West Coast Wonders

On May 2, 2008, Sridhar Joshi and I boarded the Mangalore Mail at Chennai Central. We intended to travel on the Mangalore -Yeshwanthpur Express the next evening. This train uses the newly converted line that passes through the wonderful Shirali - Subrahmanya ghats dead at night. Unfortunately there was no day train through this wonderful section that climbs high into the mountains and lush green forests before descending to Sakleshpur and thence to Hassan. But a night journey through this section is equally interesting. We could have travelled the route in reverse direction (Bangalore City to Mangalore Central) but we also wanted to experience the wonderful North Kerala and Konkan Karnataka section too. So we first went to Mangalore. I could not take any pictures of the ghats in Subrahmanya due to the darkness but I have some wonderful memories of the West Coast that I reproduce here. With this trip, I have practically covered all the railway in Kerala except for a small spur line to Guruvayoor.

5:30 AM and we had already cleared Shoranur Jn and chugging towards Kozhikode. This is the first station where I woke up. A cheerful little town called Pattambi.

Kuttipuram station was on a wonderful curve.

No idea which river is this but the scene of such serene waters dotted by palms early in the morning made my day.

Preparing for his catch. He and his boat are surely a good catch for my camera from the speeding and jerking train.

Short of Kozhikode, our train came to a grinding halt after crossing the home signal of a small station ahead. The linesman by the tracks was waving a red flag to inform the driver of a rail fracture he had noticed. Soon a big curious crowd materialised by the locomotive wondering if there was an accident. The crowd was dangerously blocking the down line.

It took a big and nasty honk from this diesel loco to scatter the onlookers. It was hauling a train of oil tankers in the opposite direction. Soon the section engineer arrived and cleared our train with a 5kmph speed restriction over the fractured portion of the tracks. The guard stayed behind until all the coaches safely cleared the portion, observing the troubled spot closely. A few trains are going to be delayed today before the fracture is repaired.

Kozhikode! We had a breakfast of bland dosas and blander sambhar here.

Post Kozhikode the scenery continued. But this is the scene before Kozhikode of the Kadalundi river. It was the same river into which four coaches of the same train I was travelling (Mangalore Mail towards Chennai) had derailed and fallen in 2001. The river is a beautiful one with all those palms and little boats.

Kerala is one heck of a ride by a train. It never fails to grab the continuous attention of anyone throughout its length.

The sea!!! As we were approaching the borders of Kerala and Karnataka the lush coconut plantations on the left side suddenly gave way to these lagoons by the sea. I had never imagined that our train would run so close to the sea shore! West coast is truly amazing and I have just started to see it.

Bekal fort built more than 300 years ago juts out into the sea. Our train is closest to the sea here. The fort annexed by Tipu Sultan's father Hyder Ali in the 18th century has no palaces. This impressive fort was purely meant for defence. It was made famous with Manirathnam's 'Bombay' which contained a song picturised here. A small station also named Bekal serves as its rail head.

Closer to Bekal we could hear the roar of the waves above the clatter of the train's wheels. Looks like someone is hell bent on killing the aesthetics of the fort with those resort huts. There are a couple of other resorts close to the railway here.

An esturarine river just before it met the sea.

Kerala- Karnataka border (Kasargod) and we could barely miss the gay psychedelic coloured buses moving around.

The Arabian Sea gave us company all along till Mangalore. Backwaters like these were appearing along our way.

We were again back into the backwater plus coconut lagoon territory every now and then.

Scenes played out along the tracks including neat and tiled houses like this one. Every house along the tracks in Kerala seemed to have these mangalore tiles and each house was aesthetically designed like an independent cottage or bungalow with its own orchard. I was amazed at the respect for space and privacy in these parts after living in the ghettos of Chennai and Bangalore!

Finally we are close to Mangalore. But before that we had a small treat of the Nethravati river across which lay a railway bridge that brought us into Mangalore.

A motorised fishing boat in the Nethravati is busy catching the main course of lunch and dinner menu of these parts.

Chimneys of the "Mangalore "tile factories of the old days.

Mangalore is promising to be a beautiful city.

There could not be a better sight than this upon entering a city. The English styled building of the Commonwealth Tile Factory of Mangalore.

One last look at those wonderful chimneys.

Timber yard within the factory. Wonder what they do with this floating timber.

Mangalore at last!

Early morning between Mysore and Bangalore. Our train halts at Hannakere for a crossing.The opposite way is already cleared for the incoming train Look at the undulating terrain., The tracks dip and rise so sharply.





A patient vigil for the incoming train in the quiet early morning hour.





Ajmer- Mysore express crossing us with great speed from the oppositer direction.The twin diesel locomotives are working furiously to maintain speed on this undulating set of tracks.

The Scorpio Diary

670 kilometres, 12 Diet Pepsis, 5 stoppages, 4 Music CDs, 3 guys, 2 national highways, One Mahindra Scorpio. That was the Chennai-Hyderabad drive we undertook one day. Raghu was moving to Hyderabad from Chennai. The first thing he preferred to transfer was his beloved maroon red Scorpio. He had never driven deep into AP before. So he invited me and a couple of others to ride with him. I do the job of navigator rather well despite all my misgivings about asking for directions. So I jumped in. The plan was to start early at Chennai and reach Hyderabad by evening and then take a cheap flight back home. One guy dropped off but Karthik was game and so Raghu, Karthik and I started off at 4.30 AM on a Sunday. Upon my insistence, we avoided the backwater roads from Ongole to Narkatpally via Nalgonda and instead drove all the way to Vijaywada to savour the superb 4-lane Golden Quadrilateral National highway No 5. From There it was another National Highway (No 9). The second leg was a bad mistake that ended up as a sumo wrestle for the narrow road between the Scorpio and trucks. The ride to Vijayawada (428 KM) took us 8 hours. The second leg cost us another 8 hours for just 248 km. Nevertheless, it was worth the drive. No more words. I prefer to say it with pictures:



4:45PM and our first of the many toll gates that squeezed good money out of us. The Red Hills Toll outside Chennai. We were playing Annamacharya Keerthanas on the CD player inside. What a way to begin the day!



Dawn breaks and we are already in Andhra Pradesh. Another 14 hours of drive within AP.



Our first stop short of Gudur. We savour the balmy morning breeze while the Scorpio cools off the heat it generated by riding at 140 kmph!



Thoughtful stuff. An emergency phone for drivers. Not sure if it works but looks great.




We did toy with the idea...at least upto Vizag. But better sense prevailed well early morning. BTW that was our first Pepsi can.

About 25 km from Nellore, we encountered these tall plams right on the divider. Old Hindi songs on the CD.

Nellore and that greasy tasty dosa! That tucked in we rolled on to some unusual sights. That is a grain load on a tractor trailer. How it balances itself beats us but note that the tractor is moving away from the centre.

Close to Ongole. We are shuffling between Telugu and Tamil numbers. The agro wealth of AP shows up. Down season for paddy right now as the colour of the fields indicate.

As soon as we entered AP, we found pretty flowers growing on divider all along the way till Vijayawada. Nice touch!

Third halt and a well deserved rest for both Raghu and his Scorpio. He drove it all the way till Hyderabad. We are outside Chilakaluripeta and those rare trees came in handy for a much needed shade from the summer sun!

Raghu (shorts) and Karthik . How Karthik managed the trip beats me but jeans and shoes are the last thing I would wear for such a trip.

Chilakaluripeta. We are soaking on modern Hindi film music...you know...Gangster, Anwar and the likes. More Diet Pepsis down. We have turned on the AC for a short while. Otherwise, we managed it without air conditioning mostly!

We did not expect hills until Vijayawada. But we found this one just after Chilakaluripeta.

Looks like a curve on a race track- chicane and all...well Raghu almost treated the Scorpio like a forumla car here. The curve appears suddenly and confuses the driver.

We passed all kinds of vehicles with all kinds of load. Looks dangerous? Well those sacks contain cotton. No wonder they are all stacked up that way.

Near Guntur: Riding backwards with legs dangling...I would have gladly traded my place in the Scorpio for a seat amongst those people. The TATA RTV was full!

Vijayawada! The railway bridge across River Krishna is visble here with the Kanaka Durga temple in the background along the hill.

A lone wanderer on the drying riverbed. Wonder what is he doing there?

We had lunch at Vijayawada and resumed our journey. After negotiating narrow roads and unruly traffic, we ended up at the foot of a hill which had a tunnel to go through.

Through the tunnel that lead us to the outskirts of Vijayawada.

Soon we were passing by the Vijayawada Thermal Power Station

Our quest for cheap diesel led us to this place. Time for a little rest for the Scorpio.

Just off the tunnel, we chanced upon this humongous masonary Hanuman. This was certainly not the first one on our trip. Right from Tada at the AP TN border, we had encountered small, large, huge and gigantic statues of Hanuman. We might have seen at least 50 Hanuman statues (with temples). Methinks Hanuman is the patron saint of highway drivers. But this statue takes the cake. It is the biggest and grandest of all the Hanumans we had driven past.

Just look at those crows to gauge the size of Hanuman.

There. Look how majestic it stands.

Traffic seems light. The fun starts about 20 Km from here.

Yet another Hanuman. this one is interesting though. It is a statue of the Panchamukha Anjaneya or the five headed Hanuman. The canopy kind of robs the aesthetic value.

We are close to hyderabad after a long duel with a bus and a truck. We rest here for some flavoured milk and ice cream.

Outskirts of Hyderabad. We are awfully late. the sun is setting. It will take us two more hours to rech our destination. All thanks to traffic!