Trip to ManchinaBale (June 12 2004)

Cool trip on a Saturday! Thats all.

We planned a couple of days in advance before the weekend to drive to this place which is 40km off the city. Just to beat the heat, we had planned to start early at 5.30am!? The laziness of early Saturday lingered. Ashok and I diligently started at about 5.45am to head to Chandan's place only to find him sleeping. Then it was sometime for the Sandeep duo to turn up. Ashvin agreed to join only on our way as that was of a shorter distance for him.

Pity me only I hadn't taken my bath. I hadn't known our journey would actually start at 6.30am. We headed to Ashvin house and to accommodate all we took Ashvin's car. On the way, every now and then I had to catch up driving with Ashvin. He reminds of Schaumacher. Consider him riding @ 100kmph on busy lanes in a Maruti-800 (no to mention the red L-board sticker). I am indeed impressed Ashvin ;-)

It had been quite a while since I met Sundeep. After taking a turn in his career, he is now an AirForce officer. All along the drive, he kept me and Sandeep.R engaged with his Airforce adventures. Due to his AirForce lingo, I had to frequently interrupt him. But now I think I have a hang of few words. Roger that Sundeep!

After driving for about 1 1/2 hrs, we reached ManchinaBale at around 0900hrs. The road was narrow and neither the bumpy road nor the car fuel seem to support our endeavour in reaching the bank. We parked the cars along the roadside and continued about 400m by foot to reach the water body.
A faithful dog accompanied us during the walk. Well, Famous Five can be sometimes Not-so-Famous Seven too.

The place is a stretch of land with a stagnating water body due to the dam. We devoted sometime lazying on a rock near the shore. We had not brought food except for the 6 Chapathis with Chutney-powder from Ashok. Sandeep had got his yummy chocolates too. Lucky for us the fishermen there had left one of the their coracles. Soon we took it to row in turns of two. The weather was largely windy with hazy sunshine. We spent about 2 hrs there and decided to head back. I'll post some pictures taken from Chandan's new digital camera.

Ashvin's car was empty of fuel. There were no bunks nearby. But we resumed journey after buying (or shopping?) for fuel at the nearby grocery store at a higher price. By this time all of us were hungry. Ashvin suggested a hotel 10km further away opposite to the city's direction.

We began to drive....for 20km without finding the "Karavali restaurant". We had driven more than 50km and were only 70km away from Mysore. Our eyes caught the board "Kamat LokaRuchi 1.5km away". We drove straight to this place. The eatery was excellent. The long drive was worth it. We wouldn't have stumbled here if it not were for Ashvin's idea. The cuisine was coastal food known as the "Karavali" with the option of Raggi Mudde/Rice Sevai/Ragi Roti.

The food there was differnt from the city-style food. After lunch, it was raining and we drove back to the city.