I sent an email to Thejesh when I realised that both of us would be in Kerala at the same time, though in different nearby districts.
After breakfast at 24h Coffee House outside Hotel Indraprastha. Image: Thejesh GN
We decided to meet at the Palakkad Fort and have breakfast at the restaurant of the Indraprastha Hotel thereafter. He said he would come with family. I only got my wife along.
I think I first read Thejesh’s blog when he was writing his many Open Source projects and writings. My Weekly Notes were inspired by his Weekly Notes.
I thought our conversation would be around this. But, our conversation centered around family, travel, work, micro-grants, and history.
He spoke of how the Weekly Notes helped in conversations with family and friends. They got updates from his Weekly Notes. But, his wife was frustrated because when she would give an update, their family and friends would have read about it already on the blog.
We could not go inside the Fort as it was a little too early. We walked to the circular coffee shop outside Hotel Indraprastha and had breakfast.
Both my wife and I enjoyed the company and the conversation. We also got a mention in one of the aforementioned Weekly Notes.
We had dropped my wife’s parents at Pune railway station the previous night and it was a little past midnight when we slept. We set the alarm for 4:30 in the morning for our road trip to Palakkad.
Two weeks earlier, my parents had taken both of our kids to Palakkad for their summer vacation. This meant that it was only the two of us on this journey.
Routes
We usually take the Pune – Kolhapur – Davanagere – Chitradurga – Hosur – Salem – Erode – Coimbatore – Palakkad route. On our last road trip, we tried the Sathyamangalam route after Chitradurga, turning at Tumkur. This time, we wanted to try driving down NH 66 (what was the Panvel – Ernakulam Highway and then NH 17).
I remembered a road trip that I went with my family from Mumbai and this was a scenic sea-side route along the Arabian Sea. That road had gone beside beaches, through towns and cities, and on coastal and ghat roads. I wanted to experience that again.
I took Google Gemini’s help to decide where to stop on the route we were planning to take. It suggested that we stop somewhere between Murdeshwar and Udupi.
Rakesh ettan shared notes on the Pune – Sawantwadi – Goa leg of the trip. It was a route they had taken for their vacation in Goa.After taking this route to hop from NH 48 to NH 66, we would follow NH 66 to Palakkad.
Day 1
We woke up at 4:30 am and left from home around 5:30 AM. Google Maps guided us through Sinhagad Road to meet NH48.
We made good time in this early morning leg and stopped at what has become our usual Vithal Kamat stop just before riding up Khambatki Ghat.
Good progress has been made on the bridge cutting out the Ghat from NH48. It looks like we may not have to traverse the ghat on our next road trip.
We crossed Satara and around Kolhapur began a series of diversions for construction work on-going on the NH. It was sad to see many of the trees getting cut down for expansion work. Why can’t we move these trees like Singapore does?
We crossed into Karnataka and after one more diversion at Nipani, we made the turn towards Goa at Hotel Goa Ves. We joined NH 548H at Uttur Phata after going back into Maharashtra at Bahirewadi. We realised a little late that we had taken an earlier turn than intended.
We returned to the route we had intended towards Amboli Ghat on NH 548H. By the time I had crossed Amboli Ghat, I had already crossed a few smaller ghat roads, and was now beginning to tire.
Dhanya and I at Amboli Ghat. Image: Pradeep Mohandas
We really loved the scenes at Amboli Ghat. The trees were different at different heights. The smells were different. The soil seemed different.
At the exit of Amboli Ghat we got tempted to follow a short cut route into Goa. But, we had to return after a few kilometers as work on the highway had created a traffic snarl. We returned back to NH 548H.
We then set our sights on Sawantwadi and headed there on the main highway. Sawantwadi town had a Mall Road like the north and still had some colonial vestiges. My wife’s neck pain got severe at this point and she could not turn to look towards my side (which was the side that looked towards the sea).
NH 548H reached NH 66 at the Insuli RTO checkpost. We crossed the Terekhol river and had a Goan fish based meal at Hotel Anandi at Banda.
We then took a series of bridges in Goa that took us through but never let us be in Goa. It by-passed the whole state except parts of Madgaon. The bridge had high side-walls which meant that we didn’t even get to see Goa.
I later realised that they had changed the alignment of the road.
We got the first sight of the sea at Goa Velha at the New Zuari Bridge. Then, we passed through Karwar Ghat and into the new naval port area. We also saw a lot of signboards for beaches but the disappointment that was the Goa by-pass meant that we just wanted to get to Udupi.
We entered Karwar around 3:30 PM. Udupi looked unreachable and so we wanted to at least target Murdeshwar to sleep at. At this point, Murdeshwar also felt unreachable.
It was getting dark by the time we passed Ankola. A bit of a downpour made driving slower. We went past Gokarna, Kumta, and Honnavar after sunset. We pulled into our night stay at the RNS Highway Hotel at Murdeshwar.
The RNS Highway Hotel has an attached restaurant which is not under the same management as the Hotel. When we went there, the restaurant was busy serving a party of 20 and had only two chefs. We had to wait 30 minutes to be served and the food was not great.
After a long and tiring first day, we decided to leave at 6 AM on the next day.
Day 2
We started at 6 AM as planned. We decided to have breakfast at 8 AM at Udipi. On the way we saw the bit of a beach by the road at Maravanthe and decided to get down on the beach. This strip of road and beach has the Kolluru River on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other side.
Dhanya had been disappointed that we didn’t get to go down on a beach in Goa. We might have to plan a trip just for that.
Selfie at Maravanthe Beach.
She enjoyed her time at this beach and was much more positive start to the drive that day.
We then went into Udipi to have our breakfast at MTR 1924. We then drove out and made good time before we entered Kerala. The roads in Kerala were also good with elevated highways.
We were driving at a nice clip in Kerala when the diversions began. There were several diversions which went into the towns as well. We took a diversion into Kannur just before lunch. It was a bit early for lunch and we enjoyed the drive by the beach. But, most of the diversions were onto the service roads with no or closed restaurants.
We decided to have Thalassery Biriyani at Thalassery for lunch. Dhanya searched online and found Paris Restaurant in Thalassery to have the best Thalassery Biriyani.
We went off the Highway into Thalassery to have biriyani. After a short drive where we missed the car parking place for Paris Restaurant, we parked. We were diverted to the newer AC restaurant. Another look at Google Maps pointed us to the traditional place.
The traditional place was a house with a bunch of rooms serving as place to eat. With an efficient seating arrangement consisting of desks and benches with enough room for people to sit and move around. We got a corner seat and had a sumptuous lunch.
Selfie in front of Paris Restaurant at Thalassery. Image: Pradeep Mohandas
We then went back to the Highway on the same road that we came to the Restaurant. The roads got much better after we crossed Kozhikode. Dhanya had wanted to try Paragon Biriyani as well but we decided to go there on another trip.
We turned towards Palakkad at Valanchery. On the road to Palakkad we stopped at a cafe in Cherpulassery for a coffee and snacks.
We reached our home in Palakkad at 8 PM. It was great to be reunited with the kids after a long gap of 15 days.
I moved to Palakkad, my home town from Pune in the second last week of July. We drove our car from Pune to Palakkad. I will write separately about that experience. In this post, I would like to document for posterity the reasons for my decisions.
When we entered lock down in March 2020, my initial expectation was that India was much better off than other countries at that point in time. Hence, my expectation then was that if we stayed put at home, we would be safe. Things would run their course and we might return to normalcy by June, at the latest.
As things unraveled, I realized that this was a much longer journey than I had anticipated. Things could remain unchanged for much longer. Colleagues at office were going to their native place in the months of May and June 2020. So, in June 2020, I decided to go to our native place.
Kerala had instituted a system of granting passes to the people entering the state. My application for travel to Kerala in June 2020 was declined. Many of my colleagues from work who were from Kerala traveled to the state at this time. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we might be stuck in Pune.
My main concern in staying on in Pune was the lack of a support system. If my wife was infected and had to be hospitalized, I was not sure if I would be able to take care of our daughter by myself. I could have got my relatives over but I did not want to complicate things for others for my incompetency.
So, when Unlock 1.0 started, we decided to apply again. Kerala then moved from a pass system to a registration system. Hence, we applied and received a pass on July 21. We started in the morning of July 23 and reached Palakkad in the evening of July 24.
Parallel Spirals 