Mangalore Trip -- Rumblings

One more trip with families –  Five of them this time and with age group starting from Eight years to 77 ! and the visit was to  temples closer to the Mangalore belt. Planning had to be done well in advance for it was the ‘Season “ . I will not dwell in to the temples and their importance – You could easily get details of the temples from “Google Swami” . But I thought of penning down few things that really made the trip , a memorable one—

Tickets

If I said the  guy  ( one amongst us) who booked the tickets went bonkers  , it would have been an understatement . We wanted to leave on 23^rd evening . So, tickets were booked but we ended up with  Wait listed tickets for 14 of us . Railway Pundits after lot of algorithms  and backend work , concluded  and advised us that we had no chance of getting tickets confirmed . May be three or four of the fourteen will get confirmed but not all was the verdict.

So , we had to do Plan B. To our pleasant surprise, we found confirmed tickets by the morning train ( we know why , the train is notorious for its punctuality and to us it did not matter )

We hoped that the schools will close by 22^nd. We had the accommodation in place both at Mangalore and Udupi. Then came the twist – Unplanned school holidays ( CM demise and Cyclone Vardha ) had us on the tenterhook . The exams were to end by Friday , which meant we could not take the Morning train.  There was some thought of dropping the whole trip since we could not find any other dates suitable either for us or if we found , tickets were not available . Airfares were so steep and unaffordable at this time. So that idea  of flying down was dropped.

 We finally concluded that one group will go by the morning train and the rest of us who had school going kids will take the evening train. So , the first set of cancellations were made. Then some more discussions.. Why hold the entire family—The kids need one of the parents with them – So allow the mothers to travel – So , change and do one more set of cancellations. In the end 10 of the 14, went by the morning  train and the balance 4—2 kids and their parent waited for confirmation by the evening train – It came down to Waitlist 1-4 and would not move from there. Finally , we booked , Tatkal  for the four of us and got in for the evening train. We had to then cancel all the waitlisted tickets.. So, there it goes , just to track and do the cancellations correctly was a tough one but it was done well.

Incidentally , the morning train went late by 3.5 hours , so in the end the gap was less than 2 hours between the two trains !

Travel Tit bits

We visited many temples across Mangalore and through the Udupi district . Each time , between one temple and another , the travel would be close to 2.5 hours . The travel was made easy because of the group dynamics and lot of chatting and staying energetic . Else , the whole trip would have been difficult . Added to this , the sun was out and to say it was hot , again would be an under call !

We had a very good driver , who clearly understood our needs and would be on time. He drove safe and that was important . he never lost his way ( except one time ) but he was spot on through the trip. The only drawback was that he was paranoid about parking . So , he would not drop us near the temples but would get to the parking lot  first. He had to cajoled very time to get us as close as he can to the drop points.

 The only place , where we got stuck in the crowds was at Dharmasthala where we stood in the Q for close to four hours ! It was a great test of our stamina – mercifully there was a separate Q for senior citizens that two of our group members could use and get out in ten minutes .  Rest of the visits , crowds did not post an issue .

One important things was the quality of the food and the cost – Food was hygienic , prepared well and it was dirt cheap compared to Chennai—I mean it –  It is the same stuff but I am simply baffled by how the costs has rippled up in Chennai when you compare to these towns.  Chennai is just unaffordable on this count . We tasted as much as we could of the local receipes.

 All of the temples that we visited served food free --l to those visiting , during lunch hours .    

The Final dash

It all went well , till our ride to the train station to get to the train for the return journey . We left Udupi well in advance , reached Mangalore , giving us a clear 2 hours to have lunch and get to the train station. We also went to a restaurant that we all believed was 5- 10 minutes away from the train station. We had a gingerly slow lunch and suddenly found us with 35 minutes to go, to get to the station. This is where all the fun began . Our driver  was in no hurry . There was heavy traffic and although the Google Map said 19 minutes to destination , the way the traffic moved at snarl pace , we had good chances to miss the train. Finally , with coaxing and lot of noise , the driver got us to the station .  Again , he would wanted to go the parking lot . A huge roar from all us had in braking close to the entrance of the main platform .We had the senior citizens go in first in to the station. We unloaded the luggage from the roof of the van and everyone ran. I settled the driver , who had a quizzical look on his face to see everyone running with luggage and not saying a bye to him. He then asked , “has your train come ?  I told him we had three minutes to go for the train to leave. Only then , he understood all our noise . He believed that our train was later and so drove with ease !

Finally . when everyone got in and took a long breath ( it was fair distance from the entrance to our coach ) , it was two minutes left.. Whew !

One more small incident  that happened on the way back in the train – As the train stopped at Palghat , I was in the aisle stretching out , a father and his daughter ( must have been 11- 12 years old  came in .The father told the girl to wait in the aisle and went down to the platform. The girl was smiling and cheerful. Suddenly , the train started to pull out . As she noticed this , her face changed  to one of slight panic – I looked through the door and as  our coach left the station , I  noticed that her father was not on the platform and I was sure he got in to a another compartment . The girl had no visibility to this and now she was worried. I asked her for her Dad’s mobile – I dialed him and yes  he was in the train and on our way to the coach where he left his daughter. He also looked relived at the call I made. Finally , he came dashing down and now the girls face was one of great relief. She got her smile back .. that was a nice sight to see. The father thanked me for calling him on the mobile .  He had  become anxious as well

Anyway , all that is well , ends well—We visited every temple that we planned to visit and that was important. As in my previous blogs , going in groups has made these trips memorable and cherishable.

Wishing everyone a Happy 2017