"One hour-aa.. One hour-aa," announced the bus attendant, his rasping voice jolting us out of sleep. It was baffling why we were being woken up when our destination- Karwar was still one hour away. I pulled the curtains and peered out of the window. The dawn was still dark and I curled up to get more sleep. It was much later that it dawned upon us that the announcement had in fact been for "Honnavara", a township on the Karnataka coast! From Honnavara, the bus travelled Northwards all along the coast to Karwar.
We boarded the bus- an SRS sleeper bus the previous evening at 6:30 pm from BTM, Bangalore. A sleeper bus journey was the first for us- once inside the bus, it looks a little like the coupe of a meter-gauge train. Berths, stacked in two-levels are on either side of the aisle. Unlike a train compartment, all the berths are parallel to the direction of travel.
From BTM, the bus motored its way to "Majestic", where we were joined by two other families. At the stroke of eight, we were on our way to Karwar.
Description of the bus journey through the night is going to be sketchy. Sleep, dream images and vignettes from actual locations compete with each other till it gets too confusing to form a linear narrative. The journey was roughly in the northwest direction, cutting diagonally across the state. At a point beyond Sagar, the bus should have veered Westwards to meet the sea at Honnavara.
Popping a tablet of Dormstal helped to keep nausea and motion sickness at bay. The journey was comfortable mostly, but bone-chilling cold in parts where we hit the ghat section. We donned our sweaters, shrunk into a foetus posture, pulled the blankets over our heads, jammed the windows shut and even tugged at our kids in the two-sleeper berths- anything to find some warmth!
Karnataka is shaped roughly like a trapezium, with the shorter parallel side aligned to the Arabian Sea. Mangalore is close to the Southernmost point on the coast and Karwar is the Northernmost point- a total coastline of 275 km for the state.
We've now seen quite a few places on the Karnataka coast, spread over multiple vacation trips and it's becoming increasingly familiar. Mangalore, Udipi, Kundapura, Baindur, Bhatkal, Murdeshwar, Gokarna, Honnavara, Ankola and Karwar- dot the coastline from South to North. Once you leave Karwar, you hit the state of Goa in a matter of minutes.
In fact, didn't get sleep after Honnavara. As the first rays of the sun streamed through the bus window, it lit up a landscape of undulating hills, bevy of coconut trees, lazy hamlets and the occasional glimpse of the ocean.
So here we are at Karwar at eight in the morning.... The "Majali Beach Resort" is 10 kms from the bus-stop aur Karwar mein "car-vaar" kuch bhi nahi hai!!
We boarded the bus- an SRS sleeper bus the previous evening at 6:30 pm from BTM, Bangalore. A sleeper bus journey was the first for us- once inside the bus, it looks a little like the coupe of a meter-gauge train. Berths, stacked in two-levels are on either side of the aisle. Unlike a train compartment, all the berths are parallel to the direction of travel.
From BTM, the bus motored its way to "Majestic", where we were joined by two other families. At the stroke of eight, we were on our way to Karwar.
Description of the bus journey through the night is going to be sketchy. Sleep, dream images and vignettes from actual locations compete with each other till it gets too confusing to form a linear narrative. The journey was roughly in the northwest direction, cutting diagonally across the state. At a point beyond Sagar, the bus should have veered Westwards to meet the sea at Honnavara.
Popping a tablet of Dormstal helped to keep nausea and motion sickness at bay. The journey was comfortable mostly, but bone-chilling cold in parts where we hit the ghat section. We donned our sweaters, shrunk into a foetus posture, pulled the blankets over our heads, jammed the windows shut and even tugged at our kids in the two-sleeper berths- anything to find some warmth!
Karnataka is shaped roughly like a trapezium, with the shorter parallel side aligned to the Arabian Sea. Mangalore is close to the Southernmost point on the coast and Karwar is the Northernmost point- a total coastline of 275 km for the state.
We've now seen quite a few places on the Karnataka coast, spread over multiple vacation trips and it's becoming increasingly familiar. Mangalore, Udipi, Kundapura, Baindur, Bhatkal, Murdeshwar, Gokarna, Honnavara, Ankola and Karwar- dot the coastline from South to North. Once you leave Karwar, you hit the state of Goa in a matter of minutes.
In fact, didn't get sleep after Honnavara. As the first rays of the sun streamed through the bus window, it lit up a landscape of undulating hills, bevy of coconut trees, lazy hamlets and the occasional glimpse of the ocean.
So here we are at Karwar at eight in the morning.... The "Majali Beach Resort" is 10 kms from the bus-stop aur Karwar mein "car-vaar" kuch bhi nahi hai!!
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