Bangalore-Mangalore-Kundapur : Planning

It was my turn to travel :)

It was quite sometime since I'd visited to my wife's home in Kundapur (a small town situated on the coastal line of Karnataka). I sat down thinking about how & when i'd plan this journey. Kundapur is about 520 kms from my home here in Bangalore. I knew i had to make this journey in the month of April. So, i openened up my calendar and scouted for possible travel dates. Since, we didn't have any official holidays in April, i was forced to choose 10th,11th & 12th April 09 as my final dates. 10th being a friday, i had to take a day off of work and this was the easy part!

The dates were set, Out-Of-Office message was set and sent out to my team @ office. 6-Apr-09, am now sitting in my office - still thinking of how to reach Kundapur. The matter is : I've never travelled in a bus so far and i don't plan to either! Train reservations were out of question as the Bangalore-Mangalore route is usually fully booked and if at all one needs to buy train tickets, he'll have to do that well in advance. Air tickets were way too costly for me. 4 days to go and now i'd ruled out travel by bus/train/flight. The only options i'd left with (and the only options i love) were to either ride or drive to Kundapur!

Incidentally, the same day, one of my friends from IBM called me to ask my plans for the weekend and i honestly replied that i'd be travelling to Kundapur all alone in my car! He asked me if he could hitch a ride with me for which my answer was "ummm... seriously ? OK"... Soon, two other friends of mine followed suit and asked me if they could tag along. Now this kinda started turning out to be a boys weekend getaway trip, but my intentions were clear. I HAD TO SEE MY WIFE! :)

So, we were set... I began enquiring about all possible routes from Bangalore to Mangalore and then to Kundapur. My first step was to google for this information and i came across an automotive community called Team-BHP. A fantastic website i must say! A team of dedicated motor-heads working to maintain and run this website with content rich forums and splendid, highly informative threads!

Searched for "Bangalore Mangalore" and came up with the following thread called :
Bangalore - Mangalore/Udupi road info
With over 500 posts/replies on this thread, i began dissecting and assimilating the information that i needed.

MSN maps - A truely fantastic tool to plan your route!
In one of the replies to the thread above, i saw an external link to the MSN maps website. I hadn't used this one earlier. All i did was to give my starting point (Bangalore), ending point (Kundapur) and voila! A super clean and detailed map view of my entire route was staring at me through the monitor!

8-Apr-09 : So, yeah... dates were fixed, friends were joining in, my route map was ready, my car was ready to make the trip. Just when everything looked good, i got a call from one of my friends who'd agreed to join the trip. The call came at 1400 hrs and my gut feeling was that he'd called me to say he'd drop out! So True :(
An emergency had cropped up at his place and he had to stay back at home. So, the other 3 of us stuck to our schedule. A boring and unhappy day passed.

9-Apr-09 : 1030 hrs, another call from another friend who'd promised to join the trip. This time, it came as a shocker. My friend mentioned that he'd pulled out of this trip since an he had to attend an emergency court case with his mom. I couldn't say NO. So, it was down to the two of us now. Thankfully, the other friend of mine had no such reservations in mind and he agreed to stick to the schedule.
1900 hrs : A call from my cousin

Cousin : Hey
Me : ssssup ?
Cousin : Heard you are heading to Mangalore
Me : Yup, you heard that right!
Cousin : So, what time are you leaving ?
Me : Midnight
Cousin : What the.... ????!!!!!
Me : What happened ?
Cousin : You plan to drive to Mangalore overnight ? Crazy ?
Me : he he... kinda yeah.. he he
Cousin : Mate, have you travelled to Mangalore before ? Do you know the route ?
Me : aaaah...ummm... NOPE.. he he
Cousin : Take my advice, shut the f*** up and sleep now. Get up and 0400 hrs and leave. By the time dawn breaks, you would have reached half way and then you can ask people for directions to Mangalore!
Me : hmmmm.. Not a bad idea mate!
Cousin : Are you going alone ?
Me : Nope, me and another friend o mine...
Cousin : Does he drive ?
Me : No, but he smokes.. he can give me good company..he he...
Cousin : Very funny! Now do as i say and your journey will be stress free. This is just an advice, don't take it to heart. If you still wanna leave in the midnight, please do so...
Me : hmmmm.. I think i'll go with your idea.
Cousin : Cool! give me a call once you're back mate.
Me : Sure
Cousin : chao
........

So, now i had a new timeline in mind!