Yana and Betthageri Beach

During Ugadi festival time, we had been to native and decided to go for a day's trip. My brother wanted to go to a beach. Only me and my wife had seen Yana and no one else had. So we planned to visit Yana and go to Kumta for lunch and then head to Betthageri beach for sunset and return home.

It was a Sunday, 3rd April, and we were on our way to Yana. Yana is a village in Uttara Kannada district amid Sahyadri hills (Western Ghats) range with presence of huge unusual rocks. These rocks are formed of crystalline limestone. There is a popular saying in Kannada "Sokkidre Yana Rokkidre Gokarna", meaning, one needs quite a bit stamina to trek to Yana and needs quite a bit money to reach Gokarna, since, for outsiders, Gokarna would be expensive enough. But today, this saying is not applicable for both of the places! After Kannada movie "Nammoora Mandara Hoove" (1997), Yana became more famous and now there is a tar road, going very near to Yana and the trekking distance is reduced to only half a km.

We reached Yana via Sirsi, and taking Kumta road, soon followed by taking a deviation to the right. The distance from Sirsi is around 40km. We first visited the temple, a Shiva temple. For "Pradakshine", one needs to go inside the gigantic rock. The path inside resembles cave and there are a couple of small rocks hanging in the narrow space in between the rock. We had tender coconut, banana before resuming journey to next destination.

There are two roads from Yana to Kumta, our destination. One route is via Mabage village and waterfall, called Vibhooti falls. I had been to there and have had a blog posted about it. Click here to read. The other route is taking the route towards Sirsi and take a deviation to Manjuguni after about 20km, which would join to Sirsi-Kumta road. We took the former route as it was nearer, 48 km. One can find many pages in internet about the distance from Yana to Kumta mentioned as approximately 25 km. But this is wrong and via the shortest route, Kumta is at a distance of 48 km from Yana. However, from Yana till Mabage the road is very bad with jelly (crusher stones) and to travel 7 km on empty road, we took more than half an hour! We had some food, packed from home, and went to Kumta. After a pit stop for coffee/snacks, we head towards Honnavar and took a right for Betthageri beach, roughly 10 km from Kumta on NH17.

Betthageri beach is very clean, as it is still remote. When we went there, there was nobody else, though some people came after us from neighboring villages after sometime. We played for an hour in the beach and just when the Sun started to set, it became cloudy and though we got nice views, we didn't get nice sunset!
 

We returned to home from there via Honnavar and Gerusoppa. It was a wonderful trip with full family after a long time.

Vibhooti Falls and Gokarna

When I was in hostel, Shimoga while studying engineering (2002-2006), we went to many places. This is about one such trip, when we went to Vibhooti falls (also called Mabage falls, since its near Mabage village) and Gokarna.

It was November 1st, 2003, Saturday and we had holiday because of Kannada Rajyotsava. We planned to have one day trip, starting early, about 4 AM, go to Vibhooti falls, about which we had read in "Taranga", a Kannada magazine (article titled Mabage falls), play for sometime and start from there and go to Gokarna and come back to Shimoga late night reserving next day for rest(Sunday). We didn't know by then that we would not come back on the same night due to unforeseen circumstances!

8 years back we were not used to Internet search. So, we just followed what was written in the magazine. And by doing so, we took a longer route of Shimoga-Sagar-Honnavar-Kumta-Mabage. The better route was Shimoga to Sirsi and then to Mattighatta, Devanalli via Hegadekatta and from there to Vaddi Ghat from Vaddi cross and Mabage. As per our plan, we started around 4 30 AM and reached Honnavar via Sagar around 9. Having breakfast at Honnavar, we started towards Kumta and after about 20km from Kumta, took deviation to the right at the place where deviation to the left goes to Gokarna. We further traveled for about 22 km enquiring Mabage village. From here, left deviation goes to Yana at a distance of about 8 km and right one goes to Vibhooti falls, again at a distace of 8km. It was around 11 when we reached Vibhooti falls after about 2km trekking.

Vibhooti falls is a two stepped falls. Water collects at the bottom to form a pool which is a good place to swim and play. We played for about two hours and started back to our vehicle. We retraced to NH17 and took deviation towards Gokarna, where our lunch was arranged.

I usually take front seat near driver, since I would love to watch driving (back then). Likewise, I was sitting at the front seat while most were asleep. There was a right curve and I could see a car coming from opposite direction but the sad part was our driver didn't see it! In a fraction of second of thinking why our driver is driving dangerously on the right lane, a loud noise, "Dhab", is heard. I could see our vehicle hitting a local car. An accident. Soon we got down from our vehicle and people started gathering. Luckily only the car was damaged but the family inside were safe.

We were 30 boys, all aged between 18-21, most were only in shorts, not expected to be treated well in a situation like that. We waited by road side for about 3 hrs and finally, after our vehicle owner agreed to come down to Gokarna, we were allowed to move but the vehicle had to be in police station until the owner arrives from Shimoga. It was 6 pm by the time we sat for lunch! We roamed Gokarna main streets and called the day off to settle at a place for the night, 10 each in 3 rooms.

Next day, visit to Mahabaleshwara temple was followed by playing in Om beach till evening. By then our vehicle owner and the car owner had compromised, so we could start our return journey. It was 10 30 PM or so when we started from Honnavar towards Shimoga after supper. Reached Shimoga around 3 AM. Thus, our one day trip was extended to 2 days with one day vehicle rent!

Goa - A Tiny Emerald

One fine day, 2008 March last week, we (Me, Jagga and Manu) thought we could go for a trip. We also thought we should decide the date, place and invite others instead of asking everybody for probable dates, otherwise the trip itself wouldn't have happened. We called our friends immediately we booked 4 tickets in KSRTC to Karwar (as we didn't get train tickets) for April 4th evening when only we 3 were confirmed, rest denying. Finally Deva joined us as 4th member, when none of us were aware of boarding, lodging, travelling etc., in Goa. We just googled it and found out some places and left.

It was 9 am when we got down in Karwar and had breakfast. Not knowing the train timings, we caught a KTC (Goa state transport) bus and reached Margao by around 12 noon, two of us looking at Western ghats, rest continuing sleep...

When we checked into a hotel in Margao, everybody was eager to have shower - a desperate needy at the hour. After having lunch in a Kamat hotel nearby, we set for Colva beach dressed in shorts, convenient to play in sea-waters. We played in sea, watched sunset and returned to our hotel. We used only public transport on our first day.

One unusual thing about Margao (or rather different than what we thought), is town's time to embrace the sleep. We started for dinner at around 9 pm and we walked around 3-4 km till the town's center and still we didn't get even a single hotel opened that time! Hotels, shops, market, - everything was closed for the day. We had a tough time finding to have food and finally we settled for paav bhaji, he too was packing up, which we found luckily on a roadside.

Next day (6th) we went to Anjuna beach, where Scarlett Keeling's body found just one month prior, and we got into a cottage. We changed bus once at Panaji and then at Mapusa on our way to Anjuna village. It is quite a different beach, full of dark brown rocks near shore, not usual sandy. Its also a famous shooting spot.


After playing for a while, We left the shore and hired two bikes. Now this is something very common in Goa - rented bikes. We asked a guy for two bikes, which he gave willingly, taking Rs 250 per day per bike, and not even bothered to ask whether we knew the driving or not, let alone DLs! When we were about to start, he told about accelerator and brake!


We then visited Bhaga and Calangute beaches. Those two are beautiful beaches, where we enjoyed most. We played water sports, watched sunset for second successive day, and did shopping. There is a very good veg restaurant in Calangute, (name I don't remember now, must be some 'Sagar') where we had both lunch and dinner.


Next day early morning, we explored Anjuna Beach a little more before heading to to Panaji. As soon as we got down, probably guessed by our confusing looks, somebody came and was leading us to a hotel, the next moment! We checked into a hotel, Sona, near Panjim bus stand. After enquiring about cruise timings, we booked for that day evening's, since it was already time for morning's.

We then booked a cab cum guide to show us temples and churches. First we visited St. Francis Xavier's Church, whose speciality lies in the preservation of St.'s body from around 450 years. Near to that, we can find one more famous monument Se Cathedral, which truly depicts the royalty of Goa during the Portuguese rule. The art museum there, is good to visit. I am not going to write the historical significance of these architectures that you can get, very well detailed, if you google it.


Churches enough, next thing was to visit some of the famous temples. We visited 3 famous temples - Shri Mangesh temple, Goa's one of the most prominent temples, located at Mangeshi village, followed by Mahalasa temple, another name of Vishnu's Mohini incarnation, located at Madroli village, and Shantadurga temple, which has an impressive idol of Durga, who is said to have mediated between Vishnu and Shiva and stopped their war. Goa's temples are really good and one can find the architectural similarity between them.


After that we went to Dona Paula and Miramar beaches, visiting 'big foot', a miniature setup to recreate the rural life of Goa's olden days. Big foot got its name because of big footprint that was discovered on a rock and the footprint is believed to bring good luck for those who stood upon it. The laterite sculpture of Saint Mirabai in Ancestral Goa has been cited in the Limca Book of Records as the Longest Laterite Sculpture in India.

Hmmm, it was time to say good bye to Deal(Deva, our friend), who had to leave us for his home. We then went on to ride cruise. In cruise they take us on the water for about an hour's ride. There will be dance and / or similar programmes on it.


Next morning, we woke up early and before 6 am, we were at Panaji bus stand to catch the bus to Margao, from where we had to catch Konkan train (Vokha - Ernakulam Express) at 8 or so. That journey from Margao to Karwar in train was the best train journey I ever had! Though we got the seats in II class, we soon left the seat and stood in the door for our entire journey till Karwar. It averages about 120 kmph. There are so many small tunnels and 2-3 lengthier ones as well. (2-3 km long). Even inside the tunnels, dark and lit by small bulbs, the train didn't reduce the speed. The sound was horrible, when it goes inside. And we were afraid at times, seeing rocks and stones very much near to train! Wonderful journey nonetheless. It reached Karwar in 45 mins (rail distance - around 70 km or so)


Finally we got down in Karwar and caught a bus to Talavata, (my native place) via Gerusoppa ghat on 8th of April.

PS : For more pictures, you can refer to my picasa album http://picasaweb.google.com/gowthuhk/GoaTrip#.