Bangalore:
Once upon a time..when Humans didn’t have to fear fellow humans ,i got a call from my bestie asking me to join a trip she’s taking with her cousins .ME,who didn’t even unpack the bags from my recent trip dreaded the idea of asking my mom to let me go on that trip and dropped it on spot. The sneaky internet somehow started showing signs ,recommending me to take the trip(of course,everything looks like a sign for travellers?)…then something magical happened and we came across some caravan page on insta,we all discussed how everyone wanted to take a caravan trip since childhood but couldn’t
As the tradition goes,a watsapp grp was made and 16 ppl joined out of whom 6 ended up on the trip(everyone was a stranger to someone).being an unplanned trip,everything was made in rush and the caravan ppl were soo good that we almost suspected some fraud action(things society did to us?)
The next night we all boarded a bus from Hyderabad to Bangalore…
Most of us were short on our budgets since it was all sudden,so we made it a goal to make this trip possible under 10k including everything
DAY-1: There we were,stranded on the main road in the middle of busy bangalore traffic waiting for our caravan.an hour passed but there was no sign of our vehicle and we started to regret the decision of trusting some randomn ig page.then,a sudden sign of hope…some blue vehicle was coming our way and happy tears almost rolled down the cheeks only to realise it was a MILK VAN.
After few more furious minutes..there she was,KANASU.we stared at her like a kid would stare at an icecream and then the driver TAJ startled us bringing us back to our senses.
Finally,we began our journey with no plan in our hands but tonnes of excitement in our hearts!!
Sringeri:
We had three options on our mind:shimoga,agumbe ,chikmagalur Like i warned,i believe in signs and someone got a call from granny asking us not to miss shringeri peetam.we all heard of stories about how one could visit the temple only if the goddess calls and no matter how much you plan,you can’t visit the temple without her consent.
We groomed ourselves at some randomn room and began to drive.
The perks of caravan travels include cooking whatever you want,playing board games and all kinds of games and of course peeing whenever you feel like it ?.After 7hrs of strenuous but fun travel through dense forest and u-pin turns we arrived at the majestic shringeri peetam.the temple elephants were just leaving but we greeted them anyways.the keeper was kind enough to take a picture and jaya laxmi ,sree laxmi stole our hearts
Shringeri definitely took a great chunk of our schedule.so,obviously we arrived late at AGUMBE..our second destination.it was already midnight but the hosts were kind enough to offer us dinner.taj helped us set up the campfire and tents.being a rainforest,agumbe attracts thousands of species and is famously known as “the king cobra capital”. You can definitely expect some slimy frogs,spiders and snkes(if you’re lucky enough _?)invading your space:p
DAY-2: Agumbe
Woke up to a beautiful view and puppies licking our legs,had a sumptuous breakfast,went around the place and then rolled over to the next
Udipi:
One of us had already been to udupi and she never missed a chance to brag about the bisi bele bath she had there.iv’e been putting up with her since years but this time,we’ve decided to go there and get a taste of it.started out to UDUPI and we were there by the time we decided who gets to use the aux cable in the vehicle?.after some research,made up our minds to have our lucnch at one of the famous places MTR .
I hate to admit the fact that the bisi billa bath was indeed great and do try out the famous GADBAD ICECREAM of udupi when you are there
St. Marys Island:
We decided to skip the temple and opted for infamous ST.MARY’s ISLAND which turned out to be one of the best places I’ve ever been to.
The trip starts with a boat ride to the island,the rock formations will definitely amaze you.the pristine water and coconut trees took us out of the world for a while
We had to make a move…decided to go to gokarna which was rather a risky decision since the road wasn’t that great and we had long distance to cover but we also had TAJ? (our superman).enroute gokarna..we got to witness one of the best sunsets in our lives,out of nowhere there was a road by the sea and we decided to stop by it,this is probably the best thing about caravan travels!!
If you ask me to design a heaven ..I’d probably put some stars,beautiful full moon,never ending waves and lots of dogs in a place.this is exactly what our night at gokarna looked like.we slept on land staring at the stars sharing the same blanket.taj bhaiyya parked the caravan facing the beach .now i don’t have to tell you what we woke up to?
DAY-3: Kudle Beach
Our plan was to visit murudeshwar and netravali islands for the day…but first we had to take a dip in the beach.kudle beach was right next to our stay but almost all gokarna beaches are downhill and you’ll have to make an effort to visit them.due to all the long distance travel we didn’t get to try new fancy food varieties but that’s gonna change in few mins? The sea has some weird power of attraction,no one ever leaves a beach happily.i didn’t feel like going away so thought of staying back while others can pay a visit to murudeshwar but to my surprise,everyone stayed back and we decided to stroll through the beaches for one complete day.
Y’all probably heard of the famous gokarna beach trek through mountains and rocks but our fat asses didn’t want to go through the pain under scorching sun.so,like any other lazy ass..we thought of something easy.went straight up to a boat driver and asked home to show us around.he charged some 600 bucks and showed us all the beaches…om beach,half moon beach,paradise beach,nirvana beach. We were lucky enough to sight lot of dolphins on our ride.by this time,we were drained from all the heat and spent rest of our day hogging on food ,singing to the ocean,building sand castles that looked more like indian public toilet seats!!
By the time we came back to our vehicle…our phones were buzzing with all the notifications from families and each of us had countless missed calls .it took a while for us to understand what was happening! Yes,the first case of corona virus was reported in india and apparantly the person travelled in the same bus we took from hyd to bglr just a day before us.gokarna is full of foreigners and at that point of time,criminals looked better than just landed foreigners in our parents view.we had to cancel our plan to goa and return home the very next day because of this.
DAY-4:
Gokarna got it’s name from the shiva temple in town.here,shiva resides inside a cow’s ear and devotees are allowed to feel the athmalinga with their own hands.we woke up at 4am and were the first to be at the temple.we already had a clue that this could potentially be the last trip for 2020.so,prayed a lil hard and started back to Bangalore.
Bangalore:
We were wrong about the time estimation and seriosly lagged behind on our schedule.500kms more and a bus to catch up in the evening…we didn’t even get to stop for food and reached the bus station with a neck to neck time margin.
Enroute Bangalore almost all of us fell sick and we were sure it was corona virus?,thankfully we were alright by two days but were quarantined at home for 14 days anyway
KANASU..this beauty took its birth from a start up idea by two women .TRIPPYWHEELS also offers different capacities of caravans but this was the perfect one for us.it comes with jbl speaker equipped sound system ,utensils and all the basic kitchen items,some board games,charging points,tents..what not?,you name it you got it.with this caravan,home is where you park it.
Kudos to the customer service,they were like those best friends we never met.we already miss them and can’t wait to go back again!! Not to brag..but we’ve completed the trip within our budget of 10k?
You only regret the trips that you didn’t take..if we knew we’d be locked up for the rest of the year,we’d probably have laughed a lil bit louder,held each other a lil tighter.i believe,every trip transforms us a bit and we get a piece of every place we visit.i saw my friend who judges a person by restroom hygiene use only public toilets for four days straight without any hesitation.i learned that you can be a driver by passion towards travel and not just a way of survival ,i experienced strangers becoming a family .THE TRIP HITS DIFFERENTLY WHEN IT’S ABOUT THE JOURNEY RATHER THAN A DESTINATION
