One fine evening when I was in the middle of a meeting, Bharath kept ringing me. After the meeting I called him back to check what happened and why he was calling me. Telling me about the road trip plan to Bengaluru. I wanted it to be a road trip with some theme. We met again later and I came up with one of my old plans of travelling from south to north Karnataka with the temples on the way as pit stops. I had planned this road trip by bike for my 26th birthday. We then changed it to be a road trip on car.
After the Café Meet, the initial plan was to travel from down south Mysuru, Madikeri, Subramanya, Dharmasthala, Kateelu, Udupi, Kollur, Muradeswar, Shravana Belagola, Belur, Halabeedu to north Karnataka and then returning via Bengaluru.
With so much excitement we started our road trip from Coimbatore on friday evening. We got blessings from Bannari Amman in Sathy and started up stream to Mysuru Via Hasanur. We checked in to Mysuru in the midnight and the next day morning we started off to sight seeing the tourist spots. First in the list was Chamundeeswari Temple, we had darshan at Chamundi Hills where the temple was 7 km above the hills. We then travelled towards Madikeri and due to heavy rains we did not get down to see the spot. We skipped visiting the Monastery in Madikeri and started travelling to Subramanya.

After a 6 hour drive from Mysuru through Bolkeri, Madikeri . We drove on the Ghat roads which was completely filled with mist. It was raining continuously. Jai nailed it with his driving skills on the Ghat roads. Subramanya is a village located in Sullia Taluk in Dakshina Kannada, India. The famous Kukke Subrahmanya Temple is located there. It is about 105 kms from Mangalore, connected by train and road. It was originally named “Kukke Pattana”. We visited Dharmasthala temple, 40 kms from Subramanya. Manjunatha is the main deity there. Then we started down towards Mangalore. We stayed at Mangalore on Saturday.

Day-2 we started our journey to Kateel DurgaParameshwari Temple which was 60 kms from Mangalore. We did our Darshan there in the afternoon and started to Udupi. Our Well Wisher suggested a very good heritage village near by Manipal. We drove in to the Hasta-Shilpa Heritage Village which was 4kms from Manipal. Mr. Thomas who was the instructor there took us on a Monsoon Walk to all the buildings out there. There were around 30 different architectural blocks which was recreated inspiring from various Empires, Eras and Cultures.

Though 30+ structures had been nailed by the founder of this place with the help of a team in place we had few notable structures like Harihareshwara Temple, Vijayanagara Empire’s Durbar, Basil Mission Architectures. As the structures were under monsoon maintenance we were allowed to explore the exterior structures only. It was one awesome experience where we saw the whole kannadian Architectures together. It was more of a time travel, the structures and the narration by Mr. Thomas about the architectural history took us to early 18th Century.
After people seeing our posts on the social media we were suggested so many places to visit and one such was to have Udupi Vegetarian dishes. We enjoyed the food there! Thank you to all of them who supported us so much. We started to our next destination Udupi Krishna Matha Temple which is being over looked a charity here and this is one of the famous Krishna Temples in the country. The specialty of this place is that the charity provides free food to people here 24/7. Then We started towards Murdeshwar through coast road. We almost travelled 30 kms on coast road and reached Murdeshwar, we stayed there on Sunday and the next day We did our darshan at Murdeshwar which has a 237.5 ft Rajagopuram and Lord Shiva’s statue of 123 ft.

We travelled to Go-Karna the cliff beach where we took rest for a day at Om Beach after a continuous travel of 870 kms. Namasthe Café was where we stayed on the cliff. We spent our time at the cliff beach and started our journey. We skipped Bengaluru and returned via Mysuru On our way we sighted Jog falls, the second highest waterfalls of India and the Sharavathi Hanging Bridge which is one of its kind. On our way to Jog falls we ran out of fuel, we did not have fuel station in that 1000 m altitude . One Policeman Mr. Zakaria helped us by sourcing fuel from a shop nearby. He also gave us his contact and asked us to contact him for any help. It was a timely help and we got another reason to believe the Humanity still prevails on the earth. We were astonished by the way he helped us. While KA government is still negotiating to give water to TN, we have people like Mr. Zakaria who stands out from the crowd.

We then returned back to Mysuru through Shimoga and Shravanabelagola. We stayed at Mysuru and the next day we went to Mysuru Maharaja Palace and the Zoo we felt amazed and humbled seeing those animals…thinking how beautiful all the creations that God has ever created are. The Palace was so majestic with it’s appearance which was built by the Wodeyar dynasty. We witnessed the traces of 18th Century there, Seeing the king’s family staying there and following the rituals of their dynasty. We reached Coimbatore via Bandipur , Nilgiris, we spotted three elephantsand a bunch of deers. Guess what travelling anywhere is incomplete if we don’t spot a KCTian wherever we are! We met two of our college friends who were travelling to Masinagudi.

It was an amazing experience on wheels for the first time covering 1550 kms. Kudos to Jai for taking us safe all through the trip and special thanks to Bharath for being the navigator. This birthday trip will always remain one such unforgettable memory in my life.

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