Udupi

Udupi- a lovely temple town situated in Coastal Karnataka, next to Mangalore.

Udupi is famous for Sri Krishna Temple and Udupi cuisine. It’s a peaceful town with activities revolving around the Krishna Temple. All Hindu festivals are celebrated grandly in Sri Krishna Mutt. Thus the mutt is full of activities all round the year. Thousands of pilgrims visit the temple to get blessings of Lord Krishna every day. We visited Udupi in January right after Rathotsavam or Car Festival. And the temple is full of pilgrims. One could find groups of Russians, Germans and other Europeans chanting, "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare" and playing musical instruments in the temple streets of Udupi in the evenings. Such scenes are common during festival days and other auspicious days to Krishna.

Temple Gopuram

Sri Krishna Temple Tank

Temple Cars

Festival time!!!

The town has all the amenities required by guests. A tourist town since many decades, it has been developed to serve the needs of visitors. The hotels and restaurants’ staff  behave well with visitors. We felt welcome everywhere. Also it is a district headquarters and serves as home to some of India’s largest banks. So there were busy markets and shopping places around.

Golden Chariot

Lord Krishna in Gold Ratha

Manipal lies close to Udupi with lot of educational institutes and hospitals. Udupi railway station is located between Manipal and Udupi. Udupi is in the tail end of Konkan railway line that connects Mangalore with Mumbai. The rail routes through mountains, water falls, large tunnels, river bridges and runs parallel to the Arabian Sea.  

Manipal is developed with the large and diverse student population in mind. One can get to shop all the brands and eat at all international food chain outlets in Manipal. Manipal also has numerous restaurants serving Indian to American and provides decent night life. End point in Manipal behind KMC medical college is an excellent place to visit during sunset.

Manipal Endpoint

A scenic view from Manipal End point

Udupi has an excellent public transportation. Long distance buses to Kollur, Murudeswar, Mangalore, Sringeri etc., can be taken from Service Bus station. And the town bus stand located next to service station connects the city with all its suburbs like Malpe.

The town has a long coastline nearby and beautiful beaches in Malpe and Kaup. Of both, Malpe is famous among tourists. Malpe beach is around 10 km from Udupi and can be reached by town buses plying frequently. Kaup beach has a beautiful light house close by.

Malpe Beach

Dog, enjoying the morning breeze

Unlike other Indian beaches, the beaches in Karnataka are clean and maintained well and provide good ambience to the visitors.

The waves give good adventure..

One can take a boat ride to St Mary's Island during non-monsoon months and enjoy the rocky island full of coconut trees.

Perfect place for a morning walk!

Gandhiji Statue @ Malpe Beach

The famous Jain temple with large Bahubali statue is located in Karkala, an hour by road drive from Udupi. Journey to Udupi is incomplete without dining at Woodlands Restaurant or Mitra Samaj.

Mitra Samaj is located close to the temple in the car street and serves authentic Udupi cuisine.

Woodlands Restaurant serves south and north Indian dishes in addition to Udupi special dishes.

Woodlands, best place to taste Udupi cuisine

Coconut with coriander leaves chutney- a Malnad Cuisine

Yummy Idlis!

We chose to dine at Woodlands. And we were more than satisfied with the food and service. It’s an A/C restaurant located within a walk-able distance from the temple. The restaurant was filled with multi-cultural people with locals, Indian tourists and Foreigners experiencing the delicious food served.

Palak Soup

Banana Bun- a must try Udupi dish

We had Udupi bun (banana bun), idly,  butter naan, paneer butter masala, pasta and completed our course with a filter coffee. It was one of the best dining experience we had.

Pasta- a delight in Woodlands

Filter Coffee

There are numerous spiritual places like Kukke Subramanya Temple, Shringeri Sharadhamba Temple, Kollur Mookambiga Temple and Murudeshwar temple and greenic places like Madikeri (Coorg) that are located in a close proximity to Udupi.

With happy memories of Sri Krishna darshan, beach adventures and Woodlands dinner, we completed our Udupi visit. and we head to Mangalore, just 90 minutes by bus through Kaup. 

Chikmagaluru

Coffee with Land of Coffee! Chikmagalur!!!

We made our trip to Chikmagalur in Jan 2016. Our plan was to stay in a homestay for a day and see Mullayangiri, Hebbey Falls and Baba Budangiri hills on the next day.

We traveled to Birur from Bangalore via train. It was a 3 hours long morning journey in Hubballi express which started at 6 am in Bangalore and reached Birur by 9.30. The train route was mostly through rural areas with farms and small hills. We had our breakfast at Preethi Canteen in Birur. It was a small food outlet with considerable crowd, probably because it was Sunday. We took a bus to Chikmagaluru from Birur bus stand. There were frequent buses in the route. It was a 90 minutes journey through areca nut and pepper farms in a hilly background. There were hardly few villages in between the two places.

We reached Chikmagaluru by 12. And the place was quite different from my imagination. I expected the town to be a typical hill station. But Chikmagaluru looked more of a town in plains. The climate was little hot for January and the town is very active with people everywhere.

We headed directly to our home stay in Mudigere called Nesting Grounds in a cab. It was a bumpy ride through Coffee Plantations. Nesting Grounds is owned by Mr.Nandu and is located amidst 50 acres of his coffee plantation in a hill.

A View of our guest house 

The guest house given to us had a dining area and a hall in the floor level and two bedrooms with attached bathroom and a hall in the below floor level. The house has a beautiful view through the windows. 

Garden!

Lovely view from the house

The house is well maintained and every minute detail is taken care with utmost care. There is a television and other indoor games option to pass the time. But we spent our time exploring the plantation.

Relaxing area and sunset view point!

TV room and Play area

One of our Bedrooms

Immediately upon arrival we had our lunch prepared by Mr.Parameswar. It was a mix of Malnad cuisine and typical south Indian cuisine like Chicken Briyani. It was a tasty lunch. Post lunch we went on a long walk on the hills. It was coffee harvesting season and we could see workers bringing the collected beans to the storage area. We have seen a beautiful sunset from the house, tasting our evening coffee. Once the place is dark, we spent our time inside the house playing carom and business. And when it was time for dinner, Parameswar brought tasty chicken gravy made in Malnad style, roti, rice, rasam and other items. The dinner was very delicious. The place was so dark and calm in the night. And the night was reasonably cold. We had a good sleep in our rooms.

Way to the hills!

Coffee plants

A Scenic View

Tall & age old trees everywhere..

Its Green, Green & Green

Beautiful sunset from the house

Past sunset

The second day of our Chikmagaluru trip started with a guided tour inside the Coffee plantation by Mr.Nandu. He showed us many varieties of trees and enlightened us about history of Coffee,  its life cycle and challenges of coffee plantations. We were accompanied and guarded by Nandu’s 7 dogs. 

On a early morning walk.

A walk through steep hill, full of coffee plants

Coffee and some pepper around

Arabica

Wild Jack fruit tree

After coming back to the house, we had our breakfast. Akki roti with vegetable kurma, appam with coconut chutney, bread, butter and jam filled our tummy. We had special coffee after our breakfast. The house offered us a pleasant stay and wonderful hospitality by Nandu and his team. And Nandu offered us complimentary coffee powder. And we also tasted the local made wines from banana, pedal leaves, ginger and coffee. We chose to buy a bottle of banana wine. We didn’t want to leave the place. But due to time constraints, we decided to leave and begin our sightseeing around Chikmagaluru.

Bye Bye to Coffee plantations..

We directly headed to Mullayangiri hills. It is the highest peak in South India. The road leads to the hill top offered wonderful view of Chikmagaluru hills. 

Enroute Mullayangiri

Way full of view points

Reaching the peak involves around 700m of trek through the steps. The sight from the peak is mind blowing and one could get a 360 degree view of the hills. There is a small temple-mutt in top of the hill. It is a must visit place in Chikmagaluru.

Small Trek on the hills

Way to the top of the hills

Temple at the hill peak

View from the top

View of the other side of the peak

The roads to Hebbey Falls was closed by Forest department. So we headed to baba budangiri. There is a shrine named after sufi saint Baba Budan. There is an interesting story for naming the mountains after him. Coffee was originated in Ethiopia and Spread in Yemen in Arabia. Arabians strictly controlled the coffee trade and traded only the roasted beans or powder. But Baba Budan while coming back to India after his holy travel to Mecca brought 7 coffee beans to India and sowed it in the Chikmagaluru Mountains. And that’s the beginning of Coffee plantations in India. We visited the shrine, which is actually inside a cave. And the rocks are coated with sandal. So the entire place was gave a divinely feel. 

Bliss!

White clouds covering Green Mountains

There is a small falls called Manikyadhara falls around 4 km from the Baba Budan shrine. The place offered beautiful view of western ghats. There were dozen shops selling snacks, herbs and local produces. Visitors have to be little careful with the monkeys near the falls.

The mountains says that we, humans are so small in front of them!

Manikyadhara Falls

After Manikyadhara falls we directly headed to chikmagaluru with few stoppings in between. 

Its a treat to eyes..

On the way back..

We had a quick dinner and taken last bus to Shringeri. We couldn’t cover many places like Kemmangudi, Cofee musuem and couldn’t dine at Hotel Mayura as we planned due to time shortage and leaving those places for our next visit to Chikmagaluru.

Bye Bye Chikmagaluru.. Lets meet again..