Day 27, 28 : 1, 2 Feb 2014 : Manipal - Karkala - Mangalore

At the house of Mr Kunil and Mrs Zubeida

Outside Sonia Clinic with the Rotary team as they say bye to us..

Cdr Ramachandran at NITTE

The team at NITTE

The team on the stage at NITTE

Along with the young skaters

Outside the hospital..

The team of Roshini Nilaya welcoming us

People welcome us...

At Roshini Nilaya

Tree planting at Roshini Nilaya

Kids perform for us

We were supposed to cycle to Mangalore, but the students at KS Hegde Institute of Management, NITTE, decided that we should take rest and sent a bus to Sonia Clinic at 7am. We had an hr and half long journey to the college campus, where we had breakfast at the Girl’s hostel. This was followed by a lovely session at their auditorium with the students. The Director of the institute was present as was Cdr Ramachandran who has been instrumental in arranging our logistics at Karkala and Mangalore. He summarised our expedition beautifully. We introduced our team and our purpose and Maj Ashwini gave a presentation about Everest.

We had the rest of the day free and managed to get some sight seeing done. We visited the Bahubali in Karkala and a beautiful church. Peaceful dinner and sleep followed.

The next day we decided to head into Mangalore earlier than was planned. We were invited for lunch to the residence of a friend – Mr Kunil and Mrs Zubeida. As we entered the gate of their house, we were wonder-stuck at the beauty of their house. I think it is the most beautiful house that any of us have ever seen. Most of the outer walls are made of glass and since the house is on a hill, one gets a view of entire Mangalore from there. Not only that, she had cooked amazing food for us and this was followed by the famous Gadbad icecream. Friends of theirs brought gadbad for all of us and came to meet with us. It was such a wonderful afternoon.

And the day was not over.. We had a lot more to come. We unloaded our cycles at Karnataka Polytechnic and went to Mangalore Skating Club. And there we saw the 28 skaters who were supposed to skate with us for about 5 kms. The skaters were from the age group of 6 to 20 and the little ones were so so cute.. and they were all in tights and helmets and looked like little angles. We cycled behind them while the parents and organisers managed the traffic. As we reached Father Muller Hospital, we were greeted by a band and many students holding banners and shouting slogans. We walked from there to Roshani Nilaya, where a function was planned.

As we reached Roshani Nilaya, we were greeted by ladies holding aarati plates and flowers. We were taken for tree planting and then there was a group that did a folk dance for us. We then entered the auditorium and sat on the dias. A grand function followed and there was a long question and answer session after that.

Dinner and sleep at Roshani Nilaya was nice. As we finished dinner, Cdr Ram and his wife Jayanti again brought gadbad and tiramisu ice creams for the entire lot of us. OMG! We ate 2 huge ice creams in one day... :)