We woke up a tad late on Day-3 because most of us indulged ourselves the previous night at various pubs and discos in Baga area. I was feeling little heavy in the head, so I quickly freshened up, wolfed down idlis and vadas at an Udipi hotel near Calangute bus stand, and popped in a Meftal forte. I was feeling fresh by the time the others got ready at 10 AM.
Our first stop over was Aguada fort. We took in the sights and clicked a good number of pictures. By 11.30 AM, the sun was beating down on us mercilessly, and I felt like I am in Guntur/Vijayawada. The first thing we did after climbing down from the fort is to gulp down a few lemon sodas.
We then set off to Panaji to enquire about various cruise options, incl. Casino Royale. There are many rickety cruises offering a ride on River Mandovi for 1.5-3 Hrs @ Rs. 150-200 per head. The deal with Casino Royale was very tempting, with music, free F&B, Casino, etc. @ Rs. 1500 per head, but the down side was that one has to spend almost 10-12 Hrs on the cruise once they sail out at 8 PM.
So we decided to come back in the evening for a short cruise. We drove back to Calangute, and decided on "Hotel Infantria" for liesurely lunch. We ordered few beef, pork and chicken dishes from the continental menu. After spending almost 3 Hrs on lunch, we trudged back to the hotel and slept for 90 minutes before the first among us hit the pool. After several rounds of competitions and pranks in the pool we dragged ourselves out, freshened up, drove down to Panaji, only to find that we missed the last of short cruises by a couple of minutes. Without wasting much time we drove back to Calangute beach. This beach is much cleaner than Baga beach (that we visited the previous night, er.. well past mid night). There are a few restaurants facing the beach, but there is one restaurant who placed tables right on the beach, we went for this one. We must have spent around 2 Hrs taking in the sights and sea breeze. The sea breeze and the exertions earlier in the day made a few of us yearn for a quiet dinner and long sleep in the cosy confines of our hotel. So, some of us (incl. yours truly) retired to the hotel at 11 PM, while the others headed for the watering holes in Baga beach, mainly to check out the new crowd we have seen driving in to the nearby hotels for a weekend in Goa.
Next morning the routine was almost same, except that I did not have to pop in my Meftal forte. The plan for the day was to visit the South Goa beaches. Some of us had started early to visit nearby Anjuna beach. We decided on visiting Colva and Majorda among the beaches in the South. It took us almost 2 Hrs to drive down to Colva beach from Calangute. Colva is definitely more picturesque than Calangute or Baga. There is a resort right on the beach, that has a neat restaurant offering direct view of the beach. The food was good and so was the crowd, which kept building up through out the afternoon with tourists, ostensibly from Mumbai and Pune.
After finishing lunch at 4 PM, we moved on to Majorda beach on our way back to Calangute. Majorda beach is much quieter and cleaner. The beach bed is also very flat much like Suryalanka beach in A.P. For once we all were tempted to swim in the sea, but the "life guards" stationed there warned us against it. Though we were not so sure of the life guards' wisdom, we just complied with their advice and moved on. After reaching our hotel in Calangute, we went for the pool right away because we were in no mood to waste even a minute considering that we wanted to start our return jounrey next morning (Sunday) immediately after breakfast.
We spent couple of hours in the pool, having fun watching 2 non-swimmers among us trying to drown each other in the pool. That night, as expected, every watering hole near Baga beach was packed with the weekend crowd. So, we happily did some sincere pub hopping and wound up finally at 3 AM.
After breakfast next day, we went to Mapusa market for some value shopping and to buy the local varieties in beverages. After confirming with the vendor about the legal limit per person to carry local beverages across the border, I enquired about Amboli ghat route. My original plan was to travel to Bijapur via Amboli ghat, Belgaum, Athni, for overnight halt and for some sight seeing at Bijapur next morning. The vendor advised me against taking Amboli ghat route because of the crowds that throng during weekends to enjoy the waterfalls. Recalling the crowds we have seen while driving to Goa on a Thursday, we have decided to try out the route to Belgaum via Margao that the vendor alluded to. It was only after crossing Panaji it dawned on me that this route must be Londa-Ponda route. Even during the tour planning I have resolved not to use this route because of the bad roads and the truck traffic. So, we have turned our original plan on its head, and decided to drive to Hyderabad via Karwar, Hubli, Hospet, Raichur and Mahabubnagar. The other group from Guntur had any way planned to go via Hubli, Hospet, Bellary and Kurnool (with a stop over at Hospet, and sight seeing at Hampi the next morning). So all of us were happy to spend one more day together. We drove at not so great speeds across south Goa and were stopped just before Karwar at the border check post. First it was the turn of Goa excise staff. We had all licenses/permits except for Fenny and port wine we were carrying (the vendor at Mapusa told us that no permits are required to carry Fenny and port wine across the border). So, as you would have guessed, we still had to shell out some money (Rs.50) to get away with all our bottles. Next is the turn of Karnataka excise and police, who robbed us of further Rs. 150 and Rs. 100, respectively. Since we started little earlier than the group from Guntur, I immediately called them up to warn them about the "procedures" at the border check post. As it turns out, one member of that group apparently started arguing with the custodians of law and was promptly relieved of Rs. 2000. That aside, the sights of Arabian ocean at Karwar and Devbagh beach are awesome.
On NH-17 towards Karwar The views near Karwar/ Devbagh beach
We exited the NH 17 just before Ankola and joined the Highway leading to Hubli-Hospet-Bellary-Gooty. By now, it was almost 2.30 PM, and we were depserately looking for a dhaba. We found a dhaba after almost 15 minutes. The dhaba was large, clean and nestled among picturesque hills.
My car parked near the dhaba Dhaba in serene location
We had a liesurely lunch and resumed our drive at 4 PM. Our plan was to reach Hospet (which is 290 KM away) by 9 PM, stay overnight and to start early next day for completing a short tour of Hampi by noon, so that we can reach Hyderabad by 7-8 PM. However, we could only reach Gadag at 8.45 PM, Hampi is another 90 KM away. So, we decided to halt at Gadag, which we found to be a large town. That very moment, we knew that we have to skip Hampi tour if we have to reach Hyderabad, ~ 500 KM away via Raichur, by sunset next day. So, next day we started at 8.30 AM from Gadag and reached Hyderabad (via gajendra gadh, kushtagi, sindhanur, raichur and Mahabunagar) at 7.30 PM. We were terribly slowed down by the narrow roads between Gadag and Sindhanur (almost 170 KM).
Wind mills at Gajendra gadh
Our friends from Guntur later informed us that we could have done much better had we chosen Gadag-Hospet-Bellary-Alur-Kurnool-Jadcherla-Hyderabad route. The roads were apparently good, the distance would have been 460 KM. Any ways, on our way back we stopped at a dhaba outside Raichur to continue our practice of having a liesurely lunch.
Summary of distances
Hyderabad-Raichur via Mahabubnagar: 250 KM
Raichur-Bagalgot via Lingsigur: ~220 KM
Bagalkot-Belgaum: ~100 KM
Belgaum-Calangute via Amboli and Mapusa: ~155 KM
Total distance for onward journey: ~725 KM, Time taken (incl. lunch and tea breaks): 17.5 Hrs
Calangute-Gadag via Karwar and Hubli: 330 KM
Gadag-Raichur via Sindhanur: 240 KM
Raichur-Hyderabad via Mahabubnagar: 250 KM
Total distance for return journey: 820 KM, Time taken (incl. lunch and tea breaks): 20 Hrs
Even 2 days before the tour, I was worried about driving in unfamiliar territory in the monsoon rains lashing across Karnataka and Goa, and I was worried about staying indoors in Goa if it continues to rain heavily for those 3 days. Luckily there were no rains at all during my entire 6 day tour, except for nice cloud cover and some brief showers. Secondly, we also got very lucky with hotel rates because of the slack reason. The entire tour cost us Rs. 6000 per head, incl. fuel for cars and men. It sort of made up for the slow night life at Goa on Thursday and Friday. In fact some of the famous joints like Titos and Brittos are closed for the entire month of July.
Last but not the least, the tour made all of us feel much younger, though the truth is that all of us gained weight during the tour and were looking older.
more pictures to follow..