Mangalooru :)

Sitting in the bus to Mangalore i remember wondering if i am going to get bored to death here! I mean from how much i have seen my native (Kasargod) which is some 2 hours from Mangalore.. I was ready to face the water problems, electricity shortage, transportation problems of the place.. And here i am now sitting in a four bedroom flat, My balcony facing the girls hostel of KMC... and my door facing a popular pub in Mangalore.. well.. what more can i ask for ;) ?


Mangalore is like this hidden city of the teens with the beach just 20mins drive away and with good looking babes in every corner...;) The city has everything a teen asks for.. Dosa camp for the guy group to go and hang out and have a lite snack.. and the pubs where they can really "hang out"! :) and innumerable eat outs... lotsa stories flying around..like the other day i overheard a gal talking about her jumping off her hostel gates to meet her boyfriend only to find her lecturers romancing just outside the college premises.. :D And I thought Mangalore was not a "happening" place! :D


Now after i reached here i somehow find this place more "happening" than Bangalore itself, yeah.. a hard-core Bangalorean in me retaliates by saying that i have not been to pubs there (:O ? i know.. ) but the 'sly' smiles from gals and the 'subtle' taunts from guys are ironically more pronounced here and enjoyed by both the sexes.. at least i liked it! :D . The other day when i was getting off my office bus.. the receptionist from the place where i took my bike 6 months back smiled at me and i had a smile plastered on my face the whole evening ;).. and stuff like this keeps happening i have some more "experiences" but i don't wanna drone on and brag about the "encounters" if you really want me to brag please do call up! :D


Speaking about bikes, Mangalore is valley,with straight roads in the form of sine waves :) going up and down and the curves that a biker would love to be on..! Smooth tar roads and hard cement roads ..you name it you have it!.. Its a delight when there's an engine roaring below you. :) Then again it is not just the perfect place for motorists.. thanks to the maniac bus drivers!! The bus service here is handled by private buses with each driver trying to outdo the other by driving like run away convicts! twisting and turning around the vehicles in the road and honking just when they are right behind your ass and like my boss says " making you jump outta your skin!!". Not only for the motorists outside even for the people sitting in the bus its a nuisance !


In my first ride from Mangalore to Surathkal i sat in the last seat and my butt remembers traveling the whole journey mid air! . But the silver lining is even at 12 in the night you will get a bus between major areas and the auto dudes wont cheat you.. They will take the shortest route and they will be the ones who will tell you the short cuts! I know this because all the short cuts here that i know are from the auto drivers.. Just before i got the bike, we were going to the automobile shop to look at a car for my friend.. and we were just 4 months old in the city.. The auto driver obviously knew that we did not know where to go.. and he did not know the place that we were blabbering about.. But then i was surprised by what he did.. he told got down in a garage himself to inquire about the "shortest" route to the place (this i could make out because of the tulu that i can understand).. I was impressed.. when we reached.. because i am a good guy :D i offered him 10 rupees more than the actual fare..and he looked at me, gave a stare which said "so.. you are an engineer and you don't know how to count!! :O" and gave back the 10 rupees and left without a word!


Coming to truck drivers... strangely enough here the truckers seem to have taken the back seat in driving rashly, now that the bus drivers have taken over that job here.. Here you will see the truckers showing hand signals and waving and sometimes smiling and letting you pass too!


There are a whole lotta places that you can visit here. The city has a horde of temples spread everywhere. The ancient ones with stories and the new ones with 'storeys' :) You name it and you have it here..beaches, forts, goa everything is in travellable distance here.. you can plan a trip for a day, keep a decent budget and actually have fun and come back! hire a car from here, coz they know most of the places close by.., Obvously i would suggest a bike because the roads are just awesome when you get a little away from the city .. but then there is this problem of rain and sweat.. being a coastal area, its sweats a lot even if you are just lazing around in the beach and you never know when it will start raining here.. you might be surprised how fast a sunny day can turn gloomy... !


But as the sun goes to sleep and the moon starts to peer out of the sky.. The city starts to sleep.. except for the 'hep' places like pubs, high end restaurants or ccd's the other places close down before 8.. sometimes i have found general stores closed at 8 in the night... It looks like the sellers are not interested in making money or anything.. its just that they have no other thing to do at home so they stay at the shop until they like and leave.. One of my colleague was actually politely told to leave when he was selecting a TV for himself saying that it is 7:30 and they have to close the shop ! He was telling me the other day.. "they would stay back till 10 in chennai if you wanted to buy a pin!".. I guess that's true for Bangalore too.. they would call you names after you left the shop but they sure would wait! In the night there is a decent breeze which will let you sleep comfortably and music from the girls hostel which will sometimes make you wonder what the hell is going on there at 2 in the night.. but anyways.. some questions and answers are best kept to yourself i guess ;) ..