Day 14: Madgaon – Kankon

The day the big snooze hit. Krishnan woke up at six and left for the docks, while the rest of us slept on till 9:30am, had breakfast, slept, had lunch and slept again. At 5pm, we set off for Kankon/Chaudi (Canacona). The forested road had low gradients throughout, except for a ghat section that was quite long and steep and we had to dismount. It was dark by now and I had a good night trek through the forest with the half moon directly overhead, only interrupted by the frequent passages of vehicles with their blinding headlights.

We reached Kankon at nine, parked at the Police Station and went to have grub at the local Udupi restaurant. The restaurant was a haltover for tourist buses and prices were on the higher side than elsewhere. At the table next to ours sat a Tamilian who knew only Tamil, and seemed to have some problem with the waiter, who didn’t. We obliged and intervened. The Tamilian spoke with Shyam, who spoke to Madhu who in turn spoke to the waiter in Kannada. A lively conversation ensued. Unfortunately, at the end of it all, our Tamilian discovered that his bus had left without him. We offered to take him ahead on our cycles. 4km down the road, his bus had fortunately stopped for diesel. The Tamilian became so sentimental that he hugged Krishnan and vowed he would never forget us. A lot of his Tamilian friends also alighted and there was general goodwill all around, although few could understand the others’ language.

Estimate of distance covered today: 37km