Heylo people! After 14 hours of undisturbed sleep which was preceded by 120 hrs of non stop travel by car ( diesel one) all I can say is that my fatigue is over temporarily and that I am all ready for a new blogpost. I heard that there was a blogger meltdown for 2 days and am thankful that I was not put through that torture of data corruption and was instead on the top of some mountain sipping CCD coffee!
With that positive note I would like to start this post – which is a mini tourist guide to the hill station Coorg and places surrounding it. The important characters in this guide will be :
Me – who is the narrator, Semi , and this whole post is my perspective
Y – Who thinks that the word ‘me’ belongs to him and is apparently my brother too.
S – My close bff , family friend and got the status of ‘cousin’ in this trip (although I think that the word friends sums up all)
Appa – My dearest daddy , who was high and energetic all through the trip and even had the spunk to move is tummy around and dance wildly one night!
Amma – My lovely ‘lap’ whenever I was sick and the loud ‘slap’ whenever I was sick ( the other meaning) =P
Neha – The girl who traveled in the other car , my dad’s colleague’s daughter , was fun to be with =)
Shreya – Neha’s cousin, she loves elephants!
Subash uncle – Neha’s dad and the cautious driver of the car behind us.
Charles uncle – Our quiet driver, who drove through all our nonsense
Road Travel –
Dearest tourist , if you want to have the maximum amount of fun my family recommends road travel as you can listen to Deva’s Gaana hits and scream at the kids on the road with no one monitoring you – which is not possible in train/plane. However , me being the affected party would suggest all carsick people not to try this , especially if you have an engine which needs diesel , or a brother who has a voice equivalent to a whistle!
If you do continue amidst all these warnings, remember to take a good collection of CD’s or at least someone’s car which has a good one.
When taking please remember to throw out 80’s albums which your parents have memories with – as they tend to repeat the same CD. Especially Mohan hits.
Basically traveling in car is fun , when you have lots of junk food , good music , a reliable driver and eccentric parents(who do not get to drive) . As we had all ; it was helluva fun.
Also make sure that you don’t know the directions! Asking the way , losing it and figuring it out yourself makes you an expert by the end of the trip. We actually lost our way , when we took the tumkur road for the Mysore
S saw our family’s craziest side when Manmadhan Ambu CD was played =P We knew all the lyrics by heart – specially ME! When asked Y which word he understood of kamal kavidhai he candidly replied ‘vendum’ .
When Traveling from Chennai to Coorg, it is advisable to halt in some place. Bangalore
Visiting taco bell, the Shiva temple made of ice and iskaan temple (my personally favorite) is not a bad idea. Our rest was in my dad’s aunt’s place which beamed till the brim with love , coffee and cricket where csk beat the hell out of Rajasthan Royals. So obviously everyone had a good night’s sleep.
Next day we started going towards Coorg , that was when I started getting sick. Words of advice – never have cold coffee and doughnut before a long drive , rather have the famous Mysore
Amma’s lap is also a nice proposition, you get the love , care and most importantly the space to keep your head and sleep. =)
Coorg
Is actually the name of a coffee estate and has many places to it. The orange county is the best resort but geographically is in the lower end of the hill, To get the best out of the place , opt for the madikeri town , which has the best climate and is closer to important locations.
Every 5 kms of Coorg has 1 ccd shop! Ain’t that cool?? You can shop a lot of condiments, spices, home made squashes, fruit wines (!) and honey bottles there. There are a lot of cheap and actually cool home stays in Coorg and we got to stay in one. It costs only about 500 rs a person and gives us vast space and clean boarding. Food is innovative too.
Places to visit :
Talacauvery – The origin of cauvery river! The perfect spot to be called hilly and religious. It is properly exploited and the temple is beautiful , you can walk a 400 steps to be wowed by the views and the pure cauvery water is so pure and fresh that you can’t stop drinking it!!
Abbey falls – Beautiful falls with a nice history . Only that can be said about it. Maybe you can take some pics near the falls. There is the illusion that you can have a bathe there I am not gonna cheat you people – the place strictly prohibits you fron even touching the water. I am revealing this because we had to walk a long distance only to be disappointed with stunning views and nothing else.
You get yummy cucumbers , buttermilk , mangoes here! ;)
Flower show – There was a beautiful park in madikeri , which was just a street away from our home stay. You can get the freshest air , see the best of flowers , the most stunning views and cool laser shows all for 5 rupees only! Perfect spot for enjoying the vacation with your family!
Elephant camp – Some kilometers away from Coorg , in a place called Dubara , you find an island filled with elephants! There you can shed all your apprehensions and become one among the wild. You get to bathe the elephant , see it get fed and of course ride on it!! You also get yummy tender coconuts . If all these aren’t tempting enough here is the real deal – you can walk back in the water to the island!
It is slippery , running water but it comes upto only 2 feet , so even the cautious ones get wet and in the end are pushed to have fun! Falling in the water was Y’s deliberate and my unfortunate job! I ended up with an almost broken finger , amma with a red leg , but we didn’t complain as the water shut us up!
There is also a rafting outfit there!
Tibetan Monastery – How the hell did a Tibetan village come somewhere in Karnataka border? God knows! Actually Dalai Lama does xD When he came here it seems he set up a whole monastery and culture here! So without even going to north
Kings sanctuary – Appa showed us that he was a business man when he coaxed a 10,000 rupees room for 4,500! The resort was awesome fun with 225 mango trees , luxurious rooms , wild bonfire dances where everyone got to showcase their dancing skills including appa , Subash uncle and Y of course . I have to appreciate the human acting as the gorilla and the lion who tried to scare me , but all I could see was a skinny guy inside! =D
Half a km from there you get to go into Nagerhole wildlife sanctuary , where you go on safaris . This is the real deal , this is no private zoo, Animals behave naturally and we saw hundreds of beautiful deers , which gave us enough proof that the tigers where tamer there. All we got to see of a tiger, was its paw mark =P , we did see some exotic monkeys (which were already aplenty inside the bus) , birds and elephants. However the ride itself was fun as the road was the bumpiest thing we encountered in our lives!
So do please visit these wild and yet wonderfully exploited places. What is important in all this is that we traveled as a family and had some 'us' time. So being together is important , the lions and deers preach us that and going on a vacation every year is never so bad .........is it?
Yours coorgily
hey i hv posted your link in my facebook
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for linking up at the Travel Tuesday meme, I look forward to your next contribution.
Thank you :D but i haven't travelled much though :P This might just inspire me to
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