When I decided that I would travel solo to Mangalore in December, I was ambivalent. My previous trip to Jaipur, three years ago, was a disaster. I was bored and always looking over my shoulder to see if the area was safe (it was, but it always helps to keep your guards up when you are a woman travelling alone).
Also, I realised during my travels in Europe and Jaipur that solo travelling is not always fun. So I was unsure if I wanted to put myself through that, again.
But after two years of being confined at home due to the pandemic, I decided to give it a try, not without apprehension of course. When I was planning the trip, little did I know that it was going to be one of the best trips I had taken in a while.
I chose Mangalore for two reasons. It was closer to Goa where I was travelling, and accessible by train. Two, I had an acquaintance in Mangalore who gave me confidence that the place I was going to stay in the city was indeed safe, albeit a little boring. I had no plans, literally, other than visiting a few museums and taking plenty of rest as I did that. Also, take in the scenic view in the vista-dome during my return journey. What I did not prepare myself for was the interesting conversations, and brilliant museums the city offered.
It was just a two day trip, and I was told, it was plenty enough time to see around the city.
My first destination was Sultan Bateri, and then from there Tannirbhavi beach through the ferry that plies passengers every few minutes.
Sultan Bateri is a watch tower built during the time of Tipu Sultan during 1784 AD overlooking Gurupur river and the sea. The idea was to deter warships, especially the British and other colonial invasions, from entering the river, and then into the city. The tower also has mounting places for cannons to shoot the invaders.
The ferry, a couple of minutes from the Battery, is a common transport and is used primarily by the fisherfolk. This is the shortest distance to reach the sea, 5-10 minutes, which would take 20-30 minutes on the road otherwise. The ferry has two stops, first is Tannirbhavi beach, and an island nearby.
Having come back from Goa, after frolicking on the beach for two days, I was not sure what to expect from the beaches in Mangalore. But Tannirbhavi was beautiful. I spent a couple of hours just soaking in the peace, last days of the evening sun, and breeze, a sense of calm coming over me. If not for the clock ticking 7 PM, almost time for the last ferry to take me back home, I would have stayed back.
For day two, I was split between going to Pilikula Science and cultural centre, and exploring more of Mangalore. I decided on the latter, and I was glad I made that decision.
I visited the Srimathi Bai Memorial Government Museum, housing artefacts collected by Col. V.R Mirajkar, a medical officer posted in Mangalore during the Second World War, and from government excavations. The collection ranges from palaeolithic stone tools, paintings, to Mirajkar’s extensive collection of articles he received from across the world, including China, Japan, Europe and Russia.
My second museum was the museum at the popular Aloysius Chapel. I quite did not expect the museum to be this exhaustive. It had a wide variety of collections from Hindu temple sculptures to currencies of countries over centuries, animals, and mechanical devices. To accommodate all this, the museum is divided into five galleries – historical artefacts from across the world, agriculture and domestic implements, palm manuscripts, specimens of frogs, and snakes, and skeletons of a whale, and other animals, and finally mechanical and electrical devices through ages. It takes a good 1.5 hours to go through them.
After the visit to the Chapel, which demands its own blog, I visited the Canara bank museum, rather the house of the founder of the bank that is now preserved for public viewing. The bank was founded by Ammembal Subba Rao Pai in 1906 as Canara Hindu Permanent Fund Ltd, which later became Canara Bank, was set up to help poor people with funds set up business, which was harder back then.
A journalist's diary 