Beach, Sun and Icecreams - Mangalore

Overnight bus journey, 360 km from Bangalore, Arun & I reached Mangalore. A port city in Karnatala, popular tourist destination. Mangalore lies between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghat mountain ranges

Arun and I both decided not to book any hotel in advance and  after reaching there the first  thing was to find good hotel. Found one near bus stand, as usual negotiation, bargain, acting of going away to consider another hotel worked and at the last very good deal.

Mangalore is very demographically diverse with several languages, including Tulu, Konkani, Kannada, Urdu, Malayalam. Hindu, Muslim and Christian all communities, later when we were exploring the city we saw many places where temple, mosque and church side by side.

 Our breakfast was usual south Indian, Idli and Vada followed by poha and filter coffee.



After breakfast, we decided to visit beach. Checked with hotel reception and got to know Tannirbhavi beach is near by. We took auto riksha and reached Sultan Battery, to reach Tannirbhavi beach you have to take ferry via Gurupura river from Sultan Battery.


Sultan Battery is interesting place. The first thing you will notice here is the large watch tower. I thought its some kind of fort but after reading the information board I realized what it actually is. Built by Tippu Sultan in 1784 with black stones, this watchtower was mounted with cannons around its perimeter to check the entry of English warships from entering the Gurupur River. The view from the watchtower overlooking the Tannirbhavi Beach and the Arabian Sea is beautiful.



The condition of this watch tower is not good. I think its mostly because of the tourist or local visiting this place, I could see many empty bottles, chips packets thrown by people. The walls of watch tower is full of names of couples, love messages. Sad but Sultan Battery is not the one, I have seen this kind of sorry state of affair at many historical monuments.

After spending some time there and taking pictures, time was to catch the ferry. They charge very nominal (I think it was 10 or 20 rs both way), It takes hardly 5 minutes to corss the river, after you reach the other side, you have to walk 2 minutes to reach the other side of the island.





Tannisbhavi  beach is much deserted and not crowded unlike Panambur beach which is very popular. Some people love places that are less crowded and i believe in the fact that places like this should remain as it is and undisturbed without any artificial intervention. Its clean beach, we walked there for some time. There are few shacks along the beach road. It was very hot day and sugar cane juice was lifesaver.






opposite to the sea, the land is lined by tall trees, which add to the ambiance. But looking in to entire scenery, the sea, sand and these tall trees, I though about horror movies like Raaz and Ragini MMS, excellent setup.






Hot weather and sun almost spoiled our day, It was very hot, close to 40'c. We decided to go back to city and take lunch there. Zomato suggested some good restaurant there and we found one. Had traditional Mangalorean foods, great fish curries, fry and chicken ghee roast.

Evening we roamed around the city and as per our plan visited Ideal Ice Cream Parlor. Very famous, crowded and must visit place as per many of my friends who visited Mangalore. I couldnt find this excited and my thought is this over hyped place. We had Gadbud and Parfait. You can get these in Bnagalore very easily and perhaps more tastier. 


Foodies by nature. We decided to check another Ice Parlor Pabba, to make sure we get something extraordinary or something we never had. This time I ordered Banana split and Dilkhush. Arun ordered Tiramisu. Same as Ideal Ice cream, Pabba is also ok. Both places were crowded and we could see many families with kids coming there. I think its mostly because of their good product and long history of selling icecream. Overall it was good but nothing extraordinary (We might have not tasted their best icecream or our choice of icecream was just ok, not sure...)

  
Our stomach was completely filled with Icecream and skipped our dinner. Mangalore is very quieter city at evening. Unsure what to do more there, we watched movie at Bharat Mall " The Byomkesh Bakshi" at night. The day one at Mangalore was over with beach, sun and icecream. More about Mangalore in other blog post...

2 comments:

  1. Such a beautiful blog! In Mangalore there are many beaches and hills which are the attraction of the city. You can visit at all these destinations and in also shopping malls & restaurants in the city by car rentals or cab services in Mangalore at a very low cost. And can also hire a taxi for local and outstation roam.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Such a beautiful blog! In Mangalore there are many beaches and hills which are the attraction of the city. You can visit at all these destinations and in also shopping malls & restaurants in the city by car rentals or cab services in Mangalore at a very low cost. And can also hire a taxi for local and outstation roam.

    ReplyDelete