Sounds of a moonless night
The violent rocking of the bus, though unlike the gentle sway of a cradle, had put me to a rather, hmm... whats the word... ah right - "deep" sleep, last night. So, when I woke up this morning, I half expected to be in Mangalore. But wait, it was a little too dark to be 6:00 am! The pre dawn deep blue sky rose over the silhouette of a distant mountain range. "Crap!", I thought, "we are still in the western ghats. This does not look good. Not good at all."
Sitting in a bus, where the acronym AC expands to Air Chilling and not Air conditioning can be quite a strain on the delicate urinary system of most mortals. Why would anybody maintain 18 deg Celsius in a bus? Wouldn't 24 be more comfortable? The violent rocking hadn't subsided either. It had only gotten worse. "Looks like I'll be sea sick on land", I fretted as I drifted back to an uneasy morning sleep.
Last night, Googie, Vivek* and I set out from Gandhinagar on two different buses for Mangalore at 2300 hrs. The weird booking was thanks to the Eid and Dassera double whammy weekend and our last minute booking. Googie and Vivek were on the Ideal travels Volvo and I, on the Manjunath Road Lines Volvo. Googie, VMK a.k.a WeeWake a.k.a. Vivek, Paddy and I were to proceed to Kodachadri from Mangalore. Dynamic plan i.e. no plan was the plan!
The usual route involves negotiating the Shiradi ghats on the Hasan - Sakleshpur - Upinagadi route. However, oil laden multi-axel vehicles and an unrelenting monsoon has mauled it to Swiss Cheese. The road literally has holes in it, not potholes, just enormous gaping pits strewn with rocks. Even the roads to Leh would score higher on the motorable quotient! Understandably, the bus operators use the longer Mysore - Hunsur - Madikeri - Sulia - Puttur route to Mangalore these days.
