Goa to Mangalore trip in 3 days

We had not taken a vacation for quite some time and the long weekend during the Gandhi Jayanti holiday on Friday-2nd, we thought was a good time to unwind.

Since the time we brought the Safari Storme, our idea of vacation has turned into “a trip to places where we can drive to, in a radius of 300-500 kms and which can be done in 2-4 days”.

After having explored most nearby places in Maharashtra, we decided to go the other neighbor – Karnataka. After my research on Google, I thought Mangalore was the closest fit to our ‘Travel criteria’.

I wanted to go to a place which is:

           A. 200-400 kms max, so that it can be done in 3 days’ time,

           B. which has some temples to visit and, 

           C. also have some good shopping malls and recreation activities.

and Mangalore had all of these.

On finalizing the holiday destination, the first thing I wanted to set right was accommodation.

After a spending some time on Google (BTW, the trip was planned completely based on internet reviews) I shortlisted on following hotels. (since we aren’t too fussy about hotel stay during travel, it was low on budget and quick to decide).

Finalized the deal on Mangalore International, even though the very first review title said "There is nothing international about it" but the further reviews were quite satisfactory. It is at K.S. Rao road, one can drive straight to this place as an extension to NH-66.

Earlier, I had plans of walking-in to a hotel, without prior booking, considering there are plenty to choose from in the city, however, it came to me as a shock, when I called the HMI (Hotel Managlore International, referred to as HMI) and they said, they are booked for the weekend while all major travel booking sites still showing availability. So, I decided to book this hotel online for following prime reasons:

To avoid the hassles of:

          A.  Driving around the crowded city seeking directions to various hotels,

        B. visiting each of them only to find some of them don’t have the availability and even if they had, go and inspect each room, amenities and so on and,

         C. importantly because, online booking had a discount to offer. 

I booked HMI at an offer of "buy one night and get second at Re.1 only" on ClearTrip. (That really sounded a great offer, though the total cost I paid for 2 nights - in fact should have been the price at which they be selling these rooms). Anyways, was happy that I didn’t have to pay excess price for these rooms.

About Hotel

Pros:

A. The biggest USP of this hotel is – its location! It is bang in the city, just across the famous City Center mall.

B. the second best (for us) being – 24 check-in/check-out policy (since we were driving from Goa and didn’t have a well-drawn schedule, this added a great flexibility and allowed us to drive leisurely)

C. complimentary breakfast (Vegetarian only, no egg/omelets, typical mix of Idli, Shira, Upma, cornflakes, juice, milk, tea, coffee, fruits etc)

D. complimentary internet (the connectivity was good, even though some reviews said it wasn’t so good)

Cons:

Not many, however could have been cleaner like they could have patched up walls with a paint coat, fixed some electrical points etc. Also, it does not have its own restaurant and we did not try room service.

Others:

• No covered parking; however there is place right in front of the hotel where one can park where the hotel security guard keeps a watch and the hotel assures you that it’s safe.
• There is 24-hrs hot water facility; however we faced some issues with it.
• Check-in/out was smooth.
• Telephone in the room did not work as some cabling work was being done.
• Air conditioner, TV, Cable channels everything worked. Towels, soap, shampoo provided. No toilet napkins/papers. No temperature control knobs or remote control for AC so we had to switch off main switch when it was too cold.
• Not sure if the rooms offered any views as our windows opened into a shabby building next door.

Itinerary planned:

Day-1: Friday

06:00 Leave from Panaji

13:00 Reach Mangalore, Lunch

16:00 Visit Citi Center and evening at leisure

21:00 Dinner at the Mall

Day-2: Saturday

09:00 Breakfast at Hotel

10:00 Visit Kudroli Gokarnath Temple

12:00 Visit Kadri Manjunath Temple

13:00 Lunch at Kadri Manjunath Temple (they serve meal as prasad)

14:00 Visit Animal Park at Pilkula Nisargdham

15:30 Visit Manasa water park

17:30 Tea at Manasa Restaurant

18:30 Visit Bharat Mall (Big Bazar shopping)

21:00 Dinner at Mall

Day-3: Sunday

09:00 Breakfast at Hotel

10:00 Visit Local market for window shopping, Stop by at Ideal's ice-cream

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Depart for Goa

20:30 Arrive in Goa

All of the above fell in line, except:

A. We started an hour late on day-1, which meant it was past13:00 and we were about 60kms behind schedule so we decided to have lunch at Udipi at a highway restaurant. The restaurant, surprisingly, offered good food at a very cheap rate of Rs. 50/- for a South Indian Thali. We decided to halt at the same place during our return journey to try their Punjabi Thali.

B. Return trip took longer due to heavy rains at Honnavar, Karwar belt.

Total Distance: 400 kms

Road: Cannot be categorized as ‘good’ since lot of work was underway at NH-66, because of which had to take diversion every 2-3 kms. Some stretches were really bad and the vehicle had to be brought down from 80-100 to 20 instantly.

Route:Panaji - Karwar - Ankola - Kumta - Honnavar - Bhatkal - Kundapur - Manipal/Udupi - Mangalore

Weather: Pleasant as it was drizzling, warm during day time, about 30 degrees (this was during our visit, otherwise I believe the mercury starts rising during this part of the year).

Hotels: Plenty; few we had shortlisted based on TripAdvisor reviews:

Hotel Poonja International

Rs. 1847/- per night

Address: K.S. Rao Road

Phone:0824 244 0171

My take: Some of the reviews that I read weren't really good, so did not go for it.

Hotel Srinivas

Rs. 1168 per night

Address: Ganapathi High School Road

Phone:0824 244 0061

My take: Reviews were ok nothing spectacular about it.

Ginger Hotel

My take: This was in my mind, however shockingly, reviews of this Tata hotel weren’t that great vis-a-vis their rates.

Hotel Suman Residency

About 5k for 2 nights

Near Bendorewell Junction | Kankanady - Balmatta Road

My take: Good reviews, HMI won over this on the price front.

Goldfinch Mangalore

About 12k all inclusive for 2 nights.

236-2A Bunts Hostel Road | Near Jyoti Circle

My take: This one was the best, however out of my budget.

Places of interest shortlisted (we did not do all):

City Center Mall

K.S.Rao Road | Hampankatta

We visited this mall, because based on reviews, this one was meant to be the best among all other malls in the city, we had time only for 1 of them so we decided to go with this one. Besides, this was just across our hotel.

This is a typical mall bustling with youngsters huddling around and kids running up & down on the escalators. It has most well-known brands besides some distinct stores like a Khadi store doing good business, shops selling 1gm Gold and so on. Besides, you have a floor for all eateries with brands like BBQ Nation, Pizza Hut, KFC to name a few.

Pilkula Nisargdham

15-20 mins drive from Mangalore (outskirts), a must visit animal park. Need about 2-3 hrs time to see the entire place if one decides to walk. There is motor-cycle buggy that can take you around for a mere charge of 300 bucks and can be done in about 40 mins to 1 hr time.

Manasa Amusement & Water Park

Small park, good for kids, walking distance from Pilkula Nisargdham. Entry: Adult=300/-, Children=200/-

Tip: closed on Monday.

Bharath Mall

Address: Opp KSRTC Bus Depot | Kavoor Road, Bejai, Lalbagh

Only mall which has Big Bazar. Also has Pizza hut, CCD - ok place to visit.

Empire Mall & Pio mall – The review said these aren’t as good as City Center, so were left out of the itinerary.

Mahatma Gandhi Museum 

(Canara High School, Mangalore, India) – based on reviews, decided to skip as not a must visit, however good to visit.

Sammilan Shetty’s Butterfly Park – I am not into butterflies so skipped this as well, but most reviews said, it’s a good place to visit.

Address: Butterfly Park Road, Belvai Village | Santhadi House, Mangalore

Phone Number: +91 98 45 993292

Kadri Manjunath Temple - good to visit

From Bunts circle, one can hire auto to reach this temple which will cost you around Rs 30. The temple offers Prasad (lunch) between 12:30pm to 2pm.

Kudroli Gokarnath Temple - good to visit

Address: Kudroli | 3 Km from Hampankatta

Best visit during evenings, day time will be hot.

Shri Sharavu Mahaganapathi Temple - not a must visit, can visit if time permits.

This is a small temple, old, right in the city in the middle of bustling Hampankatta, close to the end of the GHS road in Mangalore.

Panambur Beach - if at all you want to visit a beach, you can try this as its closer to Mangalore. Nothing great about the beach though. Since we hailed from a place of beaches, we didn’t wanted to visit another one.

Observations

• Lot of 1gm gold shops around.
• People give and accept worn-out currency notes
• Traffic is same as any other city (didnt experience much due to holiday weekend)
• Local market is same as any other metro.
• People usually speak Kannada or Tulu, most understand Hindi.

In all, this was a compact budget holiday.

Tip: Leave your vehicle at the hotel, especially if it’s a big one and hire an Auto-Rickshaw to go to places.

• No need to seek directions
• No need to look for parking
• No worries of jumping signals/traffic rules, paying fines and so on.

An experience with Bekar Seva Nigam Limited (BSNL)

I have used some shortcuts below, considering the number of times I have referred them.

BSNL	Bekar Seva Nigam Limited
LL	Landline Telephone
BB	Broadband Service
EXG	Telephone Exchange office
BBO	Broadband Office
HO	Head office
TEL	Telephone
#	Number

One could say, I was a satisfied BSNL customer until the below saga hit me hard! BSNL is good as long as it works, however if it stops for some reason, it can be real awful!

Below is an account of a painful journey I had with them for about a month.

On 1/Dec I shifted my house. I made necessary applications at BSNL HO for disconnection and transfer. Accordingly, the phone shifting was initiated and was completed by 4/Dec. Excellent stuff...however, it wasn’t working!

LL & EXG

When I contacted the EXG, they said it’s fixed. LL was indeed working, when I returned home in the evening. Phew! Relieved! I thought to myself, I simply had been a worrying XX when in reality getting a phone to work could be that easy.

I thought of checking, to ensure that I can receive and make calls. When I called up my # from my cell phone…there was no ringing anywhere! Then I called from LL to my cell phone and to my surprise it flashed a different number!

I had read it somewhere, that if the shifting happens in same locality/EXG the TEL # does not change, however I told myself, maybe I was wrong. How does that matter? I have a phone that is working!

Day-2: LL is dead! Every time, I call the new #, which flashed on my cell phone, yesterday, another phone is ringing in our building. A bewildered me, at first, thought it was a coincidence, however it repeated and I concluded that the # belongs to someone else in our building.

When I complained again and told them this is not my #, they said, probably there is a fault in building line itself and that they would correct it. This was done as promised. Cannot understand how they work!

BB Services

Now starts my painful journey.

This is a real long tale and I hate to type this as what I have covered until now is up to 7/Dec. I have an uphill task of reaching until the 26/Dec!

With my LL started working, I, like a fool, assumed that my BB services will also start automatically since I had opted for a combo package of BB+LL services and mere shifting the TEL, would have no impact on BB. How foolish I can get, as you read below you would realize, how tough this process could get!

EXG # - a PiA

Earlier, to get the TEL working, I made several calls to EXG and by now, as soon as I mentioned the #, they would recognize the case. This reminds me - the EXG helpline #, which one cannot get through 95% of the times and the other 4% times one, gets through, there is nobody to attend it. So one has to be really lucky and patient to tap that 1 attempt at which you get to hear some human being's voice on the other side.

Anyways, I managed! From my entire busy schedule at work place and at personal front I made it a point to call them regularly. Every time I called them up, I had to explain them my problem – how I applied for shifting, the TEL was shifted, then it started working and now my BB has not yet been activated bla bla…In return answered, patiently, all their questions, which place did I have the TEL before shifting? Which EXG? Where is it shifted, which EXG? When was this initiated? Name? #? So much so, that towards the end I was finding it difficult to say my # for I had said it so many times earlier that the numbers started jumbling up in my mind!

Anyways, thanked God for making me choose my new house in the same EXG! I cannot imagine solving this, had this involved 2 different EXGs!

EXG v/s BBO

Initially on my complaint, the EXG kept telling me that BB services will commence by evening and I went home every evening in a hope to see it working, only to find the computer always plainly staring at me and yelling - The DNS server is not responding!!!

After repeated calls, one fine day, the EXG mentioned that the problem has been resolved from their side and the BBO would activate my BB services. They were also kind enough to provide me with the BBO #. Chalo kuch nahi tho itnahi sahi! At least the case moved forward.

BBO #:

I tried the BBO # for a day, however never got through…another PiA!

I again switched to EXG, made several attempts to talk to a human's voice, managed to get a different # of BBO.

Getting through BBO # was more or less similar to EXG # with only difference being it rang almost 99 percent of times however gets picked only once. I am dead bored writing all this, one can imagine what in reality it must have been to go through this.

One fine day, I could get through this # and spoke to a person, explained the problem (imagine telling whole shifting story), he took my # and said he will find out the details and callback. Callback? Did I hear that right? I was prepared mentally, for another day and another calling attempt. But, wait, here comes a pleasant surprise! The guy actually called back…wow! He mentioned to me that they haven’t received any intimation to process any BB related work on my TEL and that I should be calling the EXG and telling them that the work order is still pending from their side. Oh God, please come down to resolve this!

How do I bring the EXG and the BBO together to resolve this? Guess, God heard me…the BBO guy also added that he has already called the EXG person and explained the case and that they would be resolving this.

Online Complaint and 198!

All this time, when BB was not working I thought of logging an online complaint through my account.  When I browsed to the complaint page, it stopped me with a warning - I cannot log a new complaint as I already have a previously logged complaint against the #. I browsed to 'My Complaints' section and found that one of my very old complaints still showing as unresolved. What the heck!!

I would not give up so easily…another Kida in my brain…198...BSNL helpline!

Now, as you read below, it may sound a lot like an exaggeration...but no, this is all real. I called 198…

For English press 1...

For LL complaints press 1...

Now comes the funny part, it would not accept my input! God...have mercy!!! After 3 attempts it said, sorry, you did not enter a valid response (what the %@$#^@...I did for God's sake...)

Press 9 to speak to a Customer Care Executive, I did.  It rang, played an on-hold melody and got disconnected...I am running short of word to express how miserable I felt! (Few of you, who must have tried calling 198 and attempted speaking to their CC Executive, would agree with me).

At this point, an insane me felt that my LL instrument's keypad could be faulty and that may be I am having an issue with the number 1 on the keypad (though it dialed 198, which had a 1, this thought came to my mind as previously I had faced a problem with this instrument's keypad...well, that is another topic to write as the brand new Beetel phone had stopped working on the 3rd day of its purchase!)

I thought of verifying if the digit 1 works by dialing my cell phone, how sad...both, me and my wife does not have a 1 in our cell #! :P

I give up!

Next day, I browsed for couple of new phone models on internet as I was planning to buy a new handset!

I decided to switch back to traditional approach...back calling EXG/BB.

EXG v/s BBO Returns

In the meantime it was a holiday season and I was out of state for 4 days so could not follow up.

When I returned and found nothing had changed, I resumed follow-up. Finally one day, EXG said the problem is resolved from their side. They asked me to visit the BBO, along with the modem and get the setup done. Why modem? I knew this had nothing to do with it however, I just followed the instructions!

BTW on the previous night, I attempted 198 again (By now I am sure you guys appreciate my patience and tenacity!) Voila...this time, everything worked and I could log a complaint on 198 (which means digit 1 on my LL worked? :))

(This was important to be mentioned here as there is a funny incident linked to this, ahead)

BBO

Next day, I went hunting for BBO.

Reached BBO, it was just post 2PM. I was little skeptical and was expecting to be shooed away as it could be an extended lunch hour! But, today it is! Today was my day!

I went in to a room much like a computer lab of a college, which was almost empty with just an elderly lady and a guy. The guy seemed uninterested and having found the lady, motherly, I decided to walk towards her. Well, she was really nice to me; she quickly attended to me, checked something on the computer and said she is not seeing any orders from HO regarding my work.

Roadblock!!!

I personally checked the system, (in my mind, I was drawing up the city roadmap to go to HO). The lady, however (I think) changed that status so that the order gets assigned to the BBO. She made me connect the modem, change the settings and made sure that internet works. Good lady! I left the BBO like a warrior!

Ok, why I mentioned about logging a complaint on 198 earlier? Here – a funny incident took place while I was at BBO. When the officer was trying to resolve my case, my cell phone beeped and flashed a SMS, 'Dear Customer, Your service request (complaint) XXX is completed. Thanks for choosing BSNL as your Service Provider'...fainting was the only thing that could have happened to me at this point!

I did not know what to react. I showed the SMS to the officer, how am I getting this contradictory message, when we both know that she was still working on my issue? The lady just smiled and I was in no mood to poke her on this, any further.

26^th Dec: I will not forget this day, this was the day my BB started working at my new place, finally! We came a long way, from 1/Dec, when my shifting was initiated.

On a final note (this can help my readers, in case they are not aware), while I was browsing about this BSNL nuisance, I learnt that in case their services are stopped for few days due to issues from their side, one can ask for rebate on the rentals.

The website also mentioned that the BSNL should be doing this on its own however they do not do this and expects the customers to give an intimation letter (I would suggest do not wait till the services resume).

I gave a letter on the 19^th Dec and they have given me rebate only until that day. I have no energy left in me to fight for this. The rule says that if the services are down for more than 15 days, they should give a complete month rebate.

Now BSNL are bombarding me with SMS to pay bills! I got a SMS to pay my bill for the month of Dec (by 27/Jan). How prompt! Fine, I will pay, but wait...then I get another SMS, asking me to pay my November bill and then one more, pay October bill and then September...really killing me now!

Well, I agree we leave some bugs in the software that we develop however I think there is a rat in this system... a rat deliberately introduced on a mission to harass customers!!!