Seven Samurai's on Mangalore Sand Beach March 10-11 2012

There is always something special attached to the number "7"

Seven Colours, Seven Rishis, Seven Musical Notes, Seven days in a week, Seven Deadly Sins, and above all my favourite director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, in the same league the united seven!!!!

Prashanth, Sandeep, Kishore, Yashdeep, Latesh, Somu, and myself the united seven of mangaluru exploration!!!

A great piece of vibrant, colourful, symphonic souls met in the KSRTC Bus stand on a little hotter Friday evening 9th March 2012.  This trip was triggered by ice cool smiling Prashanth Kishan.  He wanted to leave his footprint on an event called "Kambala" a characteristic coastal cultural festival of buffalo race on a mud filled watery path.

Seven Samurai's!!!!

No one said "No", all were eagerly awaiting for that friday night to board a bus to Mangaluru.  With out any dealy, our Rajahamsa flew from KSRTC bus stand towards Mangaluru by 23.00 Hrs. 

Prashanth's Foot Print!!!!

We breathed in to a small hotel "Lakshmi Nivas" by making our wallet lighter by few hundred for two rooms to accomodate the seven samurai's.  After a breezingly fast refresh, we were on the Mangaluru Road by 9.00.

Kadri Manunatha Temple :

This is a wonderful place to start our first coastal trip in the Alemarigalu Group.  The Temple complex is huge, and also the diety Shiva sitting prettily in blessing mood in the garbha gruha. This temple slightly resembles Dharmasthala Manunatha temple, but the similarity starts and ends in the temple complex.  The special attraction being a series of seven ponds filled with cool cool water.

Kadri Temple Complex

Just on the bank of the pond there exists the lord of obstacle remover "Ganesh" in a small mantap above the "Kashi Gange" flowing non stop from the Nandi's mouth.  The water whose origin left to the wild imagination, is very cool, and sweeter than sugar.

Few steps from here, there is a big giant "Hanuman" in a standing mode, blessing the piligrims all the way.

There are plenty of places to be seen in this temple complex, highly notable place being the caves of Pandava's or Pandav's guhe.   An interesting feature being, normally caves of mythological tag attached will be a never ending path, but this cave stops at 4th door, probably either it might have collapsed, or there will be some other reason. 

Seven Raavan's infront of Pandava's cave!!!!

We were fortunate that, we couldnt see neither pandava's or Kunti foot prints, but we could see romantic Rama and Seetha waiting for few Raavans's to poke in to their privacy!!!!!!

Tender Coconut was too tender to chop in the knife!!!!

While walking down the temple street, we found an amazing (as for as my knowledge is concerned) the tender coconut being chopped off using a knife instead of a sickle. 

Kambala = The Race of Buffaloes, and the Man :

Always the buffaloes name were tagged with the sluggish, slow pace, but anyone who visits Kambala, need to swallow the words with watery watermelon, and spicey pine apple! 

The deck was well prepared with ankle deep muddy water, dressed, and charged up buffaloes, and multi-packed Kambala riders.  The view, and the location was in completely agressive mode.  The trail for the event itself was breath taking.  The pair of buffaloes, the man, and crowd were yelling, cheering, screaming to make the atmosphere even more hotter than mercury level in the thermometer.

This village cultural festival for a recreation is in to a money minting sport now, but the charm of village rustic look, people, the eateries all were having its own distinct flavour.

My stomach was laughing for the way I was stuffing him with more and more water melons, spicey pine apple one after the other.  We literally lost the count of how many pieces had altogether, that much was the freshness, sweet, and the taste of these summer fruits.

Sandeep jumped with the joy, when he saw the Antartic Colourful Ice Crush getting squeezed in to one cup.  He was ably supported in the mouth watering sport by Prashanth, and Somu.  I was happy to see the kids in them coming out in this fashion!!!

When clock ticking sent an SOS signal saying, guys, your bags are stuffed with swimming costumes, please make use of it, then we realised it is time to visit Taneer Baavi Beach.

Taneer Baavi Beach:

A smart, short, user friendly guy who was feeding me all the information about this beach told me that, this is the best place to get down, and venture in to the beach, there will be plenty of good people (He winked his eys at me!!!) to make the setting sun even more beautiful, so heeding to his words we all changed our brain to swimming mode, and dived in to the waters. 

All of us had a great time over there, Sandeep the deep photographer was leaving no stone unturned to capture the "colourful" evening in his new tilting screen DSLR.  His enthu was tasted, and tested by Saint (Yashdeep), and Smarty (Latesh) by making him wandering around for taking good shots.  My head and stomach was aching too much by laughing continuously nonstop. 

The sky, and the beach, the sand were basking in the fading sun light, by that time, our timer screamed saying it is time to catch up the bus.

The dinner was a delightful one, as the group was split in to two - one heading towards a "spicey" poster veg resturant, and the other non veg group in to some delightful staple.

When we were back into our room, stomach, and eyes are full, dream and the goddess of dream were waiting for us.   

Next day, after having some delightful breakfast, we ventured in to Lord Krishna's abode - The Udupi Temple.  The darshan, and the meals were excellent in its own way.  The lord krishna, the greatest crisis manager the world ever seen, is, and was always my inspiration.  Visiting him, and taking a blessing filled my energy level to the brim.

Malpe, The St. Mary's Island:

Beach is beach, whether it is one or the other, but some places holds its own significance, beauty, and surprise.  One such place is St. Mary's Island in Malpe.  After paying an entry fee of Rs.1/-, we boarded to a speed boat which took us to the island after paying Rs. 85/- per head for to and fro journey to the island. 

The moment all of us landed in to the island, the first thing we did was look for the best place, and we found, and dived in the waters.  Here waves are kind of rough, but not alarming.  Keeping the concious mind, and body, we played enough there.

There was cat walk, Esha deol's emerging style from the movie Dhoom (by Yashdeep), Pregnant Superman's jog (surprise), Urmila's Tanha Tanha (by Latesh), Dipping in the water but still posting a killing smiler look (by prashanth), Slip of Slip (by Somu), Krishna...Krishna...Krishna meditation (by Kishore) all made me forget my inhibition towards Sun's scorching heat, and headache.

The Geography says, this island formed due to the volcanic erruption, the pillared rock formation all amazes you.  But i would like to say, the emotions, the frustration, the anguish, boredom all erupted indifferent forms were the reason for the spectacular formation. 

This is a perfect pot-boiler place for a family trip once in a while!!!

When our tired body, but the highly recharged heart left Mangaluru shores, we were flying high on the dreamy mesmarising islands of ambitions, desires, and the goals.

The high profiles lights :

1. One of my dream to visit St. Mary's Island after seeing in many movies especially my favourite song from Kannada Movie Hrudaya Geethe starring my heart throb Kushboo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP9R3YT0AWM&feature=fvst

2. Saint (Yashdeep) will think twice to wear the thinking "Cap" (Hat) again!!!

3. Kishore will never forget the Somu guided second darshan of lord krishna!

4. Saint(Yashdeep) - Smarty(Latesh) spoil sport effort during Sandeep's Durga Maatha's photo

5. Somu's not looking at us stance while coming back from the island - We were laughing like anything all the way

6. The charged up Spicey poster Dinner in the second floor!!!!!!!!

7. The water melon, the spicy pine apple, and the antartic crushed colourful ice

8. Pet me ghadbad, and the ghadbad ice cream!!!!!!!

9. Not to forget..the user friendly Mangaluru people who guided us all the way with complete information...hats off Mangaluru and its people!!!

10. The final one : India is known for superb penetration of inteligence information network..that was noticed when Yashdeep was on the updating mode all the two days..and the latesh dating all the way with updating skills..way to go these smarties!!!!!