An Adventure Trip to Turds' Beach

Malpe Beach is the place to be.  Just 8 kilometres west of Manipal, it’s a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.  ‘Swim at your own peril during monsoons’ says the warning sign, but the local press runs stories of whole families perishing in the wild 1 foot surf at any other time.  Wet saris clearly don’t function well as life preservers!  But I digress.

The southern of Malpe Beach has a fishing port, ship building yard and extensive breakwater, which affords some protection from the large monsoon waves, possibly even rideable.  Calm conditions and a low tide expose numerous clumps of brown soft rocks, or so it seems.  But closer inspection reveals evidence of the national statistic that says, around 67 percent of the population still defecates in public.  So we renamed the spot, Turds’ Beach – a bit of a play on “Purd’s” Beach, for obvious reasons.

Still more digression, as the road from Udupi to Malpe/Turds’ to check the surf is a narrow winding potholed and congested ‘road’ where safety first has to be one’s primary consideration.  Stuck behind a brown Eicher truck (How unusual!) doing a hefty 30kmph, I was being overtaken on a blind corner on a bridge, by a suicidal Suzuki driver.  Forced off the road, well to the point of resistance as said vehicle confronted the oncoming bus – I think it was called “Shezha” – so you can imagine, pretty run down and moving fast, for fear of ‘missing out’.  When resistance results in body contact of the vehicular metal, glass and plastic type, you know the situation is tight.  What can you do?  Lay on the horn.  Thank god the rear view mirror is spring loaded.  Say a few ‘Hail Mary’s’, or ‘Om Shanti’s’ to Shiva.

Suzuki stops.  Out jumps an aggressive Indian male, and his girlfriend (or was it his mother), shouting abuse about It’s his country.  His road.  His rules.  And why was I trying to overtake him on the left?  Not logic there.  Accept the abuse.  Mutter something about leaving me out of his death wish, and drive on.

Later, checking the Indian Road Rules (Hah?) on the government website, I find: it’s illegal to pass on the left (Well here they pass on the left, right and middle.) so that can’t be correct; illegal to pass if “if your action endangers or inconveniences” vehicles travelling in either direction (nonsense again), or the vehicle being overtaken does not indicate it’s safe to do so.  I must have given the head wobble reflexively, to communicate, Do whatever!

Turds on the road as well as turds on the beach, made my day.