Exploring the NH-17 (Jan ’06) : Part 1 (Cochin to Mangalore)

This to-date remains of my most memorable drives… me and kshitija in our Tavera running through the entire stretch of  the NH-17 highway from its tip (at Edapally) to toe (at Panvel)… a comfortable and leisurely drive spanning 3 days, while coming back from Rajesh’s wedding, having packed off my daughter with my Mom by flight from Cochin…

Having been immersed headlong into parenting for a year and a half, we were desperately waiting for a getaway of this nature, sans a kid to tow… so having seen Mom & Samay off at the airport (and ensuring that they did indeed board the flight!) we started out on this exploration, armed with jackfruit chips, tapioca wafers, mineral water and red bulls…

First halt, a small ramshackle restaurant just after Calicut for a ‘lunch meal’ accompanied by some tasty, but unpronounceable, fried fish… the striking feature about kerala is that even in the shantiest of food joints the standard of quality & hygiene is exceedingly high… you will always find clean tables & utensils, the warm water that they serve will carry the rich flavour & aroma of one of the many ingredients that they boil it with, all non-veg meals will be served along with a waste plate (an oval stainless steel utensil in which you are forced to dump your chicken bones & fish spines; thus preventing you from plastering them over or chucking them under the table), the chips will be fresh, the meals will be hot and the wash basins clean… just as long as you do not look up to see the paunchy moustached Mammootty on the opposite table slurp his sambar or payassam from elbow to fingernail, all is as well as can be…

The drive through Kannur and north kerala is not very exciting, as the roads are wider, the thoroughfare is slightly more and has less of a rustic feel… as someone once told me, the main source of revenue in Kerala is Money Order, and this is well evident in the large grossly ornated banglows you see all along the way… the dear old son toiling away in an oil rig or the more educated one working in an auto showroom there, does not mind his prodigal father proudly advertising this to one and all, in all forms of impressionist architecture…

There were two lovely stretches before we reached Mangalore though… The NH-17 passes right through Thalassery, a small beautiful city on the same Malabar coast… With ramparts of the old French fort on one side and the parallel shoreline falling away on the other, this place is distinctly different from anything else you see in the entire journey… single storey houses and cobble stoned pathways lie on either side of the small road (which actually IS the NH-17 itself)… I believe, because of some tax relief that this city enjoys, almost every 4^th shop is a wine shop and at every 100 meters lies a petrol pump; on both side of the road… it’s a pity that we didn’t stop there to look around more…

The second unforgettable stretch is between Kasargod & Mangalore… I wanted to see if I could hug the coastline as far as possible, even if it meant abandoning the NH-17 for a while… I found one such opportunity right here… the NH-17 diverges to the right, while a narrower road turns to the left, running parallel to the shore… and it was amazing to discover that as the road went up and down the hills with the shoreline right below, as some places the dip was exaggerated to more than a 40 degree incline… the car would cruise down a steep incline only to start on another climb immediately, all of this on a straight road with not a single vehicle along the entire stretch… it was truly an experience that will stay with me for a long time… 

We reached Mangalore by evening and halted for the night there… at night we went out for a cosy dinner and drinks… needless to say, as during this entire journey, we once again feasted, with fish being the main ingredient on our plate…

We decided to retire to bed early, as we had a long day chalked ahead as well…