Mangalore has scenic beaches, beautiful temples, old churches and delicious cuisine, but when I started writing about my 48 -hour visit to the coastal city, the first thing that came to my mind is that “yahan autowale 3 rupaye wapas karte hai!”
Now, that's not how you should ideally start writing about a city, but fellow public transport users from Delhi can understand the feeling of elation one experiences when the auto guy starts the meter as soon as you sit inside and gives you the exact change back after the journey. Moreover, they don't refuse a passenger even if it is a short distance trip. We roamed around in autorickshaws quite often during our stay. Only once, we received a refusal. Or so we thought!
We asked the guy, “Forum Mall”? He shook his head. And we started backing out, when we saw him gesturing us to sit inside. His head shake was meant to convey an “yes”. Our misjudgement, coupled with the usual Delhi experience of autowallas who have taken saying “no” to the level of modern art, had created the confusion.
That said, how can they afford to refuse short distance journeys when the entire city is of an area of 170 sq km? In fact, the Panambur beach, known for its colourful international kite festival, is also outside municipal limits, we found out as we went to see the sunset there, a few hours after arriving to Mangalore following a four-hour road trip from Coorg.
The most striking aspect of Mangalore for me was the view from our hotel room. You can see the sea and the confluence of two rivers, Nethravathi (nice name, no?) and Gurupura. The city is home to many communities and everyone calls it by a different name. ‘Kudla' (Tulu), 'Mangalooru' (Kannada), 'Mangalapuram' (Malayalam) and ‘Kodial' (Konkani), are just a few. Google baba says that Kudla in Tulu means junction, and the city is called so because it is situated at the confluence. The sight of the sea and the rivers kept me engaged for hours that night as I watched the darkness slowly break into dawn and the flickering shadows on the water disappear. I guess the rooftop would have given a even better view but it was not accessible.
The afternoon of day one was spent on finding out about and visiting the beach nearest to our hotel. Panambur, just beside the new Mangalore sea port. is well-maintained and clean. It has jet ski and other sports activities, but we could not try them as we reached just half an hour before the beach gets closed. I get scared of water sports anyway, so no loss for me (During my first visit to Goa, I spent a lazy hour reading a novel and eating tuna salad while my friends were parasailing). Me and my friend watched the sun go down while enjoying a plate of charumuri, a puffed rice snack which is a cousin of jhalmuri, but more health-conscious. (It had grated carrot). Even mango pachodi (raw mango salad) had carrots. Talking of food, Mangalorean cuisine is counted among the best in India and known for its diversity, due to the fact that different communities staying here have added their own specialities to it. So you have Tuluva dishes, Udupi cuisine as well as food of choice of Saraswat Brahmins, Mangalorean Catholics and Beary Muslims. During our stay in the city, we tasted pomfret curry, egg sukka (dry preparation with grated coconut), Mangalorean buns (they look like kachori, have a sweet tinge and are made with maida and bananas), and goli baje (fluffy flour fritters, darne ka nai).
Other than food, architectural style is another notable aspect of Mangalore. The brick-coloured Mangalore tiles prepared from hard laterite clay are used in many parts of the country, and also exported abroad. However, traditional roofs and houses are gradually giving way to typical box-type multi-storied buildings. The city has quite a few old churches and chapels such as Our Lady of Rosary Cathedral (1568) and Milagres Church (1680) but we could only see St. Aloysius Chapel (1878), on Lighthouse Hill. The interior of the chapel is decorated with paintings by Italian artist Antonio Moscheni. The paintings have undergone restoration by INTACH and their prints on postcards are on sale at the chapel. We bought a set from a smiling middle-aged man called Brother Henry, who could converse a little in Bengali and was very excited about it. He told us about the chapel, the St. Aloysius College (George Fernandes was an alumni) which is run by Jesuits, (they also administer the St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta, he did not forget to mention) and the painter Moscheni. Brother Henry also told us about some popular tourist spots of the city and famous temples that we should visit.
Next morning, we went to Mangaladevi temple, from which the city got its name. It was built in 9th century by king Kundavarmana (though legends associate it with Parashurama, maintaining that the king only excavated and restored it). The Gokarnanatheshwara temple, which we visited later, was consecrated in 1912 by social reformer Shri Narayana Guru. What I found striking in both the temples are the tall dhwajastambham, or flagpoles.
Our last stop in the Mangalore sightseeing trip was Tannirbhavi beach. We went to Sultan battery, a watch tower constructed by Tipu Sultan on the banks of Gurupura river in 1784 to prevent any British warship from invading via river route. One can get an wide-angle picture of the river from the top of the structure which also have embrasures for cannons, now used by stray lovers. We crossed the river in a ferry and walked down to Tannirbhavi. I liked it better than Panambur because it was less crowded and I could see various shades of green in the sea.
The evening of day two was free, so we decided to go for “Badla" in PVR Forum Mall. It was only 120 rupees per ticket! We should have watched more movies here, we joked.
Ok, it is not proper to start a travel story with talk of money and end it with talk of money.
Pretty middle-classist, you can see!
Now, that's not how you should ideally start writing about a city, but fellow public transport users from Delhi can understand the feeling of elation one experiences when the auto guy starts the meter as soon as you sit inside and gives you the exact change back after the journey. Moreover, they don't refuse a passenger even if it is a short distance trip. We roamed around in autorickshaws quite often during our stay. Only once, we received a refusal. Or so we thought!
We asked the guy, “Forum Mall”? He shook his head. And we started backing out, when we saw him gesturing us to sit inside. His head shake was meant to convey an “yes”. Our misjudgement, coupled with the usual Delhi experience of autowallas who have taken saying “no” to the level of modern art, had created the confusion.
That said, how can they afford to refuse short distance journeys when the entire city is of an area of 170 sq km? In fact, the Panambur beach, known for its colourful international kite festival, is also outside municipal limits, we found out as we went to see the sunset there, a few hours after arriving to Mangalore following a four-hour road trip from Coorg.
The most striking aspect of Mangalore for me was the view from our hotel room. You can see the sea and the confluence of two rivers, Nethravathi (nice name, no?) and Gurupura. The city is home to many communities and everyone calls it by a different name. ‘Kudla' (Tulu), 'Mangalooru' (Kannada), 'Mangalapuram' (Malayalam) and ‘Kodial' (Konkani), are just a few. Google baba says that Kudla in Tulu means junction, and the city is called so because it is situated at the confluence. The sight of the sea and the rivers kept me engaged for hours that night as I watched the darkness slowly break into dawn and the flickering shadows on the water disappear. I guess the rooftop would have given a even better view but it was not accessible.
The afternoon of day one was spent on finding out about and visiting the beach nearest to our hotel. Panambur, just beside the new Mangalore sea port. is well-maintained and clean. It has jet ski and other sports activities, but we could not try them as we reached just half an hour before the beach gets closed. I get scared of water sports anyway, so no loss for me (During my first visit to Goa, I spent a lazy hour reading a novel and eating tuna salad while my friends were parasailing). Me and my friend watched the sun go down while enjoying a plate of charumuri, a puffed rice snack which is a cousin of jhalmuri, but more health-conscious. (It had grated carrot). Even mango pachodi (raw mango salad) had carrots. Talking of food, Mangalorean cuisine is counted among the best in India and known for its diversity, due to the fact that different communities staying here have added their own specialities to it. So you have Tuluva dishes, Udupi cuisine as well as food of choice of Saraswat Brahmins, Mangalorean Catholics and Beary Muslims. During our stay in the city, we tasted pomfret curry, egg sukka (dry preparation with grated coconut), Mangalorean buns (they look like kachori, have a sweet tinge and are made with maida and bananas), and goli baje (fluffy flour fritters, darne ka nai).
Other than food, architectural style is another notable aspect of Mangalore. The brick-coloured Mangalore tiles prepared from hard laterite clay are used in many parts of the country, and also exported abroad. However, traditional roofs and houses are gradually giving way to typical box-type multi-storied buildings. The city has quite a few old churches and chapels such as Our Lady of Rosary Cathedral (1568) and Milagres Church (1680) but we could only see St. Aloysius Chapel (1878), on Lighthouse Hill. The interior of the chapel is decorated with paintings by Italian artist Antonio Moscheni. The paintings have undergone restoration by INTACH and their prints on postcards are on sale at the chapel. We bought a set from a smiling middle-aged man called Brother Henry, who could converse a little in Bengali and was very excited about it. He told us about the chapel, the St. Aloysius College (George Fernandes was an alumni) which is run by Jesuits, (they also administer the St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta, he did not forget to mention) and the painter Moscheni. Brother Henry also told us about some popular tourist spots of the city and famous temples that we should visit.
Next morning, we went to Mangaladevi temple, from which the city got its name. It was built in 9th century by king Kundavarmana (though legends associate it with Parashurama, maintaining that the king only excavated and restored it). The Gokarnanatheshwara temple, which we visited later, was consecrated in 1912 by social reformer Shri Narayana Guru. What I found striking in both the temples are the tall dhwajastambham, or flagpoles.
Our last stop in the Mangalore sightseeing trip was Tannirbhavi beach. We went to Sultan battery, a watch tower constructed by Tipu Sultan on the banks of Gurupura river in 1784 to prevent any British warship from invading via river route. One can get an wide-angle picture of the river from the top of the structure which also have embrasures for cannons, now used by stray lovers. We crossed the river in a ferry and walked down to Tannirbhavi. I liked it better than Panambur because it was less crowded and I could see various shades of green in the sea.
The evening of day two was free, so we decided to go for “Badla" in PVR Forum Mall. It was only 120 rupees per ticket! We should have watched more movies here, we joked.
Ok, it is not proper to start a travel story with talk of money and end it with talk of money.
Pretty middle-classist, you can see!
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