, where the car was located. Then it continued on to Pune to pick up the second member of the duo. From there on the map below gives an approximate idea of how the trip proceeded. From Pune, the first halt was at Gokarna Beach. The next day involved visits to a couple of beaches nearby. The following day we visited the majestic Jog falls. The day after the impregnable fort at Chitradurg welcomed us and we proceeded to the ancient town of Hampi. From there on we returned to Maharashtra to the coastal town of Ratnagiri. The next day we returned to Pune and then finally back to Mumbai.
    The journey lasted around 2400 kms in all and was one heck of a ride.

The start

     Like all plans, it started out big with loads of people coming in from different places to meet and have a fun vacation. It was supposed to be a happy reunion with eight people invited. But like leaves in autumn, everyone of them dropped out citing various reasons and finally we were left with only the two of us. Not letting our dropped spirits stop us, we decided to pursue our road trip anyways and commenced on our memorable journey.