Summer Sands
I stay in Bangalore and perhaps like most Bangaloreans crave to get out of the noisy, choked city whenever a chance presents itself. Luckily there are a few locations within a comfortable day’s drive. Last December I decided to visit the coastal town of Mangalore, as my young son wanted to see a beach [so far most of our vacations have been in the hills]. After some net surfing, I found a resort called Summer Sands that appeared promising. I booked a cottage room over the phone and had to be content with a non-AC room, as the others were booked. There was some miscommunication on the booking, because I called up again after a week and was told that since I had not paid the amount in advance, they had cancelled my booking! Anyway, I transferred some amount over the Net and managed to keep a room.
I started from Bangalore at 4 am and quite soon was enjoying the smooth roads [in contrast to Bangalore roads]. The scenery was lovely and the highway kept winding up till we were into the hilly section. Just before Hassan we found a Karnataka tourism restaurant where we had a delightful breakfast of hot dosa/idli. This was the only decent spot for miles around, so it turned out to be a wise decision for a break. Similarly, there was another KTDC restaurant just after the hilly ghat section ended, where we stopped for a snack.
The distance of roughly 325 kms was covered in 8 hours that included 2 stops and it was the hilly section that caused most of the slower driving. But the scenery and road made up for it all.
We reached Summer Sands well in time for lunch and checked in. The non-AC room was part of a cottage that had 3 rooms. It was a bit disappointing as it was rather cramped and had just one small window for light and no view at all. The furnishings were nothing to speak about and there was no TV even. Thankfully the bathroom was clean and reasonable. I tried to get the room changed, but all rooms were full or booked and the reception persons were unwilling to listen or bother about such things. After a lot of reminders, I managed to get a TV installed by evening. Room service was a real pain, so we decided to avoid eating in the room, and walked down to the restaurant instead.
Lets talk about the good stuff though first!
There is a pretty nice and clean swimming pool and I had good fun in it with my wife and son.
The lawns are big and one can relax on deck chairs or hammocks and soak in the sun, and take a dip in the pool, when it gets too hot.
The beach is so close to the cottages, that it’s a pleasure to walk down and get into the sea, knowing that one can quickly shower and change back in the room.
The beach is almost private so there are very few people to stare at you or clutter up the area. In fact it’s the cleanest beach I have seen, and is very relaxing.
The resort has a small games area where one can pay and have a game of billiards.
The food was OK and the fish dishes were quite tasty.
Summer Sands should improve upon:
The staff at the reception is quite slow, as are the room service guys.
Better quality of room décor and furnishings
The restaurant needs to be totally revamped and given a new look.
The beach can be provided with a lifeguard as the sea is very rough.
For dinners, we decided to skip Summer Sands and instead tried out a couple of places - Moti Mahal in Mangalore and a place on the highway - that were excellent.
In the final analysis, this is a good getaway for 2-3 days provided you just want to laze around and do nothing but swim, lie on the beach and eat.