“Take only memories, leave only footprints”
Chief Seattle
Prologue:
For last year or more our life has been completely upside down for the pandemic! We kept ourselves within the four walls of our home and spent hours sitting in front of computers attending zoom calls either for office or for school. The time has been stressful. Though some of the “Covidiots” started to go out much before the covid curve was flat, we decided to stay indoors and mostly go for weekend nearby trips. So, a proper vacation was much awaited and much needed. Even though the numbers of Covid infections where low; still lot of cautions had to be taken. Thus, we decided to avoid crowded and popular tourist destinations.
Next question was then where? This time my friend Shibabrata and his family was also going to join us. We both started looking for options within Karnataka as Interstate travel still required Covid negative certificate. It is him who could find this place we never heard of. We checked for stay option and found only one resort that has a semiprivate beach, which means we can spend our own time into the ocean without mingling with lot of tourists. We finalized on Ankola, made our bookings and kept our fingers crossed that we are sound and healthy before the trip starts.
About the place:
Ankola is a taluka of north Karnataka and situated by Arabian Sea and quite less explored. In fact, before planning for this trip I had very little idea about the place. From Gokarna, it is just 20 minutes’ drive towards Karwar. The profile of Ankola is quite like the Gokarna and South Goa. In fact, it is part of same Konkan coastline and has some beautiful and secluded beaches.
How to reach?
There are plenty of buses and trains from Bangalore and Mangalore that go to Ankola. if you are fond of long road trips, then this place is a good driving option from Bangalore or other parts of Southern India. The road is pretty good as it passes through the national highways and some wonderful jungle. If you are taking Shivamogga route: you can drive along the coastal highway.
Our journey:
The map was showing several options to drive from Bangalore, and we took the most obvious one via Bankapur – Yellapur . I have driven on this path several times during our visits to Goa and well aware of the road conditions. We decided to take my friend’s car and share the driving.
5:00 AM is the time when we started from Bengaluru and reached our resort around 5:00 PM. The road was mostly good except stretches of construction work on National Highway 4. We made a couple of pit stops but avoided going to the highway restaurants. We were carrying breakfast and tea which we had in one of those breaks. And the lunch was cooked on road using my portable camping stove. (It has been a savior during post pandemic road trips! Do check it in catalogue section). This another some additional fun element in the journey!
First impression:
When we reached our resort, Red Earth; all of us were excited and awestricken by the view from the parking lot itself! It was an endless open display of the Arabian Sea in front of us! This resort is right on the edge of a hill and next to the Arabian sea. We were also feeling very happy to see so much of trees and greeneries in and around the resort. All of those researches and scouting online finally paid us off as this is the kind of place, we wanted to be in.
Finally, some good time:
Next few days were pretty good and relaxing. Every day we woke up listening to the chirping of birds and I would go for morning walk within the property, while shooting vlog ( why don’t you check that, it’s right there in “Travel Video” section 😊 ) .
The breakfast offered by the resort had good options and everything was served fresh and hot. There is a nice-looking dining hall in the resort with large glass panel windows, but we preferred to make use of the outdoor sitting areas for our breakfasts and meals. As per the WHO guidelines, open air sitting is much safer than indoor due to ventilation. So, every day we used to sit under open sky, surrounded by big trees and have a leisurely breakfast without even looking at our watches.
The Honey beach is semiprivate for Red Earth resort, and one can just walk down, through the stone pave way to enjoy the sand and water. Every day after breakfast we used to spend hours inside the sea and almost all the time, we were alone! We could spend some good time without thinking about social distancing, getting infected by unknown people etc. And the beach is very nice for even kids to enjoy the splash on water. Waves are not very timid, but it is not rough as well to be worried of, if one is careful.
After spending a couple of hours or more in water we always felt very hungry and ate our lunches like monsters! We Bongs love our fish and everything that comes out of the sea 😊 so both lunch and dinner where treats to our soul! And I must say the chef did his job wonderfully in creating some lip-smacking seafood!
Those days were so much unlike our regular weekdays where we have to just rush to finish our food so that next zoom meeting is not missed! Here we could order what we wanted (without cooking and doing dishes 😊 ) and had leisurely meals!
If morning is beautiful, calm and serene from Red Earth then evening is vibrant. From the property itself the sunset is simply mind-blowing!
One can walk down through the private approach to the sea from the resort, sit on those big rocks and watch the magnificent sunset. Or just hike up to the peak and get the wider view off the ocean from the cliff as the sun takes deep in horizon.
One of those days where full moon and it was so magical to spend time by the ocean and watch reflection of moon on water! There was a subtle calmness in the air that helped to sooth our souls that had been entrapped within four walls for last so many months!
One morning, we decided to go for a dolphin ride. If you have taken such rides from beaches of Goa, you will have a different expectation. Since Ankola is not a famous tourist destination, here the boating activities are not organized. These are small motorized canoes primarily used for fishing. The fishermen offer the ride just to earn some quick buck, and there is no one to monitor the movement or enforce the safety protocols and guidelines. You don’t even get life jackets etc. The ride was very bumpy and if you are afraid of water or have motion sickness, I would rather recommend you avoid this activity. Nevertheless we enjoyed a lot and took lot of video footages, it was a fun ride for us.
About the Red Earth Resort:
They call it Red Earth Gokarna though this is in Ankola. (Must be a marketing move to leverage on the popularity of Gokarna) Anyway, this was the kind of place we were looking for. It is right next to the ocean, beautiful property and less known, so there were not much crowd. The service was pretty good, and staffs were cordial. Due to covid they were running with limited number of staffs, but those guys made it sure to deliver whatever we wanted. The beach was semiprivate, so we had no problem and no worries in going out and enjoying our time. The rooms were decent, there was an AC, bed was nice and comfortable. And there was a separate sitting area outside the bedroom with TV and mattress. I could see there are lot of other facilities like souvenir shop, yoga, meditation and massage centers in the resort but due to covid all of those were not operational. Personally, I liked this place and recommend if you are looking for a relaxed stay amidst nature.
Final Verdict:
From this vacation we got everything we wanted. The location is relatively unexplored and good option specially if you want to avoid crowded places and spend couple of days within nature. The drive is also very easy and relaxing so Ankola is a good option in case you are looking for a driving vacation as well. I can completely recommend Ankola to my friends.
P:S: You can watch the entire story in Vlog format here!
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