Category Archives: Travel

The day we travelled 80 kilometres in an auto rickshaw…

August 4, 2021 PREETHAM RAGHU

Few days back I was at my maternal grandmother’s place in Shimoga and my maternal uncle had his new home built in Honnalli. The distance between Shimoga and Honnalli is 40 kilometres. We were supposed to visit Honnalli in my cousin’s 7 seater car but at the last moment my cousin canceled his attendance. Inspite his absence we still decided to visit Honnalli. Now came the question ‘Which mode of transport ?’ Shimoga being a small town doesn’t have Ola and Uber services. And bargaining with the traditional taxi dudes could be a hurdle and also the taxi prices would be high. Few of our neighbours who attended the function at Honnalli said that the taxi ride cost a lot. To our surprise we found an auto rickshaw driver who said that he would take us to our destination and also take care of the return ride. And he also quoted a price of ₹1000 for the to and fro journey. The deal was pretty amazing considering the fact that he would also wait till the function at Honnalli was over.

Now comes the rickshaw ride. Excluding the driver there were three of us in the rickshaw, which included my 75 year old maternal grandmother. We were a little hesitant at start considering the age of my grandmother, we worried whether she’d be fine with the 80 kilometre ride. So we asked her whether she’d be fine with travelling 80 kilometres and she said YES. There we go, we stepped into the auto at 9 in the morning and it took us around 1 hour to reach the destination. During the journey we witnessed some amazing mountains, water laden paddy fields, lakes, fish sellers near the lakes etc. Even though we traveled at a very low speed compared to the other vehicles on the road, the speed was enough to move my long hairs in various directions. I had to adjust my hair quite a few times due to the wind. The auto we traveled in was BS 6 version and was latest in style and other features. One interesting feature of the rickshaw was the gate at the left hand side. Just few minutes into our journey we encountered rain. The rich green fields, splendid rain, chilled weather and the distant mountains added a different vibe to the ride and it is one of the rides that is unforgettable. Coming to the road, there weren’t too many potholes or speed breakers, also the road was narrow. The narrowness of the road was the reason for us to not stop for photographs, as we feared collision. Well, those were some of the highlights of the ride. We reached our destination, attended the house warming and got ready for the return journey. The return journey was during the late noon. So we had some bright sunlight added to the aforementioned views. On reaching Shimoga we encountered more humps than the humps on the earlier part of this story. We finally reached our home 🙂

Travel

Melukote Diary

September 11, 2020 PREETHAM RAGHU

Hello folks, welcome to CCB. Recently I visited Melukote a temple town in Mandya district of Karnataka, India. Melukote is situated 150 kilometres away from the state capital Bengaluru.

We left Bengaluru at 8:00 A.M. in the morning and stopped for breakfast at Kadamba on Mysore Road just seconds away from the NICE road. The breakfast was decent but the Masala Dosa lacked crispiness. Post breakfast we headed back onto Mysore Road. The journey got slower due to humongous traffic caused due to the road repair works that were happening on Mysore Road. After reaching Bidadi the journey went smoother and faster since there was less of repair works going on the road. We finally reached Melukote at around 12:15 P.M.

The first place we visited post reaching Melukote was Yoga Narasimha Swamy temple that was situated atop a hill. We drove the car to half the peak and post that climbed too many steps to reach the temple.

The view from the top of the hill was great and mesmerising.

After visiting Yoga Narasimha Swamy temple, the next place we wanted to visit was Chaluvanarayana Swamy temple. We reached the temple premises and got to know that the temple was closed till 4:00 P.M. We had plenty of time till the temple reopened. Meanwhile we came in contact with a local guide who said, he’d be showing the surrounding places and also take us to the nearby restaurant for lunch.

We headed to Ananda Mess for lunch. They served Puliyogare, curd rice and Sakkare Pongal. The Sakkare Pongal was delicious,while the Puliyogare and curd rice were pretty normal to the taste buds.

Post lunch we headed to Akkana Kola and Tangiya Kola, which were the two Kalyanies a.k.a. pond. The lady who looks after the business of the pond said the story behind the nomenclature of the pond.

Post that we headed to Raya Gopura, on the way we witnessed another temple and a statue of Ramanujacharya.

We finally reached Raya Gopura and the sight was amazing.

After spending some time at the Raya Gopura we came back to the premises of Chaluvanarayana temple.

We waited at the temple premises untill the hands of our watch hit 4:00 P.M. The temple gates were opened at 4:00 P.M.,we had a good look of the deity and then we headed to Manavalamamuni Sannidhi. We offered our prayers to the deity and left back to our car. We bid adieu to our guide Mr. Daasappa and started the ignition.

Meanwhile it started to pour as we headed back to Bengaluru. We had a quick stop at Maddur for some snacks and coffee.

The temperature got really low as it poured and finally we reached back to Bengaluru to our cosy home.

Well folks that was it for this post. See you next time with a different one. Byeeee 🙂

Travel

GOA DIARIES

February 2, 2020 PREETHAM RAGHU

Hello folks, welcome to CCB. In this post I’ll be sharing my experience from my recent Goa trip.

I was texting a friend of mine and during the conversation I sent a message saying “Shall we go to Goa ?”. He said yes and we decided to leave for Goa on 20th Jan 2020. We booked the bus tickets and hotel room in prior.

20th Jan came and we boarded the bus at 7:00 P.M. in Bengaluru. We reached Goa at around 9:30 A.M. in the morning. The moment the bus stopped few people entered the bus and asked us, whether we needed vehicles that was for hire. My friend came across one such gentleman who spoke in English. The conversation between him and my friend started and at the same time we took our luggage and walked. The gentleman introduced himself as Lakshman and he said that the cost of a hiring two wheeler for a day is INR 400. We tried to bargain with Lakshman but it was of no use, he said that it is the season of Pongal and there isn’t any discount. Finally we took an Honda Activa for hire and it was for 4 days. We paid him INR 1600 plus a deposit of INR 500. After taking the scooter we left for our hotel which was pretty close by. We reached our hotel and waited for some time as the designated person wasn’t there. After waiting for some time the incharge of the hotel was there. Our check in time was at 12 noon but we had reached the hotel at 10:30 A.M., so he asked for extra two hundred rupees, we tried to bargain with him and in the end we said him that we are students and placed a 100 rupees note in his hand. He gave us the keys of the room and we went to the room. The room was decent. We got ready and left for sightseeing.

The first place we visited was Basilica of Bom Jesus church.

This church had the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier. The church was pretty good. After spending some time in the church we headed to the another church that was right opposite to this church. I was not allowed inside that church since I was wearing shorts. My friend visited that church and after coming out from that we headed to the museum that was adjacent to this new church. The museum was great. Later we used Google Maps and went to other churches and places in Old Goa. Our first day was done with this.

On the second day we got up pretty early in the morning and left for Dudhsagar Waterfalls. We left our hotel room at 6:00 A.M. in the morning. On the way to the waterfall we witnessed beautiful sunrise.

After travelling for 68 kilometres we finally reached at the ticket counter of Dudhsagar waterfalls. There were some other people who had reached the ticket counter much earlier than us. One of them approached us and asked if we would join them, since the vehicle heading to the waterfalls can contain 7 people and they were short of it. We paid INR 590 to them and left with them for the waterfalls. After travelling some decent distance inside the forest we reached at the falls. The driver of the vehicle said that we had one and half our to spend at the waterfall and if we didn’t return at that time he would charge, waiting charge of INR 300. We said yes and walked few steps to reach the waterfall. The path to reach the waterfall was as follows

We could hear the roar of the waterfall as we walked closer to it. Finally we reached at the majestic waterfall,

We were the first to reach the waterfall on that day and hence the crowd was less but as time passed the the place became crowded. Everyone of us were given a life jacket. My friend jumped into the water and swam for sometime. He said that the water was very cold. We spent our one and half hour at the waterfall and moved back to the vehicle that was supposed to take us back.

That was the waterfall story, after witnessing that, we turned on Google maps and searched for other places to see, on our way back to the hotel. We found some places and the second place we visited on that day was Mahadev Temple, Tambdi Surla.

The temple and its premises were silent and calm. Post this we headed to Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary. I did not click any pictures there, so I haven’t posted any pictures of the sanctuary in this post. After that we headed to Harvalem Waterfall.

After witnessing the waterfall we headed to some caves ( I forgot the name ) and later we reached back to our hotel.

On the third day we checked out from our hotel in South Goa and went to a hotel in North Goa and checked in. We kept our luggage in the hotel and turned on Google Maps. We found some places to visit and the first place we visited on the third day of our trip was Reis Magos Fort.

We saw this amazing fort and later we went to Aguada Fort,

This fort was amazing but it wasn’t as good as Reis Magos Fort. Post this we headed to Goa Museum.

We witnessed some amazing artworks and handicrafts at this museum and later we headed to Anjuna Beach to witness the sunset.

We witnessed the beautiful sunset and moved to our hotel room.

On the third day we had some amazing coastal food too.

On the fourth day we woke up early and went to swim in the pool and later we checked out at 11:00 A.M. Our bus would leave at 5:30 P.M. that day, so we had some time. So we went to Calangute beach, Vagator beach and its viewpoint on the hill and a Mangrove forest.

That completed our Goa trip and we boarded our bus at 5 in the evening and a few minutes back we returned the Honda Activa and took back the INR 500 deposit. At 9:30 A.M. the next day I was back in my home.

Well folks, that’s a wrap for this post, see you next time with a different post. Follow candid.can.blog on Instagram for post notifications and you can also follow me at preetham_raghu on Instagram for some amazing photos. If you liked this post don’t forget to share it. See you next time. Byeeeeee 🙂