Recently went on a five day driving trip and covered Jog Falls, Murudeshwar a temple town on the West Coast of Karnataka, Maravanthe , a small beach again on the west coast , Agumbe a hill station in Shimoga and Sringeri and Horanadu temple towns in Chickmagalur district of Karnataka.
We set out on Wednesday 25th August morning and reached Jog after driving through 380 Kms on NH 206. We had earlier planned to stay on in a home stay close to Jog but drove on to Jog. Jog falls has quite a few accomodation options including the Karnataka State Tourism Mayura hotels and a PWD guesthouse. Though not much difference between the two we preferred the PWD guesthouse, which while was very spacious and the windows overlooked the Jog falls fell quite short on the maintenance aspect.
Jog is best during the monsoons when the water flow is the maximum but the disadvantage is that it rains continuously and is very misty so the falls is obscured at times. The other disadvantage was that the steps to the bottom of the falls was getting repaired and hence we could see Jog only from a distance. In addition to the main Jog falls viewing area there are two additional sight-seeing points where one can get a good look at the falls as they start to fall into the mountains, and we visited both these points also.
We had originally planned to relax in Jog but the sad state of our accommodation made us to move on. I have always had a fascination for beaches and decided to head westwards. While the distance from Jog to Honnaver on the west coast of Karnataka is just 60 Kms, the road is through the mountains and is full of bends. Since we started a little late in the evening, it was foggy all through and we made very slow progress and could cover the 60 Kms with a ( break in between )only in about 3 hours.
