I was never part of any road trip, so when Sreedhara suggested an idea of road trip I eagerly jumped on to it.
After lot of exchanges of emails and lot of discussions we settled with Hampi – AihoLe – Pattadkal – Badami – Goa – Mangalore. Sreedhara who was a veteran in such expeditions meticulously planned the itinerary. Whole of the fun started from planning itself! We decided to start our caravan in Sreedhara's Palio. As they say “A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles” - Our journey was full of friendship values, fun, taunt and what not.Background and Day 1 by Shashank:
It all started in October when I forwarded an email on forts around Pune to Santosh and Pavan. Santosh Kabbur aka Sreedhara, Pavan aka Boda and I studied together in high school and P.U.C in Tumkur. We were mesmerized by the beautiful pictures of Ratnagiri and other forts. So, we started planning. We decided to hit the roads in the 3rd week of December. But it seemed that the drive would be excruciatingly long and the forts won’t be as mesmerizing as in those pictures, during December. We pondered over on various other routes like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Coorg etc. Finally we came up with Hampi – AihoLe – Pattadkal – Badami – Goa – Mangalore. Though I had already been twice on this route, I decided to go again.
I had done a few bike trips earlier which were unplanned and short. This was the first long road trip. We decided to leave on 21st December. Sreedhara meticulously planned the entire trip - breaking it up into days, printing maps and rejecting all our inputs and suggestions. Our ride was Kabbur family’s dilapidated Fiat Palio.
The rules of the trip were simple:
- We do not drive in the night
- We share all the expenses
- We will not do any shopping
- We run A/C all the time
- We try local delicacies
As the car zipped past the busy Bangalore and headed towards Tumkur, we went down the memory lane recalling and discussing about each and every girl (read beautiful girl) who studied with us in the school and college. To pay tribute to one the most beautiful girls, on whom all of us had a crush, we decided to have our breakfast in Kyathsandra. We had thatte idlys at Pavitra Idly Hotel. Since Boda was known to take people for a ride when it comes to finances, we decided to keep accounts which were dutifully updated every time someone paid.
Our first stop was Chitradurga (200 Km from Bangalore), at around 9:30 AM. We went directly to the fort. Chitradurga fort has 7 circles of stone walls, hence it is also known as ELu suttina kote. It is a historical and picturesque monument. To get to know more on this fort we hired a tourist guide, Mr. Tippeswamy. He was an interesting multi faceted personality. The guy had great interest in photography, animals and history. Though he had mugged up the historical facts on the fort, his narration style in Kannada was quite funny and entertaining. In the fort he took us to the famous Obavvana Kindi and Obbavva’s cave home. Thanks to the ASI, we did find a historical artifact, a used condom thrown on the floor of Obbava’s home that could only belong to Madda Hanuma (Obbavva’s husband). Till then Sreedhara was posing as a great photographer hanging a point and shoot around his neck. After watching a couple of pictures taken by him, Mr. Tippeswamy gave him a proper lesson on photography and also taught him how to click “Wrong – light effect” 
One of the rules of this trip was to feast on local delicacies, right? I was dying to eat at an authentic KhanavaLi. We reached a small town called Kushtagi for lunch. Kushtagi was an interesting place. It was peak winter season. But Kushtagi was hot as a cauldron. Still we couldn’t understand why people were buying sweaters from footpath vendors! The roads were small, people were walking in the middle of the road and nobody seemed to care for the horn and small kids ran behind our car in excitement. It looked like our old Palio was the most advanced piece of machinery to enter that town till then. The KhanavaLi at Kushtagi was a thatched hut beside a smelly open drain containing dark black water (yes! It was DARK black) with lots of pigs hogging the area. Seeing this, there was no way we could step inside and eat. We decided to hit the road and try a more decent place.
During those times, NH 13 stretch between Chitradurga and Hospet was like the Thar Desert. There were no hotels, no decent Dhabas. Fortunately we found one a few kilometers after Kushtagi. The cook was napping on the charpai outside the dhaba. There were absolutely no customers and no food. However, the cook told us that he could prepare some rotis, dhal and jeera rice for us. We hesitantly agreed. The lunch was fabulous. When we were having lunch, our Palio parked outside the dhaba attracted a few 
By 4 PM, we could see the backwaters of TB dam. Huge water body, with sun descending down made a great sight to click a few photographs. All our efforts to make Sreedhara smile for a photograph went in vain. We were around 15 Km away from Hospet, our destination for that day. I got behind the steering. I was used to driving Marutis and Hyundais. It was my first Fiat experience. It was an uphill route with lots of Lorries. At the final turn, the battered Palio just gave up. With great difficulty I was able to get it inside Hospet with Sreedhara absolutely fuming down my neck. Hospet was all dug up and many roads were closed. We navigated through smaller and still smaller lanes avoiding buffaloes and pedestrians to reach Hotel Malligi.
We got a non-A/C double bed room which could accommodate 3 people in the old wing of Hotel Malligi for 800 Rupees a night. We freshened up had snacks at the Hotel and went on a small walk as Boda and I wanted to buy coconut oil and pack of cards. We also got to see a bit of Hospet, which was not pretty. That night we had our dinner at Malligi restaurant and were amazed to see the rates, so inexpensive compared to Bangalore standards. Our next day plan was to visit Hampi, a world heritage site.
Background and Day 1 by Santosh:
It was early November 2007 when Shashank sent out a forward email with exotic eye catching pictures of forts near Pune. On a side note, from here on Shashank will be referred to as "Aste-Aste". We christened him the name during this epic road trip. Keep reading till the end if you want to know why. Coming back to the email, Pavan (aka Boda, it's an age old nickname for him) and I got super excited and started thinking of going out on a long trip during Christmas holidays. Since Aste-Aste had initiated the conversation of going for a trip, we had to include him in our plans :-D. Also including Aste-Aste would make the trip interesting as he is famous for his time pass stories which are created on the fly based on the need and unbelievable things he claims he has done or planning of doing in near future :-). So the discussions started more than a month before the scheduled dates. Primarily we wanted this to be a road trip as the "girl of our group" Boda, was not ready for a trek and even I wanted to go on a relaxing trip as I had gotten super busy in my work and wanted to go out for a peaceful trip where the emphasis is on time pass, sleeping and eating good food :-). After a lot of discussion we decided to stick to North and Coastal Karnataka with couple of days on beaches in Goa.
December 21st 2007, the day finally arrived. We left Bangalore around 5am to avoid the morning traffic and had plans to reach Hampi by late afternoon. We decided to check out Chitradurga fort on the way as we had heard a lot of good things about it. That decision turned out to be a great one. The fort was simply amazing, reminding me of forts in Age of Empires game. Our guide was knowledgeable but his Kannada and English accent was funny. Our mimicry specialist Boda picked up his accent (and dialogues) and entertained us for the rest of the trip.
We then started driving towards Hospet. We were very close to Hospet, when Aste-Aste took the driving task. All this while only I was driving and Aste-Aste had bragged a lot about his driving skills. So Boda and I had enough confidence to let him drive. To test his driving skills, the place where he started had a steep uphill and our hero was not comfortable handling the clutch in 1st gear and the car got turned off multiple times. As it was a highway, we were blocking the traffic and this made him even more nervous. After many attempts he finally managed to pull it off and got off the uphill. Boda and I who were completely tense till then started laughing out loud for all the bragging he had done till then. To hide his poor driving skills, he started blaming the car. Till we reached Hospet he drove the car decently, except few hiccups (like he took a U-turn mid of a busy intersection and he barely managed to pass through narrow roads). Don't know how many people cursed us in those 30 minutes. That was the (first and) last time Aste-Aste was allowed to drive for the duration of entire trip. After a tiring and eventful day we crashed in hotel Malligi.
Day 2 by Shashank:
Hampi is just 20 Km away from Hospet. We had our breakfast in Malligi restaurant and reached Hampi in 30 minutes. On the way, Sreedhara spotted a small lake, where we took a few pictures. Our first stop at Hampi was Vijaya-Vittala temple which was flocked by bus loads of kids who were on ShaikshaNika Pravasa (Educational tour). 
We went on to see Hazara Ramaswamy temple, PaathaLeshwara temple, Lotus Mahal, Queen’s bath, Mahanavami Dibba, the black stone kalyani, Badavi Linga and Laxmi Narasimha before heading for lunch at Mango Tree. Thanks to the bulky Lonely Planet book, this was the most scenic restaurant I have ever been to. It is situated on the banks of river Tunga-Bhadra under the shade of a huge mango tree. The food was not all that great but it was a nice place where we relaxed for a while. After lunch, we visited the famous Sasivekaalu and Kadlekaalu Ganesha temples. Our next stop was the Virupaksha temple, only temple that withstood the barbaric Muslim marauders. Here also we hired a guide who took us 
We came back to our Hotel in Hospet by 7. By now, we had all become great fans of Lonely Planet for suggesting Mango Tree. We decided to venture out in Hospet with our Lonely Planet. We went to Hotel Shanbagh for dinner as it was recommended by Lonely Planet. It was horrible! A Fiasco! I ordered an open Dosa and regretted every bite of it. So did Sreedhara and Boda. After this we began to question the credibility of Lonely Planet. We went to bed early that night since we had to travel all the way to visit AihoLe, Pattadkal and Badami the next day.
Day 3 by Pavan:
The wreckage of Hampi was still haunting and it took a while for us to come out of the soberness. After all what we could do was to move on to equally glorious and equally wrecked places of PaTTadaKallu, AihoLe and Badami. 
AihoLe fascinated us with its monuments and the most impressive part was the multistoried building which people conceptualized during 6th century itself! Next we moved on to PaTTadakal - another architectural marvel. It was a scorching afternoon but two things turned it into cool paradise, one - the masterpiece of PaTTadakal and another - pair of girls who were trying to impress me and aste aste (Sreedhara as usual an unlucky fellow). Aste-aste and I piously went inside the temple just like two innocent Brahmin bachelors should do. Sreedhara, claiming to be an atheist sat outside the temple.
Journey continued and we headed towards Badami. Our initial idea was to stay here after seeing rock cut and other structural temples. But we decided to move on to some other place as the lone good hotel "Badami Fort" was very expensive. Nonetheless we had a sumptuous lunch though it was served annoyingly late and then went to see structural temples. Badami was an awesome mountain place with the view of city on one side and lake on the other. Icing on the cake was the same pair of girls followed us here as well! Aste aste with his attire - cap (foreign topi) and goggles stood out in the crowd. A school kid went up to him and asked "Which country are you from?" then our cool Aste-Aste replied "Ingia" in an UK accent :)
Then we decided to drive till HubLi and rest there. This stretch from Badami to HubLi had one of the horrible roads and only the genius of Sreedhara's driving could save us. Sreedhara was becoming more and more nostalgic as he was reaching Gadag-HubLi-Dharwad, his "Tavaruru". There was a source of entertainment in the form of mimicking Kumar Sanu (nee chandane ninnanda chandane) and chandana TV anchor (Jog jalapaatha shimoga jille inda 60 kilometer dooradallide) by me :) In between there was a flat tire and had to be changed in the near dark! After this drama we went to HubLi and found a new, cheap and awesome hotel-"Metropole" to stay. Dinner was a memorable one for us and indeed most forgettable for Sreedhara as he ordered Green Spinach Soup which he drank with utmost reluctance :) Entire night we had no sleep as we had to listen to our new "revolutionary", "all hat and no cattle" leader - aste aste.
Day 4 by Santosh:
We had a long peaceful sleep after listening to Aste-Aste's revolutionary dreams/stories for our country and got up pretty late. According to our initial plans, we were supposed to stay in Badami and then directly drive to Goa from there. We still had to get the flat tire fixed. We checked out of the hotel and it almost took us an hour to get the tire fixed. We were about to leave Hubli, when Boda suddenly realized that one of his bags is missing. It had all his and Aste-Aste's shoes. We drove back to the hotel we stayed and luckily the front desk had kept it safe. It was almost 12pm by the time all this drama had finished. According to our plans we were supposed to be in Goa by 2pm. We looked at the maps and saw that Hubli-Dharwad-Londa-Panaji is the shortest route to get into Goa. But I remembered many of my friends having warned me not to take Dharwad-Londa route and instead go via Belgaum, though it is 80 Km round about. To save distance (and hopefully time) we unanimously decided to take the Dharwad-Londa route as we learned that it was a state highway and it can't be really bad.
Road till Dharwad was NH-4, so we drove fast. The first 10 Km after Dharwad was also good with nice views as we were entering the Western Ghats forest. All of us patted our back for deciding to take this route. Little did we know what we were about to experience. As we entered the forest there was no traffic and the quality of road suddenly changed from smooth asphalted one to dusty and stony one. The road kept getting worse as we drove forward. Londa to Panaji is connected by a NH, but we were still 60 Km from Londa. It would take more time if we had to turn back and go via Belgaum, so we decided to continue. Next 3hrs turned out to be the worst driving experience of my life. Being grown up in Tumkur, I had thought I’ve seen the worst roads. But this road was at a totally different level. Boda initially made his typical poor jokes on the state of road, but after sometime even he got bored and frustrated. Like any typical Indians, we blamed the corrupt government for this state of our country. After initial 30 min of talking, Aste-Aste peacefully fell asleep in the back seat even on that bumpy road. It looked as if the previous night’s revolutionary ideas had kept him awake all night. Monotonous Murthy's Kannada songs gave us (Boda and Me), the much needed company in that depressing drive. Apart from 1 or 2 Lorries once a while we didn't see any traces of automobiles in that forest. We didn't find even a tea stall on that road. After going through this pain for 3hrs at an average speed of 20 Km/Hr, we had no clue where we were and how far we are from the NH. That road didn't have even a single mile stone. Guess the road authorities made the right decision by not wasting money to install mile stones on a road that didn’t exist. We finally saw an intersection at a distance and all of us prayed for it being the Londa NH intersection. As we approached the junction, we saw a police car and asked them where we were and the way to Panaji. They told us that we are in Londa and showed us the intersection, asking us to take that NH to reach Panaji. Hearing the words Londa and NH made Boda ecstatic and he started jumping in rejoice from his seat inside the car. I could see few drops of tears of joy in his eyes. Finally we were out of trauma and it felt as if the curse was over and finally god had shown some mercy on us. We had no idea what would have happened if the car had broken down in that forest. We thanked our fate for keeping the damage to only our schedule.
The speed of the car increased exponentially along with the volume of music played. It was already getting dark and we were all hungry. We stopped at a nice looking resort called Doodh Sagar Falls resort. The resort and the restaurant looked posh, but very few items were available for snacks and all of them very super expensive. We had no choice but to order one of them. To test our depleted patience, they took almost 30mins to serve cold sandwiches and tea. The sandwiches tasted like card board. We wondered how one can screw up cold sandwiches. Cursing the resort and our fate, we left that place deciding to find a hotel and crash.
As it was Christmas eve, we knew we won't find any cheap accommodation close to any beaches, so we decided to stay in Phonda which is around 30 Km from Panaji. To worsen our day, we had to search for almost an hour, before we found a decent accommodation in the outskirts of Phonda. Though the hotel was not that great for the price, we were more than happy to stay there. As a consolation for the day, we had a good dinner at a neighboring garden restaurant. After an eventful and frustrating day Boda and I dozed off early, but Aste-Aste spent half the night talking to "someone special" over phone.
Day 5 by Santosh:
The plan for the day was to check out forts and beaches in north Goa. We 
We finished lunch in Calangute beach and decided to check out the famous Fort Chapora on the way. This fort along with the Little Vagator beach became popular after the movie Dil Chahta Hai. We climbed to the top of fort and the view from there was just amazing. As usual we clicked many pictures, majority of them being Boda's solo ones. For me, apart from driving, 
It was already 5pm by the time we came down Chapora fort. We had to hurry, if we had to check out both the fort and sunset at Querim beach. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Querim beach the last ferry had already left and we had no other way to reach the fort and decided to head to beach and check out sunset. The beach was amazingly serene and to our surprise there was hardly any crowd. It was a perfect place to lie down and enjoy the sunset. Boda and Aste-Aste decided to take a walk on the beach, while I decided to just sleep on sleeping mat. The sunset was simply beautiful and the colors of the sky were totally mesmerizing.
We started driving back towards Panaji and were discussing about dinner. Lonely planet came to our help again. It recommended Baga beach for dinner, as the food is supposedly very tasty and the shacks there serve food on the beach. Looking at the number of cars parked when we reached Baga, we thought it'll be very crowded. But there were way too many shacks and we easily found a nice table to sit on the beach. The food was great and it was also not expensive. Spent couple of hours there chatting and discussing on the plans for next 2 days. When we returned back to our hotel in Phonda, it was 
Day 6 by Shashank:
Well, today (26th December 2007) was mainly a journey day. Initial plan was to drive all the way to Mangalore from Ponda. Though Sreedhara and Boda had doubts, I was sure we would be able to do it. As usual, Boda and I got ready early and waited for Sreedhara to get ready as well. Sreedhara was singing a Sonu Nigam number inside the bathroom and this scared away a group of crows which were napping on a tree next to our room. As Sreedhara and Boda loaded our bags in the boot, I haggled with the receptionist to get a discount on our bill. I could successfully get a discount of 300 rupees.
We left Ponda and headed back to Karnataka via Madgaon. We had breakfast at Kamat restaurant in Madgaon. Our target was to reach Marvante beach for sunset. We filled petrol in Goa itself. As we entered Karnataka, Sreedhara decided to take a break and handed the steering to Boda. Sreedhara slept off in the back seat while I stayed awake in the front and the car stereo was playing “adhe bhoomi” 
We stopped at Kamat restaurant, Ankola for lunch. The food was not that great. We also had sugar cane juice there. Marvante was still a long way to go, we were not sure if would be able to make it before sunset. A determined Sreedhara got behind the wheel.
We reached the Turtle Bay beach by 6. There was still some time left before the sun could set. The beach is right next to the highway and was amazing with violent waves and white sand. Sreedhara, now inspired by Tippeswamy, took some great pictures of me, the beach and the sunset. We also made Boda to jump high as Sreedhara took some action pictures. After watching the sunset, we had mandakki and tea at a shack and then we set off towards Mangalore discussing love and marriage. Sreedhara and I were advocating love marriage and Boda was more inclined towards arranged marriage. Boda’s criteria were simple. He was looking for a simple, beautiful, traditional madhwa Brahmin girl whose horoscope would match with his and who could keep him and his parents happy! Sreedhara said that he would go for a late marriage as he was taking up a 4-5 years MS/PhD course in the US. Boda promised him that he would definitely have kids by then and get them to Sreedhara’s marriage. Both of them asked me about my marriage. I told them that I was not sure but it would take some more years.
We reached Udupi by 7:30 PM. We decided to stay there overnight as Sreedhara wanted to visit Sri Krishna Mutta in the morning, pure and fresh after taking bath. Our hunt for a hotel ended at Hotel Kidiyur. We secured a family room for 400 rupees. The room was HUGE with all the modern amnesties. We had dinner at the Kidiyur restaurant. Our menu of soup, masala papad, rotis, sabji and curd rice had become a standard by now. That night we came back to our room, we calculated the finances and slept watching highlights of India versus Australia test match.
Day 7 by Shashank:
My last day of the trip was 27th December. Later that day Benazir Bhutto would get shot in Pakistan. Unaware of all these 3 of us woke up at our hotel room by
While leaving Krishna Mutta we realized that the paper on which we had our finances’ calculation was lost! Boda was innocently smiling in the back seat. Thankfully Sreedhara remembered all the details from our last night’s calculation. We reached Karkala by 12 in the noon. The Gomateswara statue was flocked by school kids on ShaikshaNika Pravasa. We were meeting school kids at almost every location. From here, we went to Mudabidri where we saw 1000 pillars Basadi. Also, we had lunch here before driving down to Mangalore. We reached my place in Mangalore by 3:30 PM, dumped our luggage and freshened up. Taaze Zameen Par was already making news. We decided to try for the tickets at AdLabs. Fortunately we could get tickets for the 7 PM show. We then drove towards Someshwara beach. Someshwara has always been my favorite beach in Mangalore. The rocks, the waves, the trees lined up on the shore and the temple are all so, so beautiful. We were all lost in this serene beach watching the sun go down into the sea. We had to hurry back to Mangalore for our movie. Sreedhara who had under estimated Mangalore traffic got us 30 minutes late for the movie. After the movie we had ice cream at Pabbas before returning to my place.
TV at my home was blaring with the news of Benazir Bhutto’s murder. We had dinner and went to sleep quickly as Sreedhara and Boda wanted to leave early next morning.
It was 6:30 AM next day when the dusty, battered Palio was driven out carrying two people who had spent the last 7 days with me. As I bid adieu to them, I did not realize that those 7 days had been the greatest of my life and would never happen again.
Day 8 by Pavan:
Sreedhara and I got up very early around 5 AM in the morning (Sreedhara was a happy chap since he got to know what early morning is, for the first time in his life :P). We got ready, left Aste-Aste's house, of course Aste-Aste and his parents were out there to bid adieu to us. We were off towards our final destination. Until then we knew that the word "hospitality" exists only in dictionary but Aste-Aste's parents made us realize what it is, thanks to his parents.
Final strip of the journey was from Mangalore to Bangalore, we could've easily chosen usual route of Ghats but then decide to venture Madikeri side. This decision of venturing into new route emphasized the fun of the trip - "Take the road less travelled". For quite some time none of us talked and then got to know it was because Aste-Aste was missing, "Friend is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it is lost". But luckily ice was broken and we had a new companion in the form of rising sun in a far off horizon.
Breakfast was in a small hotel in Puttur. We gulped down the usual stuff of idly-sambar.
Next part of the journey was all about reminiscing the whole trip and of course some "vichara vinimaya" about life, girls, marriage and life after marriage :) He was also telling his Himalaya and other trekking experiences. He drove till Madikeri and I chose to drive from Madikeri till next stop.
We decided to have lunch in Kamat upachar in Bangalore-Mysore road. Lunch was Uttara Karnataka Thali (JoLada roTTi and yeNgaayi). Next it was no stop affair and directly drove to bangalore. Sreedhara dropped me near my house. I took my bag and there was sunscreen lotion lying for which the expenses were shared. But Sreedhara was gracious enough to hand it over to me and he was equally gracious in asking me to return his part of the money :P
I got out of the car and said "Sigtinappa", strangely not "See you or Good bye”! We couldn't come to the terms that our wonderful journey has come to an end. Still the same song was playing; though it was not the car's audio player which was crooning, this time it was in the back of our mind. The whole journey got the new meaning and all of us realized the value of true friendship - "Ade bhoomi, ade baanu ee nayana nootana | ade daari ade tiruvu ee payaNa nootana ||"
