I had seen photos of the bekal fort posted by a few people who had ventured there, i was enthralled by its beauty and had a desire to visit it. Though its not all that elusive and is quite well known but it hasn't had a great tourist following. So when i set about scouting for info i could get only precious little. The one thing that works in its favor is its proximity to mangalore and hence is easily accessible. All i had to do was book tickets on the ypr-mnglr express, but little did i know that the day we chose to travel, a goods train would derail ahead of us inside a tunnel blocking the route for a few hours. we reached mangalore 5-6 hours late. From there we caught another train to kasargod, its just a 1 hour journey. I had found out a few hotels from people i knew who belonged to kasargod and chose one which they said is the best, Apsara Regency, its more of a lodge but cheap on the pocket.
We set out for Bekal fort from there around 4 pm, we didnt know the tickets to go inside are sold only till 5:30 pm and entry is not allowed after 6 pm. This was not mentioned anywhere except at the fort entrance. We pursuaded them n got in anyways and had a first hand experience of what i had seen only in photos and heard descriptions of. The sight form the fort is spell binding, one could sit there for hours just taking in the magnificent view it offered. It was so good that we decided we would come again to it the next morning. It been maintained very well by the local body. Traveling is easy even without your own vehicle, all the things worth visiting are in one straight line (road) and local transport available (ksrtc buses) is enough. A hired taxi will save some precious time.
apart from bekal fort which in itself will take better part of a day, there's Chandragiri fort(not much left of it), a few ashrams(not much to look at apart from the 40 man made caves carved outta of a single stone at nileshwar ashram). One more major attraction are the houseboats but they need advance booking especially on weekends. we could only get a one hour ride. They are luxurious but few in number, the major hotspot for houseboats being Alleypey. The backwaters ate valiaparamba are said to be the most beautiful in the country and there were a lot of flying fishes who came out to see us, it was indeed a magnificent ride, they even let u jump into the water with lifejackets on. Of course there's the usual snack/food on board with of course, music. Then there's the beautiful lighthouse at kasargod, just like any other light house(incidentally they are all awe inspiring). A hill station called Ranipuram is around 50 kms from bekal but it needs one full day so we decided to skip it.
There will be plenty of places enroute where the backwaters meet the sea, we got down at one such place and saw a fisherman cast his net and he was managing to get a good haul too. but these locations are slightly dicey and one should tread with care, there could be quicksand at such places. the fisherman told us that the depth could all of a sudden go upto 20 feet at such places due to heavy water flow. But they are extremely scenic all the same.
If time permits you can visit gokarna.om beaches near mangalore too and sea bathing is possible in bekar fort beach, punambur, malpe,etc.
It was a very fruitful trip without denting our respective bank balances significantly.
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