A few years ago, I decided that every year we would visit at least one Indian national park (or wildlife sanctuary). We began with Corbett; then Kaziranga, Little Rann of Kutch, Sariska… and earlier this year, my daughter suggested Nagarhole. The genesis of this suggestion lay in a book, Sutapa Basu’s Murder in the Jungle, which I had gifted the LO (‘Little One’, though we all agree that at 11, she’s no longer little). I had met Sutapa at the book event where I bought this book, and chatting with the author, was told that Nagarhole is one of her favourite wildlife parks in the country. A snippet I passed on to the LO, who was even more enthused after she’d read the book, which is set in Nagarhole.

So Nagarhole it was. But to go halfway across the country just to see a national park, especially when it’s in a part of the country the LO has never been to, seemed pointless. A longer trip, a more detailed itinerary, seemed logical.

I will not waste time and space describing the many iterations our itinerary went through, the many options that we considered before finally settling on a doable journey. We would fly from Delhi to Mangalore, and after staying a day there, we’d drive down to Madikeri (the district headquarters of Coorg). A couple of days would be spent exploring Madikeri and around, and then we’d go to Nagarhole, to spend three days there before heading back to Mangalore to catch the flight back home.

I will admit I knew next to nothing about Mangalore before I began planning this trip. Thanks to some research I’d done some years back on Christmas traditions and Christmas foods (for this book), I knew that Mangalore had been occupied by the Portuguese, who—as in Goa, further down the west coast—had left their mark, in the vibrant Catholic community of Mangalore. I knew, too, that Mangalore has some pretty mouthwatering food.