Weekend Trip-Part-2- Sawantwadi to Vengurla

We went to the Sawantwadi bus stand to find a sleepy little minitown that was in no hurry to head to the coast. The coastal buses here go to either Vengurla, Kudal or Terekhol. We decided on Vengurla and sat in the bus to find a certain calm that was not present in the big cities.

The bus never had a fixed time of leaving, nor did the conductor seemed to have any fixed target on number of commuters. It was a happy little world that fortunately had no one with a dagger saying DEADLINES! People could stop the bus by just plonking their foot 2 steps on the road and that would be a bus stop. We were asking around a farmer on some observations we had on the fields as to why Hay was kept in stacks all over the fields. We heard from him that, it was food for his horses and animals, who were working on the fields. Nothing super duper, just that corporate life dulls your common sense!


We spotted this cute little wannabe Mexican kid, on the road to Vengurla

One needs to climb a small ascent to get to a ruined stone fort. Shot this from there. Alluring views of the azure waters and the palm/coconut trees.

How much must that be? 20 metres long and walkable in 20 seconds? NO... It was far longer than we expected and the water was close to 6-7 feet deep, during the high tide. Vinay decided to get inside and try out how quickly we could cross, as we had a laptop bag to ferry across. When he came back bleeding from the swim, we realised that the water was deep and had gorges and rocks inside, so we hired a small boat for 50 rs to help us cross to UTOPIA.

While on the boat, during the 10 minute ride, we played the oarsman, learning how to use the oars in the lake, with the fisherman also giving an insight into his life. The fisherman,during the monsoon, also doubles up as a mechanic to supplement the income, which goes on a downward spiral with rough seas and weather conditions. during such impulse trips, converations with the local people reveals a lot about the place, people, their customs, their lives, their motivations and then finally you are able to connect the dots between geography and history that lies dormant in your brain.

Weekend Trip- Part 1- Mumbai to Sawantwadi

There has always been this romance associated with unreserved and unplanned travel in trems of meeting new people, understanding their life story, and exploring lands already explored by well known travellers.. I set off on this trip alone, after office on last friday. At 7 15 pm, I decided to call it a day and head to Dadar Railway station for buying a 'unreserved' ticket from Dadar to Pernem. Now the best train to catch, to head to the konkan coast, would be Train number 6335, from the outskirts of Mumbai. When buying unreserved tickets in Mumbai, for travel north or south, the best place to buy it would be at the bigger railway terminuses like Dadar/VT/Bombay Central/Bandra Terminus/Borivali/Panvel. I tried buyinga a ticket from Lower Parel, but that is seemingly not possible and if you do head to the Dadar, you need to get it only from the counter on Dadar East.

Dadar-Pernem- 137 rs

Now after purchasing my tickets and realising that the 10 pm train at Panvel was a better option than the Konkan Kanya express, I decided to head to Mani's lunch home at Matunga and explore the combo that keeps every Tam guy worth existing- Ghee roast and filter coffee. After a short tiffen, I managed to find a taxi to Wadala Road station and took the local train to Panvel, which eased and ambled to Panvel by 9 30 pm, with the crowd being 1/1000th of what it was when I bullied people to head butt my way at Wadala road.

Once at Panvel, I removed the heavy bag I was carrying and allowed my shoulders to be free. The last 2 day's work out sessions had obviously made every sinew of my shoulder writhe in pain. I was feeling weak all of a sudden, whether I would have the energy to last the night braving the crowd in the unreserved compartment. But Today was Gudi Padwa, Maharashtrian new year, so every Mumbaikar was at home celebrating with family and if he was a travel freak, he would have left on Thursday night and not on Friday night, when I was leaving.

Just when my shoulders were groaning, I came across a short, dark man who seemed to be glancing into reams of paper. I guessed, he must be the TTE, and went and asked him if there was a possibility of getting a reserved seat. Today was my day, and given that quite a few states celebrated new year on Friday, nobody was competing with me on the train to Sawantwadi. The TTE charged me 200 rs extra for accomadating me in a middle berth, for me to lay me shoulders to rest.

Fine to the TTE- 200 Rs

I must have woken up every half an hour after 2 30 am, and finally decided to get up at 5 am, as the train was scheduled to arrive at Sawantwadi at 5 15 am. With everyone sleeping in the compartment, I couldnt rely on 'wisdom of the crowds' to get off, so I decided to take the plaunge of connecting the mobile phone GPS on my N-81, on Roaming(this combo guzzles the charge on your mobile). I was still a few kilometres from my destination, and so I decided to abandon my 2 foot space of the middle birth and stand at the footboard, allowing the morning chill winds to hit my face. After staring aimlessly at darkness, I saw that next to the toilet, there was a charging point and decided to charge my mobile phone. My friend Vinay, was to pick me up at the station. He had arrived the previous night after a sales visit to central Maharashtra. Vinay had brought an auto along and we drove to Sawantwadi town, which was 9 km's from the station. I hear that there is only 1 hotel near the sawant wadi railway station, and if you are caught up at the station, there's atleast a paid home to go to unlike stations in Goa( Pernem/Thivim/Karmali/Cancona).

We had breakfast in an udupi hotel, where the sun's rays had just pierced in at around 7 15 am. We tried to ask the hotel proprietor for breakfast at 6 20 am, but he was least interested in serving us, as words like 'customer', 'dhandha' are alien terms in this slowmoving,bovine and peaceful town.


Its not that you have too many options within a few minutes of the hotel opening. Whatever we asked for resulted in 3 items being suggested/reccomended. Upma,Sheera and Poha. We were in a mood for any thing, as long as it facilitated bowel movement and gave us a pleasant taste to make us feel good, while we saunter around the town.

The plate on the left is mine, which has Sheera(Yellow sweet) and Upma. Vinay is seen having Poha, which has become his favourite dish after he relocated to Mumbai.

The town reminded me of the faint little town of Malgudi, which had a sense of calm written all over it.

People are early to rise and discuss news with other people in the promenade of the lake.

For more updates, watch part 2 of the Blog, to be published soon

Back to Childhood Days!

The picture of one's head against the door of a train, with winds gushing through one's hair even as the train decides to do a hair pin curve where one half of the train is curving and the other half is curling and catching up, you realise that these were the same emotions which meant joy, 10-15 years back, and to be more specific, you need to be in the 2nd class compartment to lean over, with the glorious smell of the Indian railways, yes.... its charecteristic smell of urine and the iron of the compartment that knock over your sensibilities as you try to get some fresh air through your lungs. Lonely travel brings a lot of thoughts
that your mind conjures up and 2 such recent journeys are being documented here.

In October and November, I decided to do some lonely train journeys as I was feeling bored. In October, I had a long weekend at my internship in Bangalore, and the dussehra weekend, was going to be dull If I was at the temporary accomdation that I was staying, so I decided to hit the Majestic bus stand, a sudden thought at 7 pm, when I left the office, and managed to reach the place (Majestic Bus Stand) by about 9 and discovered that the only probable places that one could go were Mangalore/Gokarna/Shimoga for Jog Falls/ Goa. Now, Mangalore seemed a students delight as a term called "inflation" had not made its way there to have very costly hotel and eating options. But Mangalore was heavily booked, so was Shimoga and Goa. Gokarna had one ticket and since Dusehra was on, a premium was charged to the tune of about 100 rs making the final ticket as 450 odd.

Gokarna it was...and I set on a journey, a holiday all alone, by myself... on a rainy chill night, but since I had a rather plush windcheater of my previous company, the chill winds were not a factor, but the bump on highway roads were, as I was sitting in the middle of the last bench of that bus.



Gokarna is like a place thats unaffected by technology and modernity. It has a lulling and a very slow pace towards life and thats the first thing that struck me about this place. More than that is the greenery around. For the first time in my holidays I gave up trekking and beach walking, as my bag tore, so I had to check into a hotel and decided to just walk aimlessly and explore the town.



This is when I am reminded of Chldhood, where I used to walk with my grandfather on the streets of Nanganallur, where seeing a road, a person, a bus..or any damn thing was enthusiastic, as I was learning new things each time I went on a walk.The same enthusiasm came to the fore. It was ages since I decided to explore a place at an easy pace. I went about photographing literally everything that came my way.


Here goes some of my exhibits


The Hotels in Gokarna are plain simple and you are transported to this lost world
where prices of eatables are a little above manufacturing cost and you have a very simple
ambience. Look at the chairs, everything has this plain jane shape and looks so uncomplicated.

Wherever I go, I seem to have this soft corner for "GHEE MASALA DOSA", and this time its no exception.

It had rained the previous evening, and it takes some Sun
to dry the streets. A peaceful walk, in the afternoon, explorning the extra rural side of Gokarna


Thats the bus, you would never want to get in. Extremely rickety and gives your shoulder and backbones a massage the wrong way, to make it as stiff as possible. This is the last option to Bangalore, if you cant get the luxury buses. This bus leaves at about 5 30 pm, on Sundays to Bangalore. Travelling 14 hours in this bus requires some courage, and since I am a student and cash strapped, I chose this :-(. The bus had a leaking hole right above the place where I sat, and all the water found its way to my seat and shoulder.I couldnt move an inch as this bus had hardly any leg space, and already had a vendors vegetable bag in between my legs apart from my huge blue bag. Next to me was a corpulent Bank officer, who was sharing his stories of life at Shimoga and Gokarna. It was great getting his perspective of life, and all his mythological stories about Gokarna, but he gave me a mythology dose, all through the night till 3 am, until he got off.

From the modernity of an INFOSYS campus, it takes 12 hours to be transported back to time, in Gokarna. Look at the pyol of the house, looks like R K NARAYAN had taken inspiration from this place :-), but actually its is widely rumoured that Malgudi came from Malleshwaram+ Basavangudi. I last saw such houses in Chennai, at Dakshinachitra, when I went earlier in the year with Prasanna and Kishore.


When it's a misty morning and you are on a walk across a bridge, it makes for a lovely sight. This place must be some small tributary of the Arabian sea.

Outer Gokarna reminds me of the villages in Kerala, all green with overcast skies.

Driving on empty roads with lovely weather and trees by the wayside is a lovely way to unwind.

Some times food can be a huge problem on the western coast, as you have to make to do with what is available in smaller bus stands like these. Grossly unhygenic, but thats also a part of travel


This photo was taken at PAI Restaurant at Gokarna. This along with Gokarna International are the best places to eat good quality local food at Gokarna.



Now that's a Garage... They dont have 4 wheelers here. This is just enough to dump a couple of cycles and lock it for the night.

The Brick sizes are very big on the western coast, atleast in Gokarna and Goa. I dont know the reason behind such huge boulders, but since I saw them and it looked unique, its claim to fame since then on has been that its been featured on Katchucrap!

Looks like Gokarna has its own version of Hermione and Harry Potter

Cricket on the Pyol! I was reminded of the days in the early 90's where all i needed was a tennis/rubber ball, to insantly start a game of cricket. The strategy part involved trying to score heavily by not playing power strokes and adopting to the area of the place that was available. Most of the places would be relatives houses, Marriage halls, Terraces and open verandahs! Aaah those were the days!

Thats the way back to the Hotel!........

For a more detailed journal on the beaches in Gokarna, I suggest you click this travellogue, written by me, a year and a half back