Temple festivals, excellent food, and bike repairs

We spent the night in Kundapura, a lively town that seems to have one major claim to fame: the popular dish called chicken ghee roast was invented at a restaurant called Shetty Lunch Home here. So of course we had to try it out. It was amazing, spicy, buttery, and tender; unfortunately the dining area was too dark to take a photo; we couldn’t even read the menu.

On our way to dinner, the streets were packed with people and vendors, and we saw a stage setting up for a performance. We asked our server, and apparently we managed to arrive on the once-a-year festival for the temple in town. Sweet! After dinner, we really enjoyed mingling with the crowds, checking out the temple, watching a parade and street performers, fireworks, a live band, and the hundreds of young kids making duck calls with the toys that one of the vendors was selling. These are the kinds of random events that are so much fun to take part in, completely unplanned.

After Kundapura, the highway 66 became complete, and is now a proper 4-lane divided highway with wide shoulders. Well paved, and sometimes busy, but often not. Still, motorbikes tend not to pay attention to the direction of travel, so you still have a fair bit of unexpected oncoming traffic to worry about.

However, we’ve kept almost exclusively to quieter coastal and inland roads to get a break from the highway noise and commotion.

We even went as far as to ignore Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps and followed a seaside road to the end, hoping there would be a ferry to keep us off the highway. And guess what? There was! I guess we are starting to figure out some small things about India. For just ₹5 each (bicycles free), we got a seat on this bad boy, along with a dozen other pedestrians and 3 motorbikes. The other passengers took turns squeezing our tires and checking out our bikes.

We even got a numbered and stamped receipt, because India loves paper, and you never know if the captain will forget whether you’ve paid after the 5 minute trip is complete…

The other side of the ferry was an adorable peninsular fishing village with folks drying shrimp and fish on the pavement and small colorful cottages scattered through the strip of land, ocean on either side.

We spent the night in an overpriced “homestay” in Malpe, a small fishing village filled with kids and families enjoying the beach. It was a comfortable enough place, but we wanted to find a less expensive place to rest and also try out some of the famous Udupi food, so the next day we made a short 8km ride to Udupi.

Beforehand, I called up a few hotels to see if they had availability. All were booked online except for some crazy expensive ones. After calling a few, one said they had a room for a decent price, so I left my name.

When we showed up, however, they wanted us to leave our bicycles outside in front with nowhere to lock them. We tried to explain that we at least need something to lock it to if we’re going to leave them outside, and they insisted that their security guard and cameras would keep it safe. Maybe they are right, but it seems silly to take a chance when there’s no good reason not to lock them inside somewhere. So we left and checked with another hotel nearby, and they said no problem we can bring the bikes in the room. The eager luggage boys even insisted on taking them up for us and somehow crammed them into an elevator the size of a shoe box.

We had an amazing unlimited thali lunch at Woodlands, a well known place for Udupi vegetarian food. You have to eat here if you’re in the area. The server was awesome and explained each dish to us and when to eat it and which ones to eat with the puri and which to eat with rice.

I’m finally starting to get the hang of eating with my hand. I ordered a masala dosa and it arrived with no silverware, but I mopped up every bit using my hand and some techniques I’ve learned from watching others eat as well as some YouTube videos.

We re-routed our ride from Udupi to Mangalore towards inland roads and had one of the best rides of our trip in India so far. Quiet country roads, interesting temples, curious friendly people, and mostly good pavement. The last few km near Mangalore got a little crazy but that’s to be expected from a city of 1/2 million.

We stopped at Taj Cycle Co, a bike shop that someone on a bike touring Facebook group recommended. Had a great chat with the fellow there, and he showed us a video of a local bike race from Pune to Goa that’s a qualifier for RAAM (Race Across America). Looks like there’s an up and coming cycling culture in this part of India!

They’re going to order me some brass nipples to rebuild my wheel, and once that’s done we’ll set off. One of the guys at the shop asked about our route and said that if we’re headed to Madikeri, we should just skip the rest of the Karnataka coast and northern Kerala coast and head inland straight from Mangalore. So with that suggestion, I’ve redone our cycling plan and we will head inland up into the Coorg region of Karnataka once the wheel is rebuilt.

In the meantime, we are exploring the city and trying the food. There’s not a huge amount to see here, but they have a lot of nice malls, restaurants, and shops, so we’re doing some shopping and wandering.

I wonder if they serve hamburgers…

Someone told us they are shooting a film, and these guys are local celebrities.