A Road Trip on Christmas

It was December 25th, the Jingle bells hadn’t rung yet, but we (Jai, Daya, Sambit and me) were all gearing up for a long weekend get away and all set to start the journey as early as 1.00 am. 

The List of places we had considered were

1. Horanad
2. Sringeri
3. Agumbhe Ghat
4. Kollur
5. Ghokarna
6. Murdeshwara
7. Udupi
8. Mangalore
9. Kasarghode
10. Dharmastala
11. Khoke Subramanya
12. Sharavanabhelegola

We had not decided on the places to visit till the previous day night, leave alone the route to take. We obviously had 3 days to spend (25th, 26th, 27th). We decided to leave as early as 1 a.m so that we reach the first destination by morning.

One of the biggest concern was the roads. Many had advised against taking the Haasan – Mangalore straight route as the roads were being laid and thus caused traffic along with bad roads.

Obviously, I din’t want a pilgrimage and wanted to spend more time near the beach. Based on the google map routes we decided to skip a few of them so that we have more fun. The Final driving direction was

Horanadu-Kudremukh-Sringeri-Agumbe-Manipal-Udupi-Malpe-Kaup-Maravanthe-Murdeshwar-Jog Falls Google Map showing the direction we took

Thus we decide to go till Haasan and then take a deviation to Horanadu via Bellur so that we avoid the sakleshpur road.

Bangalore to Horanadu (320 km) <25th Dec>

Road was good till Haasan and then decent till Mudigere. We wanted to visit the Annapoorneshwari temple and have breakfast there. It was around 7 am and we had 90 km more to reach Horanadu and Annapoorneshwari, but we never expected the road to be horrible. The 90 km drive too us more time than we took to reach Haasan.

We made frequent halts to refresh ourself where ever possible

  Finally we reached there by around 10.30 a.m to see huge rush.  We realised it was a bad time to visit a popular temple and so we took darshan from outside, thanks to the LCD monitors.

Horanadu to Kudremukh (22 km )

This was through the forest and the roads were good.   The drive was pleasant and we enjoyed the forest atmosphere and my silent LPG car :D. We reached Hanumangundi(Soothanabbi falls) and it was a relief to see the falls filled with water. Having had a bad start we need this refreshing water falls to soak our tiredness and bring up  the spirit.   Water was super cold but we were determined to have fun.

Sambit, who initially din’t want to enter the water, struggled his way through the slippery rocks to the water falls and we followed him

We had awesome fun and a much needed refreshing bath!!

Kudremukh to Sringeri and Agumbe (46km + 45 km)

Driving though the ghats was fun. Reached Sringeri and visited the Shardamba temple and quickly moved on to agumbe so that we don’t miss the Sunset point.  But the roads were not in our favour and we reached 5 minutes post the sunset. Nevertheless we took some pics and quickly decided to reach Manipal for the stay over night.

Agumbe to Manipal (60 km)

Sambit had made a suggestion before we started for this trip – that manipal being a college city would be a good place to stay and get the college atmosphere again :). He was right, we ended up getting a good accommodation for really good price (300 per room). To top that we even entered a Disc only to find a few guys dancing together with random laser light going every where. Ghosh bangalore is much better. We had dinner and came back to the hotel tired and exhausted after a whole day of journey.

Jai was keen to get up early morning to visit Udupi Krishna and move on to the beaches.

Manipal to Udupi to Kaup (5km + 20 km)<26th Dec>

Waking up early was never in my agenda. By the time we got to the temple it was already 8.30 a.m and there was a long queue.  It took us nearly 2 hours to come out after a good darshan. Udupi Krishna is unique in the way that we see the God from the backside of the temple.

Legend has it that once Kanakadasa, a dalit worshipper who was so pious and devoted to Lord Krishna, was not allowed entry into the temple. It didn't upset him, but instead made him pray with intense devotion. Lord Krishna was so pleased to allow the disciple to gaze upon his heavenly form through a small window at the back of the mutt (monastery). Till today, devotees still worship Lord Krishna by praying through the same window that Kanakadasa was blessed with a view.

Having visited 3 temples in 2 days, this would be the last for that day. It was a BEACH DAY. we had planned

• Kaup beach 
• Malpe beach
• St. Mary’s Island
• Maravanthe beach
• Murdeshwar beach

Kaup was a good less crowded clean beach with a light house. To our tough luck the light house was undergoing repainting so could not go up and enjoy the see view from the light house. The sun was scorching hot and we could not stand it. after a some refreshments we headed straight to the car and were wondering if we could enjoy the other beaches.

Kaup to Malpe (17km)

Thank the heaven, by the time (2 pm) we reached Malpe and got a ticket to St. Mary’s Island the clouds were out and the heat had subsided. St. Mary’s Island is one of the best place to hang out. The shore is not filled with sand but with shells. I wonder how so many shells got accumulated in one place. You get shells and only shells as you dig deep into the ground.

It is like a private beach and we all were in the spree to take pics. There were so many crabs, snails of all sizes. The island was fun.

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On the way back to Malpe we spotted Dolpines swimming in the Ocean. Gosh I wish I would breathe in water – I would also swim with them!!!

Maple beach had the water bike and costed Rs 300 per ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had dinner as the sun set into the ocean.

Maple to Maravanthe and Murdeshwar (45 km and 60km)

We headed towards Murdeshwar and since Maravanthe was on the way we stopped by to enjoy the beach in dark :D. Luckily we noticed a street dance show going on and decided to stop by to get a feel of it – A true Road trip.

We reached Murdeshwar by around 10.00 pm and had dinner. We knew it would be tough getting a decent place to stay but never expected so much crowd – we could see people sleeping outside near the streets everywhere. We din’t want to spend a hefty price for a average room and so started looking out for alternatives. Near the temple there were a few guys asking tourist if they required a room. I enquired and they were quoting Rs 1200-2000 for a room without Bed – they would provide mattress and pillow. With no better option and totally tired all we needed was a good safe place to sleep, so we decided to take one such room.

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Though we thought it was a below average place to stay, we actually enjoyed the atmosphere in the morning. The house was amidst of a farm which was near the beach so in terms we were staying in a farm house resort.

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It turned out to be a good experience to get ready the traditional way – Brush using Mugs, fetch water from the well, heat the water using wood and coal,  store it in a large container, share the water, have coconut milk early morning!!! Refreshing and out of the world!!!

Murdeshwar to JogFalls and Lion safari

We played in the beach and then got ready in our “farm house resort” and visited the Murdeshwar temple. The temple has so many tourist attraction points that we spent nearly 2 hours seeing in and around the temple

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

We started from Murdeshwar back to Bangalore via Jog falls and Shimoga. We had a hectic two days and had a days driving still left. We made frequent halts to refresh ourselves and to have coconut milk. Road was pretty decent for most of the parts till shimoga.No much water in Jog falls so decided not to trek down. We started heading back to bangalore. On our way we noticed a Tiger and Lion Safari and stopped by to see it. We were the last batch to go for the safari.

We called it a TRIP and headed straight back to Bangalore. Took the NH7 and then went to NH4 and joined the NICE road. Dropped Jai and Daya and reached back to my adobe by 1.00 pm. It was an eventful journey and the longest drive in my car.

Life is so beautiful!!

Google Chrome

Google has always been near and dear for many. Most of us spend half or more time of our web browsing/surfing with google and its product be it gtalk, gmail, orkut, google search, youtube, google maps, blog and the list goes on. While it is so inspiring to learn about how a search engine: google, which was started by 2 young college students Page and Brin, became the most popular search engine purely with the help of word of mouth or in management terms Viral Marketing to its founders one of the youngest billionairs - it is also equally interesting to see how google constantly innovates and strives in the market to maintain its lead.



Google clearly broke the first mover advantage myth by entering a market filled with experience and competition - Web browser. For years Microsoft and Firefox has fought each other constantly striving and improving to succeed better in this market making it a huge entry barrier for new comers. How many time browsers have any of you heard in the past other than IE, Firefox, safari. Almost none and even if any they perished soon.



Google has change it all by showing the world that a mere fresh thought, a new look, a clear young mind can be the biggest strength to overcome the entry barrier build over years.

From Olympics to Countries

Today, with no major work to be done and no pending work, I decide to do some research to gain some general knowledge. I will take you through my transition from IE8 to Olympics to Countries as I mention the facts I learnt.

As Internet explorer 8 was fresh in my mind I decided to start off with it. After a few "googling" I came across a selection based search result application called "Kallout" - sounds cool right! This application claims to be the first in market to help browser experience easier and faster by providing similar services of accelerator in IE8 i had talked about.
I checked out the website http://kallout.com/ and found the feature pretty interesting. I was thrilled when I saw that this can be intergrated with other application in your computer like excel, powerpoint, outlook and guess what you can have the same feature of accelerator in IE8. Pretty cool stuff right. Fed up with the IE8 beta, which requires me to press the compatibility button ever time I need to use internal page links in Wikipedia, I decide to uninstall it.
Control Panel->select IE8->Remove->Restart.
With IE8 out of my computer I downloaded the Kallout but din't want to install in my company computer for security reason, I started checking out the Microsoft's Live Map. I was seeing United states and as I zoomed out I saw the US label disappear and North and South America Label appear. I was shocked. Slowly I came to know that it displays the diffenrent continents as you zoom out unlike google maps.
Thus I happened to see the different continents in Wikipedia (though I had known it before). I discovered that there are different types of continent classification in the world. Most claim 7 continents and others 6,5,4 all by clubbing one or the other continent. As I read through I found this sentence
The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, Iran and some parts of Europe including Iberian Peninsula and Greece. This model may be taught to include only the five inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica)[20][21] — as depicted in the Olympic logo.
Whats this... did it say Olympic Logo? Cool, So

FACT 1: The five olympic logo represent 5 continents viz. America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.
So there I started to research on Olympics. As I read through I discovered the founder's name, where and how the Olympic torch is lit, and wats special about Sydney Olympics

FACT 2: Pierre de Coubertine is the founder of Olympics

FACT 3: The olympic torch is lit with the Sun's ray and parabolic mirror beforw it is taken around the world.

FACT 4: In Olympics 2000 (Sydney) Torch was taken underwater

Having read the different continents I got reminded of a country which is surrounded in all four sides with another country - Yes, a country inside a country.

Most might have guessed one such country - Vatican City inside Italy, but I knew another country

FACT 5: Lesotho is a country inside South Africa.

Thus I started searching about such countries and I found out that such countries are called enclave. If country A lies inside country B, then A is B's enclave.

FACT 6: The only countries which are landlocked and enclave of another country are

Vatican City - Italy's enclave, Lesotho - South Africa's enclave and San Marino - Italy's enclave.

FACT 7: That means Italy has two countries inside it. A really good information right

I got to know about these countries through wikipedia and you might want to do the same.

Did you know Vatican City is the smallest country with area of .44 km2