Wandering alone in Karnataka - Part 6: Plan, Cost and Suggestions!

Hi Guys,

To read Part 1, click here (The Start)
To read Part 2, click here (Exploring Hampi)

To read Part 3, click here (Reminiscence of Vijayanagar Kingdom)

To read Part 4, click here (Hampi-Dudhsagar-Madgaon-Murdeswar)

To read Part 5, click here (Udupi and Around)

In final part of the series, I will jot down the plan I had executed along with costs and provide some suggestions as well. By the way, this is my 250^th Blog Post (It has been 7 years, 1 month and 16 days since I started!)

Travel Plan

I started on a Saturday night from Chennai and reached back Chennai after 8 days on a Sunday morning in the following route

Dep	Arr	Train No/Name	Dep Time	Arr Time	Remarks
Chennai	Bangalore	12607/Lalbagh Express	15:35	21:35
Bangalore	Hosapete	16592/Hampi Express	22:00	07:10 (+1 Day)
Hosapete	Madgaon	17603/KCG YPR Express	6:20	13:55	Slip Train. 4 Days a week
Madgaon	Murdeswar	16311/BKN KCVL Exp	9:30	12:22	Only on Thursdays
Murdeswar	Udupi	13654/Bangalore Exp	16:30	18:15
Mangalore	Chennai	12686/Chennai Exp	16:20	08:00(+1 Day)

Out of the 6 trips, I had booked 2S in Lalbagh, 3AC in Hampi-Madgaon & Madgaon-Murdeswar stretches, Sleeper in rest. Given the crowd in Madgaon-Murdeswar stretch, I felt travelling by Unreserved coach would have even be fine and 3AC was not required. The total cost of train tickets came to around Rs. 2500.

Stay

I stayed in the following places

• Hampi – Lakshmi Heritage homes (Rs. 900 per night for Non AC – One of the good places you will find in center of Hampi)
• Madgaon – Hotel Greenview (Rs. 600 per night for Non AC – I stayed here as the Railway retiring room got cancelled in last minute – you could find better hotels)
• Udupi – Hotel Shambhavi (Rs. 1100 per night for Non AC – again had an Airbnb option for Rs. 750 per night which was cancelled by Host. The hotel is nearby bus stand and a very good one).

I booked Hampi and Udupi via Cleartrip and effectively spent only around 2/3^rd of the total cost. The total cost of Hotel Reservations came to around Rs. 4100

Other expenses included around Rs. 3000 for food, Rs. 1000 for local travel (Cylce, Auto, Bus) and some miscellaneous expenses in temples and museums. Effectively, the trip made be spend around Rs. 11000 (well within the budget of Rs. 15000 I had in mind). I had got no souvenirs or made any shopping except for cashew nuts in Madgaon due to the limitations of having only a rucksack.

Suggestions

Most of my trip went on plan except at a few places. Making some quick suggestions to people wanting to explore the places

Hampi

• There will be no network connectivity in most places. Download Offline Maps before heading to. Google Maps might be confusing to identify places, Satellite version works better.
• Constantly look out for Hampi Map put by tourism department and places around the current location.
• If you are short on time, hire an Auto. The place is huge.
• A few places are secluded on Off days. Though I faced no troubles, I avoided venturing into a few places

Madgaon

• I had a very short stay here and visited Colva beach.
• Though I consciously avoided Goa, after coming back from the trip, I had a feel that having travelled that far, I should have spent one more day either in Goa/Gokarna/Karwar
• Jog falls is also a nice place around here, but travelling to and fro would take atleast a day

Udupi

• Udupi left me confused in terms of the number of places around to visit.
• Do a good research before heading and choose from the following list – Kollur, Agumbe, Karkala, Kundapur, Mudabidri, Dharmastala, Malpe/Kaup Beaches. Most of the places will take around half-one full day. So, decide your interest and head out.

It was a nice trip visiting different set of places over a week. Hope you enjoyed reading my series on it.

Happy Reading!