Tanneer Baavi & Sultan Battery- Mangalore

Granny waiting for waves

Walking back satisfied

On all our trips to Mangalore we were always taken to Panambur beach/ ullala / Summer Sands. Just a few years ago someone told us that try Tanner Baavi near Sultan Battery and we really loved it as it wasn’t as far as Panambur. The Sultan Battery is situated just 4 km from Mangalore.

According to Wikipedia:: The Sultan Battery watch tower, constructed in 1784 by Tipu Sultan, is situated 4 km from Mangalore city, the chief port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. Built in black stones, the tower gives the impression of a miniature fortress with its arrangements for mounting cannons all-round. It was built to prevent English warships from entering the Gurupura river. It was constructed from stones of churches destroyed by Tipu Sultan, during his 15-year imprisonment of the Mangalorean Catholics and the other Christians. There is rumored to be an as-yet-undiscovered cave near this location that is the entrance to a tunnel that reaches Tippu's fort in Srirangapatnam

At the battery, you pick up a motor boat ride ticket for Rs.5/- and cross over the river which is by the battery. 

After crossing the river, walk for about ½ a kilometer and you reach Tanner Baavi beach…a beach untouched by public…clean, non-commercial, hardly crowded.

My latest visit to Mangalore July 28th, 2014, 23 of us met up and decided we should do some outing together. With 2 cars & a rickshaw 20 of us reached Sultan Battery. 

At Sultan Battery

The plan was to spend sometime at the battery and return to have icecream at Pabbas. But my 88 year old Grandma insisted that she wanted to see the beach. So all of u got onto the boat and walked till Tanneer baavi beach. While all of us feared that grandma would have difficulty in climbing in and out of the boat, we were surprised to see her literally jumping and running. The energy she has is unmatchable. If I live until that age, I hope I carry the same energy as she does today. Kids had a good time at the beach playing in water and sand. We spent about an hours time at the beach and rushed back by 7am to catch the last return boat. Another Rs.5/- ticket for all. Post the beach visit we drove to Pabbas Ice cream parlour..famous in Mangalore. A good evening well spent. We were lucky that the rain Gods spared us for one day :-)

For those visiting Mangalore on a short visit and want to spend an evening at the beach…please do visit Tanneer Baavi beach.

The boat ride

Granny with daughters

Walk from boat to beach

Yercaud

Friday was declared holiday at the school and Saturday hobby classes were called off, which meant kids had a weekend free. A last minute decision and a quick weekend trip to Yercaud with mother-in-law and kids got planned.

We booked ourselves at the beautiful Shevaroys. Rs.6000/- for 2 rooms. Had booked the Rose rooms, but since the rooms weren’t vacated on our arrival we were upgraded to better rooms at no extra cost :-)

Plantation in Shevaroys Hotel

After crossing 20 hair pin bends we reached Yercaud…it was a neat 4hrs drive with all our breaks. Upon reaching there we saw that all the sign boards were only in Tamil. Mixing up Tamil, kannada, hindi & English we asked for Hotel Shevaroys and the localites guided us through all the paths. Thoughout our drive we saw people selling Jackfruits, Jamun & Mangoes. Temptation…temptation…I wanted to eat Jamun. So we picked it on the way…real small ones, unlike the large ones that we get in the city. A packet full of small jamuns with salt and chilly powder costed me Rs.10/-(Rs.50/- for Qtr kg in city). Kids normally refuse to eat it but this time they were asking for more. I must say these were small but tastier than the big ones that we get in the cities. After about 8kms drive we reached a gate, which didn’t really look like Shevaroy Hotel. A lady came over to us asking us to pay Rs.10/- for parking and that’s when got to know that we had reached Shevaroyan temple instead :-D So much for asking for directions.

Shevaroyan Temple is one of the most important sight seeing spots of Yercaud. It also happens to be the highest point of the hill station. The temple is a cave having the God Shevoroyan and the Goddess Kaveri inside, which are believed as the deities of the Shevaroy Hills and Cauvery River. Cool breeze blowing and the need of the hour was a hot cup of tea. Tempation….temptation….all of us wanted Bajji’s. Chilly Bajji & Onion bajji for us and Raw banana bajji for the kids. Hot and tasty. Rs.5/- a piece. Bajji done, tea done. Time for the view from highest point. Cold wind, silence & valley view is what we experienced.

With chillies outside Shevaroyan Temple

After spending about an hour at the temple, we decided to start back our search for Hotel Shevaroys and back we came to Yercaud town..where the Yercaud lake is situated. The hotel was hardly 10min walk from the lake. We checked-in into the hotel and had our lunch there. After about an hours rest, we had planned to take the kids out to boating at the lake. Around 5pm we reached the lake but since the weather was cloudy they had stopped issuing tickets. Note, the Boating, lake close by 5.00PM and the Deer park closes by 5.30PM. Boating got postponed to Day 2. So…what do we do to keep the kids happy. They got to take a horse ride. Rs.130/- (Rs.60+Rs.70). And in the rain they went :-) Son was happy that his demand for a horse ride was met, but was not too happy about getting wet in the rain and daughter was very happy about getting wet in the rain and not too happy about discomfort she had sitting on the horse.

View from Pagoda Point

We then left for Pagoda Point, another viewpoint at the hill station. Heavy rains followed us and all we could do was enjoy the scenic beauty from inside of our car. Kids got to have the ‘local’ sweet corn there- Rs.20/- for a small cup. And then the drive down back to the hotel was quick. The rains spoilt our plans to visit a few more places so we had to settle with sticking to our room and watching TV. Dinner was again at the hotel. Hit the bed early. Next morning we had the complementary buffet breakfast at the hotel. Nice & fresh platter. Had our stomach full and headed back to freshen up before we could check-out from the hotel. Post checking out, we went back to the lake and went boating. Luckily for us, we got another family who had picked up ticket for Motor Boat (8 people- 10mins- Rs.350). What should be a 10min ride got over in less than 5 mins. The guy who was driving the motor boat offered to take us for another larger round if we were willing to pay him extra. After spending so much for a 2 min drive, neither of the families wanted to pay more. So we returned back. The lady at the boathouse counter informed us that every tourist spot in Yercaud closes by 5.00PM.

Next was Killiyur Falls. After we drove down another KA registered vehicle passed by and informed us not to go further as there was no water in the falls and it was a long walk down to the falls. 

View from Ladies Seat

Not worth the effort is what we were told. So, saving our time and energy took a reverse turn and headed out to see Lady’s Seat. In Yercaud we have the Lady’s seat, Gent’s seat & childrens seat. All in different direction. With curiosity we decided to see Lady’s seat first. What we got to see what another view point. Cool breeze and loads of tourists.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention…how a KA registered vehicle can get cheated in Tamilnadu. You end up paying road entry fees at every point. The boat house road also leads to Gents seat. When we decided to take that route we were stopped by a guy who wanted us to pay Rs.20/-. We tried to tell him that just a day before we had driven on that road and no one was collecting any money. And this time we weren’t even going to the boathouse, we just wanted to take the road to Gents seat. This guy told us to pay Rs.20/- to cross or turn around. We tried talking to the cops who were standing there. One cop asked this guy to allow us to pass and not collect money and the other cop told us to pay up. And in front of us they let 2 other TN registered vehicle pass through without any entry fees. This discrimination within India..between two south Indian states can be so bad, I am not surprised at the discrimination that takes place elsewhere. Wonder how much the cop collects from this collection guy at the end of the day.

We decided not to pay these cheats and took another route to Gents seat and ended up going to Ladies Seat instead. After visiting this, we chose to skip Gents seat & Childrens seat and decided to have lunch and head back towards Bangalore. Had our lunch at Elite Saravana Bhavan which is near the lake junction. Tasty & hot quality Veg food.

Just before we could reach Salem, at a small village we saw a Sunday ‘sante’ market. My mother-in-law & I picked up a bag full of fresh vegetables & fruits at half the price of what we pay in the city. Upon reaching Salem, through a friend we got to buy variety of mangoes (picked up almost 10kgs of different varieties). A hot cup of tea and we started back to Bangalore at 6PM. Reached Bangalore by 9.30PM. Dinner on demand was at Dominos and by 10.30PM we were back home cozily sleeping in our beds.

Govinda Govinda

After 5yrs of wait my wish was fulfilled. My trip to Tirupati finalized.

February 21-22, 2014

I had been enquiring with a lot of my friends on the easiest way to visit Tirupati and one of my friends happened to have completed her visit just that weekend that I brought up this topic with her. She suggested that APSTDC’s organized tour was the easiest.

So I went ahead and suggested this to my husband. He complained that going by bus and having the kids go through the long queue at Tirupati would be too tiring. But I put the whole idea across with an emotional angle :-P that he wouldn’t take me and he wouldn’t want to take the organized tour, and I have waited 5 long years for him to take me. It worked!!!!!

We decided to travel on a Friday night. So this is how it worked…

We booked the tickets online on APSTDC site-Rs.1800/- per head. Carried the online ticket and an ID card along for the officials at Tirumala are pretty strict about it.

The bus from Marathahalli, Bangalore was at 10.15P.M.. While we were waiting we treated ourselves with some reasonably priced & tasty Vada Pav & Icrecream for the kids.

We arrived in Tirupati on Saturday morning at 3.00A.M. in a luxurious, comfortable & clean Benz Bus. We were allotted a clean room for freshening up and assembling back at 4.15A.M. By 4.45A.M we were taken to Padmavati temple for a Suprabhata darshan. After the Padmavati temple visit, we were taken to a nearby restaurant for a buffet breakfast which served hot Idli, vada, Pongal and coffee/tea for breakfast- Rs.70/- per head. Post breakfast we were asked to board another bus which would take us straight to Tirumala. I & my kids usually go through motion sickness through the Ghats, but kids I think had a great time together driving through all those hair pin bends and the cool breeze which entered our bus. By 8.00A.M we reached the hill top. The tour guide asked us all to assemble together and made some announcements-

Drop our footwear, camera & mobile phones at a designated shop on the hilltop. Checked our tickets. Finish the darshan and assemble back at the meeting point.

50 of us entered the Sheeghra darshan queue at about 9.00A.M. and went through the struggle of pushing & pulling till 11.30A.M. Finally got Lord Balaji’s darshan for a few seconds before we got pushed out. But having got the full view of Lord Balaji, I was satisfied. Throughout the 2 ½ hrs trek to see The Lord, my son was happily asleep either in my arm or in husbands arm..alternating as and when one of us got tired, but the moment we reached The Lord, he was wide awake, folding his hand in a namaskar and praying for good health & sadbuddhi. Daughter was a darling who waited along without complaining too much.

Once we were out, the guide was waiting at the meeting point along with Laddoos- 2 Laddoos per ticket. Once all 50 of us were out and boarded the bus, we were brought back to Tirupati where we boarded back our Benz bus back to Bangalore. The guide left us at this point. The next stop was for lunch- not so good food. After an hours break the bus maintaining its speed at about 60-70kms per hour, stopped next for a Coffee break at Kamat just outside Bangalore. We arrived at Bangalore at approximately 7.00P.M and were back home by 8.00P.M.

Tiring, fulfilling, long wished, hassle-free trip came to an end.

Taking the steps next time to see The Lord….

KSTDC also has a organized trip to Tirupati @ Rs.1750/- per head, but since APSTDC was recommended by my friends, we decided to try it out.

Details of the various packages available here>>

http://www.hoysalatours.com/hotels/5/tirupati-package-from-bangalore-by-ap-tourism--and--kstdc

 

Bhoole Bisre Geet

After an eventful day at kids school he and I headed towards Purandara Bhavan at Indiranagar to attend the fund raiser show organized by Karunashraya in aid of Indian Cancer Society, where Mathangi was performing. They had singers from Mumbai & Agra also coming in and perform. Mumbai's Nanu Gurjar with Rafi's voice gave a wonderful performance by singing the original scores from old bollywood movies, while Mathangi had her own versions of Thumaka Chalat raamchandra, Roop tera mastana, damadum mast kalandar, Jaaneja dhoondta phir raha. 

What makes this evening worth remembering....she sang her self composed song "manwaa" for the first time on stage and I was witness to it :-). This show was also relayed over internet Such a beautiful number. We will soon get to hear it in the market...and I am eagerly waiting to pick up my copy. Its a kind of tune that one would like to hum again and again. 

What's Manwaa about...
Manwaa is a one way dialogue between the inner self and the person. It goes by many names...The true self, conscience, the little voice in the head that tellsus the truths of life and keeps us rooted. This song talks about the things Mathangi believes she has come to understand over the last 10 years of life.

While Mathangi  spoke about each song before she sang her songs...why she chose it and what tune she had mixed into the original scores...before singing Jaaneja, she gave me an embarassingly ;-)  pleasant surprise by calling out my name...and mentioned that I used to be her duet partner at college. blush blush is what happened next with me. 

All in all a had a wonderful musical evening listening to old numbers. I think sometimes it is good to take such breaks and breakaway listening to live music. Time I expose my kids also to these...