A friend and I had been on a recent trip to Mangalore, Udupi/Malpe and we thought it was great fun! Until we recounted that weekend a coupla days back during another trip ..
Here, a summary of events:
- Stuck in a horrible traffic jam near the Majestic Bus stand. We walked the last kilometer to the bus stand in all the slush from the rain that had just stopped - hoping that we’d make it to the bus on time.
- A rough road incident.
- A car screaches and almost lands on my heel. Just when I’m about to give a piece of my mind to the driver on what a nut-head I think he is, the reckless chap turns out to be a collegue at work. What a nice little ironical touch ! :)
- We lose each other at the bus station. And my friend has no freaking clue where the bus is. I try to call and ‘The subscriber you have dialled is currently out of reach’ happens. We learn later that we have been more or less going round and round the platform in search of each other :)
- Right now, I have been standing in a drizzle , in front of the bus with a revving up engine for the last 15 minutes trying to tell the driver that my friend would arrive ’soon’,'very soon’ , ’shortly’, ‘presently’, ‘on the way’. I’m almost running an internal contest in my head: Which one of these two is likely to happen first - running out of all sorts of adverbs and other figures of speech available in Engish language to use to convey the immediacy of my friend’s arrival or my friend materializing so that we could actually board the bus ? The driver guy can’t quite understand whether I’m blocking the bus or begging him.
- Ullal beach - Entry restricted today. Who would’ve thought ?! The guard at the gate says - Madam, some important rally madam. (Some hotshot I presume). You could have come yesterday no, madam.
- A book by William Faulkner lost in an auto
- Mobile phone left behind in ANOTHER auto
- Waited in pouring rain on the road for full 30mins before we found a mode of transport that could take us to the Mangalore police station. To file a compliant for a lost handset. Don’t laugh - If you have a mom who has breathed forensic science for a good part of her life, you’ll have to write out an FIR and endure an enquiry even if you lose a pin ! :-)
- A stomach that threatens to bring out anything that has gone inside.
- A loooong wait at the Mangalore bus station (3 hours) waiting for the bus that would take us to Bangalore to arrive.
- A 14-hours ride to Bangalore amidst rain and traffic jams. We reach Bangalore next day afternoon 1PM.
I cannot think of a weekend in recent past when so many things went astray in a span of 2 days. Retrospectively, it seems cussed minute after minute :)
Yet, yet , YET - what we remember of that totally jinxed weekend is the amazing sunset at Malpe port and the funny sight at the police station we’d gone to at Mangalore where all the guns and ammunition where neatly arranged and decorated with flowers :-) :-) for the puja ! And that brain-tickling question - would they pull out those guns if a riot broke out that day or wait for the puja to pass :-o ?
So there you go - the events that transpired during a trip that we had thought was fun :)
Travel fun has probably got nothing to do with the destination, or weather or the person with whom you travel. Like most things, travel fun too is dependent on something internal to oneself - a state of mind. You have a lousy mood and you pick up the first thing that comes your way and call it the reason for a bad trip :)
What makes or breaks your trip ?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Shreelesh Kumar // Dec 26, 2007 at 8:44 pm
>>What makes or breaks your trip ?
Great weather for photography, friends to have fun, and if I indulge in some far-stretched fantasy, maybe a nice soft hand to hold than some heavy luggage …. All the 3 or the lack of them.. And of course, if I had a spate of mishaps like yours, that’d mostly be a bummer of a trip..
2 charukesi // Jan 2, 2008 at 6:09 pm
ouch, you seem to have had a tough time - you need another holiday torecover from that!
but huh, dont get me started - just wrote to you about how our schedule went haywire and we spent more time driving than anything else! and you haven’t even mentioned the AWFUL karnataka roads (with my bad back, that is what is uppermost in my mind!)
here is to better and smoother holidays from now:)
3 Akshay N R // Jan 13, 2008 at 11:12 am
Quite a relevant recollection of a Bangalorean about DK. So happens i am a bangalorean myself studying for the past 4 years at Surathkal…
Not really surprised about the condition of roads and travel from bangalore to mangalore.
I have to say u travel quite a lot. I am taking cue from ur accounts and making plans to travel myself….
So do keep writing…
Leave a Comment