Leg 1 - Trip to Mangalore

Geeta and Ahan were already in Bangalore and I took the 7pm Bangalore express from Hyderabad on the 25th. The train journey was pleasant and the train was on time. I reached Bangalore in the morning and we had our train to Mangalore to catch at around 8:30pm that evening. Packing was quick as most of the stuff had been packed and brought along from Hyderabad. We chose the train as Ahan wouldn’t sit in one place and so bus was not a viable option. We had booked through Tatkal as the plan was pretty last minute (also getting tickets through the regular quota is pretty difficult). Unfortunately though we couldn’t get any AC tickets and were left holding sleeper class tickets. As expected it was hot and humid as we neared the coast. Geeta and Ahan were sleeping on the upper berth and Ahan was not getting too much cool air I think. He got up in the middle of the night due to the heat but slept well when I put him to bed on the lower berth with the windows open. However, that meant I had to stay up to watch over him and it gave me an opportunity to test out the new Chess software I had loaded in Geeta’s mobile phone. Playing chess and listening to music simultaneously made 2 hrs pass by without any problem and when sleep finally got unavoidable I moved him to the upper berth with Geeta and slept.

We were greeted in the morning by these breathtaking views of the Western Ghats. I had heard a lot about the scenic routes all along Konkan Railway, but seeing is believing. Here is a shot of the train trudging along in the morning mist of the ghats. It got really uncomfortable as we approached Mangalore though. The heat is not so much a problem as is the humidity. The constant sweating is what makes you really uncomfortable. To add to it, the train was running late and we finally reached Managlore all of 2 hrs late at 10am in the morning. Randhir and the kids were at the station to receive us and it was wonderful to see them after all this time. The last time we had met was when they had visited us in Bangalore about 15 days after Ahan was born.