An Ascent to Solitude Part 2 : Mangalore and Sutta Mutta

Starting from where I left off,

We came back to Kukke at around 10am. We headed to the bathed in the Kumara Dhara, the river that flows by the town and R in all religious zeal performed his morning rituals in the river itself.

We visited the temples in the town and having payed our obeisance to the Lord we had a huge discussion as to where we would lunch. R was insistent upon having lunch at the temple itself while the rest of us were not too keen on the idea. In the end R had his way and we begrudgingly followed him in the queue that led to the dining area.

We were later forced to chew our words when we finally entered the dining area. Having lunch the way we did was an experience by itself. The dining area easily seated 500 people. Our meal was a simple one consisting of rice , sambar, paayasam and buttermilk. It was fascinating to watch the caterers handle such big a crowd. Rice was loaded onto small trolleys and served to those seated. This certainly gave me a whole new meaning to the term “Meals on Wheels”. I patted R on the back and told him that this in fact was actually a good idea.

We then caught a bus that took us a part of the way to Mangalore. We were then toying with the idea of hitchhiking on a truck to the coast when we flagged down a bus headed to Mangalore and subsequently boarded it. The drive to Mangalore offers some of the most picturesque scenes ever imagined. Calmly flowing rivers, thick hardwood trees with creepers clinging on to them , they all whizzed past us as we headed towards the coast. Those were some unforgettable scenes.

We were welcomed in Mangalore by the rain and we headed to drop our bags off in the room that S had booked for us. We quickly freshened up and by 8pm ,went to Pabbas, an ice cream parlour to fulfil all our (especially my) craving for some superb ice cream. Rich chocolate, thick syrup and some mouth watering ice creams made our senses oblivious to everthing around us. We went back to our rooms satisfied, but not yet contented with what we had had. We all had a good night’s rest and trooped off to the beach the next morning. Time was well spent on the beach announcing S’ love life on the sands of time, arbitly posing for photos and just plainl looking at the majesty of the rolling ocean. R,K and I built a sand castle fully equipped with a moat and marvelled at our own sense of design, but this was only after we sculpted a true work of art that sadly, cannot be further described in this post.

We then had lunch and spent an hour or so idling. We then proceeded to splurge on some heavenly ice creams, only this time we walked out after eating to our hearts’ content. The train back home was fun, R bought a couple of loaves of bread and K a pack of cards. K taught us the nuances of poker and we didn’t realise time fly by as we involved ourselves in games of hold 'em. R turned out to be a decent chef as he whipped up sandwiches that earned our approval. I for one had a good night’s sleep and woke up when we were an hour from Bangalore. We then resumed from where we left off the previous night and played more poker. At 7am, we looked outside to those familiar concrete platforms that make up the City Railway Station and heaved a collective sigh as a memorable trip finally came to an end.

We were back home.