A short trip to Western Ghats

I’ve been to Western Ghats multiple times in my life. With my friends, I went on a trek to Kodachadri and travelled along the coastal line in 2018. I was in those areas multiple times when my sister was studying there (Siddapur, near Sirsi).

Their accent, food, and those beautiful sceneries always amaze me. Not to forget the streams of water you witness on the road at multiple locations along the ghats.

This time, it was my colleague, Shishira’s wedding invitation. The wedding celebrations were on 27th-28th April. It was at Sagara, a town in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. Around 15–20 colleagues showed interest in being at the wedding to attend and greet the couple.

I tried writing this blog as a journal of what we did for the next 4 days.

26th April 2023

In the evening, around 7 pm, I started off to Indiranagar, where our colleague Yitzhak stayed. He was with JB, another colleague. We three headed to Majestic together and reached the station around 9 pm.

Although the train tickets were booked from Kengeri, except for Kavya, others planned to board the train at Majestic. Kavya boarded the train at Kengeri and was with utmost patience until the train reached Majestic at around 11 pm. It started at Kengeri at around 9 pm 🙂

In Majestic, a couple of colleagues joined us. Chethan, Arun, Pratima, Pradeep, Aiyush, and Nihas came to the station directly, and we stood on the platform, waiting for the train for over an hour. I didn’t have a solid dinner per se but had a Maggie at Nescafe joint at the station.

While we were waiting for the train, Arun and JB remarked on when I was going to write a blog about the trip! “Expectations are sky high,” I thought.

We boarded the train after 11 pm and were making arrangements for us to chit chat for some time, without disturbing other passengers. Thankfully Chethan brought us 3–4 types of Holige, and to be honest, those were the best! We sat on our berths for some time and went to stand and talk for more than an hour outside the compartment. We slept at around 1 am, while some of us didn’t sleep for more than 3 hours that night.

27th April 2023

The next morning, the 27th of April, we reached Sagara at around 6:30 am. A vehicle was ready to pick us up at the station and drop us at the hotel. Shishira booked us a good hotel for the next two days.

The wedding was at the bride’s place (Pruthvi), around 8 km from the hotel. We went there and saw the wonderful arrangements and rituals going on at the venue. We had food, sat in the last row of the audience, and started talking about many things, ranging from renting houses in Banglore to the stories of our Indian army.

Whenever I meet Yitzhak, I never stop asking him to narrate the stories of his days in the Army, and he politely obliges. This time, he narrated the story of our Special Forces sanitizing each hotel suite (1000 such suites) in the Taj Hotel during the 26/11 attacks without any civilian casualties, gunning down the terrorists.

Really a goosebumps moment to hear him take us through these events and how our Army protects us every time.

After the major rituals are done, we went to greet the couple, and Shishira was seen blushing 😀

After that we had lunch. Delicious Uttara Kannada dishes with peak hospitality. I was helping my non-Kannada-speaking friends know about the dishes, what they are made of, and the combination we usually eat.

With a stomach full of tasty lunch, we met the newlywed couple and took a picture. We wished them and had some laughs.

We returned to the hotel by 4 pm and took a rest until evening. In the evening, we went to Shishira’s place for an event there — welcoming the bride to the groom’s home and Kanyadaan.

For most of the day, we were at the places of events, observing the rituals, discussing what we understood passing on that information to the people who have a different set of rituals.

After dinner at night, we returned to the hotel and watched an ongoing IPL match until it finished.

Yitzhak, JB, and Nihas had a return bus to Bengaluru the same evening, and we bid them goodbye.

After the IPL match, the fun began!

We started playing UNO, with the game’s pros participating — Kavya, Arun, and Pradeep.

Varun was observing the initial 2–3 games and joined the next game. It was fun throughout. We pulled each others’ legs, cracked some good jokes, and had moments of bursting out with laughter with no cheating. Who cares about the actual rules when you can come up with your own rules and have agreement from the team?

We don’t even remember the time when we said enough and went to sleep. An amazing team-building activity (if you can call it 😛)

28th April 2023

There was a reception at Shishira’s place in the morning. We went there, had a brief moment with the couple, took pictures, and had lunch.

There were many kids being them — running around in circles, shouting throughout the day, and playing games.

We planned to visit any nearby place that evening, but since we had an important call to attend in the evening, we returned to the hotel and slept until evening.

There was a lake near the hotel, and in the evening, during sunset, we went there. We sat on the benches, and Kulasekar brought his laptop there. We attended that important call — Gokul’s farewell. We were walking on the streets of Sagara with one holding the laptop, others photobombing the Google Meet, and the locals watching us with weird looks!

That evening Pratima, Pradeep, and Varun had a train to return to Bengaluru. After the dinner, we, Kavya, Chethan, Arun, Kulasekar, and I spoke for some time and slept early because of one reason — we planned for a one-day outing to Honnavar the following day.

Shishira’s uncle helped us with a vehicle for the following day. We were told to be ready by 7 am.

29th April 2023

We were pretty much on time to start our journey to the Western coast. We started to Honnavar from Sagara.

As Jog Falls was on our way, we went to Jog Falls, spent some time there, took pictures, and had breakfast.

We stopped at a place called Samshi, where a hanging bridge on the Sharavathi river exists. It was a narrow and long bridge that the people from the other side of the river use for regular commutes. Although the signboard asks tourists not to step on the bridge, people usually don’t care.

By the time we reached Honnavara, it was noon. We went boating on the Sharavathi backwaters and had a good photo session on the boat. Kulasekar often mentions that he doesn’t use Instagram, he has the knack of capturing reel-worthy videos. He did so for a couple of people, including me!

We saw a couple of crabs and hanging coconut trees under the scorching summer Sun while boating. It was a good experience.

We had lunch soon after the boating and were planning for the rest of the day. Chethan, Arun, and Kulasekar planned to go to Udupi and Mangalore from Honnavar. The remaining four of us had to catch a train to Bengaluru from Sagara the same night. It would be better for us to leave Honnavar at 5 pm to reach Sagara on time, have dinner and board the train.

So, we planned for two more places after lunch — Eco Beach at Honnavar and the Mangrove walk near the beach.

We went to the beach only to find it was too hot to get out of the car. Changing our decision a bit, we went to Mangrove Walk and surprisingly found many soon-to-be-wed couples for their pre-wedding photoshoot.

The entry ticket for the walk is Rs. 10 for regular tourists. For the Pre-wedding photoshoots, the ticket is Rs. 1000, excluding the entry tickets for the people. While the place was peaceful and calm, people made it chaotic with drones flying, and the couples waited for the tourists to pass to get a good video. A good place turned commercial with the latest frenzy.

After this, we went to the beach. Walked along the shore, picking up the pearl shells and watching the kids build sand castles. It was hot, though.

We took pictures of us jumping like the first-look poster of Mayakkam Enna🙂

Saying goodbye to Arun, Kulasekar, and Chethan, we started our return journey to Sagara. Reached Sagara with 40 minutes left for the train. Packed our dinner and rushed to the station.

We boarded the train at 9:30 pm only to wake up at around 4 am the following day. The next day, I would meet my friend, Aditya Gollapalli, after a year.

An amazing day with a lot of fun and a lot more travel on the Western Ghats 🥲

30th April 2023

Due to the tiring journey throughout the day, I slept soon after boarding the train. Kavya woke me up the following day, and we said goodbye to each other at Yeshwantpur Railway Station.

I went to IISc from the station, and since the time was around 5 am, we slept. The tentative plan for the day was to visit the places that we didn’t visit in Bengaluru. Starting with Bengaluru Palace, lunch at Sattvam, followed by a visit to Vishweshwaraiah Museum and Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. I had my return bus to my hometown at night.

We woke up, and by the time we had breakfast, it was 11 am. Aditya took me around the university for a campus tour, and from the time I watched Rocket Boys on SonyLiv, I wanted to see the main building, which now houses the administration department.

We walked to the Bengaluru Palace from the college and were thoroughly surprised to see a lot of high-end luxury cars parked outside the palace, only to realize there was a big fat wedding on the premises of the palace. The likes of Lamborghini and Rolls Royce were present there, among others.

We went to purchase the tickets, and each ticket cost Rs. 240, which I felt was way too much (I have a reason for this). With the ticket, we also get a complementary audio guide to the palace. We walked inside the palace, exploring the rooms, darbar, etc., and the office of the Srikantadatta Narasimha Raja Wadeyar. Though it was written not to take pictures, people clicked pictures everywhere in the palace.

Since I’ve been to the royal palaces of Rajasthan, I didn’t have a great experience here. And hence, I felt the entrance ticket price was too much.

Anyways, from the palace, we went to have lunch at Sattvam, a vegetarian buffet restaurant. It was inspired by Iskcon, if I’m not wrong, and there was a picture of Srila Prabhupada inside the restaurant.

We were there for almost two hours, savouring the delicious lunch without much effort. Had a good conversation about our education, jobs, and politics🙂

I’d definitely recommend visiting this restaurant for a delicious meal that includes mouth-watering desserts.

From there, we had less time and had to decide the only place we could cover — either Vishweshwaraiah Museum or JN Planetarium. We voted for the museum and headed there.

I visited the museum once during my childhood and remember nothing except the dinosaur on the first floor. This time I was happy that we have such a good museum for kids to generate interest in Science. This is what we need in every metropolitan city.

Kids see what they learn in their classes, like pulleys, conveyor belts, piston cylinders, etc.

This was an enriching experience for me. I was beyond happy to be there and mentioned the same to my friend.

From there, we returned to the campus and relaxed for some time there. It was time for me to leave Bengaluru, and I thanked Aditya for a wonderful day. Next time, we promised we will plan for something out of Bengaluru, perhaps a weekend getaway.

I boarded the bus at Majestic and returned to my hometown the following day, May 1st.

It was a wonderful trip to Bengaluru and Western Ghats.

Thanks to Shishira for inviting us to the wedding and to my colleagues. Starting from Yitzhak, JB, Chethan, Pratima Arun, Pradeep, Kulasekar, Nihas Kavya, Aiyush Dhar and everyone who made this trip a beautiful memory for me to cherish! It was nice meeting Varun Dev too! Aditya, Vaisali, and Deekshith — you know how happier when I’m with you ❤