After a long silence of about 9 months, it was time for a good long ride. And with two instances of flat tyre, a bad engine, almost no fuel on two occasions, this turned out to be one of those longest and more adventurous trips i had. (How many times have you faced a flat tyre only 3 minutes after you had praised your mobike and your luck for none till date?!)

The itinerary consisted of a visit to Gokarna, Somnathpura/Talakkad and Belur/Halebid. Udupi was going to be an vital (and long) stop.... had to visit my native place for some personal commitments. Little did i know that most of the plan would go haywire due to unavoidable circumstances. With the festival of holi falling on a Monday, and with some leaves in hand, I had about 8-9 days available to do it all.

The plan was to start early on 27th Feb, take a halt at Gokarna at night, explore the place early morning and leave for Udupi by afternoon. However, the lazier side of me took over and i started at 9:00am. My reluctance to ride in the dark meant that Gokarna had to be missed. Took the NH-17 with an intention to reach Gokarna as early as possible. Later i would realize that with the heavy traffic between mumbai-poladpur and some real bad traffic jams, it was going to be impossible. Malvan would have been a possibility, but that would mean spending time there to enjoy the place. I decided against it as reaching Udupi on 28th was a priority. Took a halt at Kankavali at night and started early next morning for Udupi.

About the roads, the route upto Poladpur was a pain, after which the traffic eased. Being a long weekend, i should have expected this. Again Goa was going to be a pain for obvious reasons. The NH-17 in karnataka, though decent, are very poorly marked. Throughout the trip, this caused a problem. Very rarely would one find a milesone or a direction in english. The Kannada ones, though present, too are less in number. So if you miss one milestone (in english language), you are at the mercy of your fate (or the localites) for directions.

I reached Udupi at about 6:00 PM on 28th. The next 2 days were going to be a stay in Udupi, with a short visit to the Krishna Mutt. Time would not permit me to visit the farms in the backyard, leave alone the beach at Kaup.

There were news that there had been riots/curfew in Hassan/Shimoga. This was a place pretty close to Belur/Halebid. With little access to news, i knew little about the details then. This prompted me to strike off Belur/Halebid from my itinerery for this time. This left me with a lot of time for my only stop during the trip - Somnathpura/Talakkad.

On 3rd March i left Udupi for Mysore at about 8:00 AM. The route taken was

Udupi - Mangalore - Mani - Puttur - Madikeri - Periyapatna - Mysore

The route between Puttur and Periyapatna was mostly mountainous and really scenic. Sadly the compliment does not extend to the quality of the road itself. Most of the road from Mangalore to (a little beyond) Madikeri was patchy and pot-holed. A distance that should have taken considerably lesser time, took me 8 hours to reach, and i checked into a hotel at about 4:30 PM.

The rest of the day was going to be a lazy one. Mysore palace would deny entry after 5:00PM and Srirangapatna & the Brindavan Garden (each of which were about 18kms from where i stayed) too may be a remote possibility. I resigned to the comfort of my room for the next few hours, having Egg Puffs (one of my favourite eatables.. being the die-hard egg-thusiast i am) from a nearby bakery for a late lunch/munch.

From what i saw of the city itself, i though Mysore is a really beautiful city. Clean, green, quite a lot of open spaces, no highrises, beautiful architecture... I think if there is any other city i would like to live other than mumbai, it would be Mysore.

The plan for March 4 was to start the day with Somnathpura, proceed to Talakkad, come back to Mysore for the local sightseeing. Somnathpura is approx about 30kms from Mysore, and Talakkad is a further approx 30 kms. Finding the way to Somnathpura was a pain. Everyone i ask would point to a different direction. Later did i realise that Mysore probably has a ring road.

About a couple of kms still to Somnathpura, the rear type suffered a puncture. This was the first ever flat tyre i had encountered during a trip. Fortunately enough the tyre works shop wasn't very far, and i managed to get it fixed soon. At about 9:30am i reached Somnathpura.

The temple at Somnathpura is beautiful Hoysala-style structure. Restoration was still in progress in some parts of the temple. Some pictures....

Next destination was Talakkad. I had read an old post that said its an interesting place, where all the temples (barring one) were buried beneath the sand with only the top being exposed to surface for others. Well there had been quite some progress since that post was written, and now atleast 4 temples had already been excavated. Three of these looked active with priests inside, wheras restoration was still in progress on the fourth one. I wonder if the seemingly active temples were really so or farce, run by crooks trying to make a fast buck out of the so-called 'swayambhu' (self-created) nature (gunning for the orthodox lot?). I have enough reasons to believe that this is somewhat of a haven for crooks. A guy, who knows none of the languages you are capable of interpreting would stick to your ass. He'll claim that the pathway the govt has built is the wrong one and leads nowhere! (or so it seems... who knows? you cannot communicate in anything but sign language!!) And at the end of it all, he'll ask for a 100 bucks! Hell! I gave him 10 bucks for spending the 10 minutes with me and not letting me feel too lonely ;-)

Frankly, for me Talakkad was a disappointment.

It was time to turn back to Mysore. The route this time was different from the one i had taken during the onward journey. Much better actually. It was post 2:00Pm by the time i reached the hotel room. Tired, i wasn't in the mood to go too far. After resting for a while, I decided to tread only as far as my feet would take me. Leaving the mobike in the garage of the hotel, i left for the Mysore palace at 3:00Pm.

The Mysore palace is a beautiful monument. Probably the best i've seen so far. The only disappointment was that photography was prohibited within the palace. I took my time relishing every nook and corner of the palace. Its a sort of a guided tour within the palace, with ribbon-railings to guide you. Among other things, you'll get to see a 750kg solid gold throne, which the emperor used on special occasions, and an intricately painted huge ceiling to leave you short of words to praise!

Sadly no pictures from the inside :-(

Leaving Mysore palace at 5:30 Pm meant that there wasn't much scope any other place to visit. The day had practically come to a close. and so had my Mysore affair. One last piece of advise... If you are a biryani enthusiast and you happen to spot  'Biryani Paradise' somewhere close to Sayaji Rao Road in Mysore, DONT try it! The chicken biryani there was horrible! I could not even finish the damn thing! And costed me a whoping 90 bucks for a pile of i-dont-know-what-to-call-it.

(policemen on horseback on the streets. Maybe some kind of a legacy thing i got to capture....)

As an aside, did you know that lodgings in Mysore charge a service tax? That was news for me! Atleast my hotel manager tried to deduct that from th deposit amount, and after some argument, i got away without paying it.

Next day was a long journey back to Mumbai. The route was going to be
Mysore - Srirangapatna - Pandavapura - Nagamangala - Mayasandra  - Chelur - Sira - Hubli - Belgaum - Kolhapur - Pune - Mumbai

The plan for 5th March was an ambitious one... 900+ kms in a day to Mumbai. But a wrong turn, a second instance of flat tyre and a poorly performing engine meant that so was not going to be the case. The night halt was at Belgaum. Had some delicious Egg Biryani for dinner, at a place i had tried during one of my past trips - Niyaz.

The engine performance worsened when i left Belgaum for Mumbai on 6th March. I figured that called for an engine oil change. Had that done in Kolhapur, and it sure pacified things. By 6:00PM i was in my cave... relaxing my sore behind. What a wonderful 2550 kms...... :-)

Have a look at the gallery page for more pictures....