20.02.15 - First impressions of Mangalore. If I remember correctly, there wasn't any specific reason we went to Mangalore. We just knew we wanted to go to Hampi and Mangalore seemed to lie handily on our way there and next to a train track that went through Kannur as well, so we got up early (way too early) to catch one of the trains around 7am which took us a bit more than three hours and cost us 30 rupees per person - now I finally understand why people I know who travelled in India before complained about China being expensive.
We didn't know where to stay, but Wikitravel had mentioned a few guest houses opposite the Central Mangalore Bus Station aka the KSRTC bus station and as we were planning to take a bus from there to Hampi anyway, we told our riksha driver to bring us to the station. Mangalore train station had a service I hadn't seen before in India, but which I'd love to - prepaid rikshas. There was a counter, where we had to pay a one rupee fee and where we had to tell one guy where we wanted to go. He then wrote us a receipt with the amount we'd have to pay - less then we'd ever paid before for similar distances. In a country where most riksha drivers seem to trying to rip off people, especially foreigners, prepaid rikshas seem like a good invention.
Upon arriving at the bus station, we first looked for a place to stay and settled for the first one we found - Nandhini Lodge had wifi and clean double rooms for 780 rupees, including tax. They also had dorm beds for 250 if you stayed 12 hours and 350 if you stayed 24, but as we could split the cost of the double room, we opted for privacy. After taking care of filling our stomachs with excellent fish and chicken curry and buying our tickets to Hampi (there's only one bus at 8.30pm), we decided to have a go at yet another beach - Panambur. We hopped on bus #2, only to be thrown out at the side of a highway and next to an industrial harbour - fair enough, we thought, and walked past trucks and through oily puddles to actually arrive at quite a nice beach. It was quite commercial where we arrived, with lots of people and stalls selling foods, clothes and tea, but the beach stretched quite far to our right, so I guess it might be calmer there. We settled for the people-part, though, as it offered some shade and we didn't want to worsen our already existing sunburns.
