Mangalore Madrigal....

A pleasantly cold night......An open terrace.....Stars above and friends with you....chatting the night out....THE best way to spend a saturday night if you ask me. This is exactly what I did last saturday night.

After our fantabulously succesful Tada trip, our plans for other trips were dying an early death. We planned several trips only to have them postponed indefenitely due to some reason or the other. That is why this Mangalore trip deserves a special mention. The plan was born on Nov 19th and by Nov 30th, we were on our way. Planning to conceivement in 11 days....

When the idea was born, it was a company of three which had decided to go to Mangalore on a weekend to meet a friend and visit the much-heard-about St.Mary's Island. When it finally happened, it was a gang of 8 travelling to Mangalore with 3 more people to join from there. Don't you love it when things work out in a really big way?

We started from Chennai on Nov 30th at 5 PM. Had lotsa fun during the trip including a hilarious round of Dumbcharades.....We reached Mangalore at around 9.30 in the morning and after a quick round of freshening up, were on our way to St.Mary's Island.

Legend has it that Vasco da Gama had landed on this island in 1498 on his way to India. He was the one who named it 'El Padron de Santa Maria'. A unique feature of this Island is the hexagonal volcanic rock formations on one side.

Warning: Trying to climb those rocks...however low they may seem can be dangerous for your leg. You may have to wear a crepe bandage and buy a new pair of sandals to suit your swollen feet.

On the other part of the island, the beach is made solely of shells....with enough patience and time, you can collect all sorts of rare specimens there.

As they say in Titanic, we were "Unable to stay, unwilling to leave" from this piece of paradise. But the call of the boatmen had to be heeded to. Back we went to the other side.

Seeing how this weekend was turning so much differently from our usual ones, we decided to take it a step further. Have dessert and then the main course dinner. This took us to Pabbas ice cream parlour where the injured members of our raiding party were taken care of. Once the hurt were safely taken to shelter, off we went into the night of Mangalore to hunt....for a place to eat...about a 2km walk at night...was a lovely experience.

This was when the plans for the next day were made. Majority said Bakel fort and being a democracy, the voice of majority was to be upheld. So the where was resolved. Now came the how and the when. This brought about some interesting results which led to our night out on the terrace.

Bakel for could not withstand an assault from us the next day morning and it fell. We underlined our victory with a re shooting of the famous song from the movie "Bombay".

All in all it was a really memorable trip. There is just one regret when I look back on the whole thing...Try as we might, we couldnt get the sun to rise in the west.... But then that is another story for maybe another time.....