It was around 9:10 PM and we were driving behind a fully laden lorry. Just as the lorry passed a huge tree on the side of the road, it pulled down one of the biggest branches on top of the road and it fell crashing on our car from a height of almost 8m.

It was a real lucky escape as I had put the brakes and it fell on the front windshield, has it fallen on top of the car, it would have been more serious. Luckily both of us came out unhurt, it was indeed a narrow escape.

I was not a fan of Wagon R from Maruti, but this car indeed saved our life because of its tall body status.

Note: Photos taken today afternoon.

The beach walkway was really crowded with people and the walkway in itself was too narrow and most of the places it was broken down. The beach was really dirty, wish the Corporation did something to clean it up once in a while. The Chinese fishing nets still remain and are actively used for fishing.

The fish stalls, I remember seeing them when I was a child, still exists in the beach area and sells some top quality and fresh fish although need to bargain to get the best deal.

One good thing about Fort Kochi is the number of quality restaurants available, which serves all types of dishes from around the world. We headed to DLips restaurant, which was run by Malayalam Film start Dileep. The building is the old house of famous singer Yesudas and the restaurant housed on the top floor. The speciality of this building is that there is a big Mango tree in the center of this building and hence the name Mange Tree for the restaurant.

The food was pretty decent and so is the ambience, there were only a couple of Indians and rest all were tourists. The service was not the very best and it took us lot of time to get the orders. Make sure you carry enough cash when you go to this restaurant as CCs are not accepted, which was quite strange for a restaurant of this standard.

We returned back home by around 9PM and had a great time visiting or rather revisiting Fort Kochi.

The travel through the northern Kerala, also called the Malabar is always exciting as most of the travel is through coastal line with some beautiful beaches and sceneries.

Crossing the Nethravati River (Mangalore)

Climate was very humid

Maveli Express speeding through a curve

Sun set at Kasargod

Beach at Bekal

We reached Kochi the next day at 02:30 AM. On Saturday we visited the newly opened Oberon Mall which is the largest mall opened in Kerala. The multiplex at Oberon was not yet complete although most of the shops are open. We had our dinner from the food court in Oberon.

We returned back to Mangalore next day and it was a short break from work and was refreshing travel in all ways.

We visited the temple directly and had all the Pooja at the temple. There was pretty good rush in the temple as it was a Sunday. By 11:30 am, we came out of the temple and headed to a restaurant for breakfast, we didnt have anything in the morning. By 12:00pm we started our return journey to Mangalore.

Few stretches on the N17 are in bad shape, except for that NH17 is a good to drive

Finally we reached Mangalore back by 14:30 hours and had our lunch. We returned home by 15:00 and to a deep sleep after a 5 hour drive.

Trip Details:

Total Distance Covered: 270 Km (Up & Down)

Total Travel Time: 5 hours Road Condition: Bad on few stretches in Suratkal and Kundapura (as of Oct 2008).

Other Facts: Beware of bus drives of Express busses, they tend to come to wrong side without any warning especially when you are driving a small car.

Traffic on road: Medium, low in the morning.

Road: NH 17 (Edapally to Panvel)