Captivating Coorg!

Some of the most exciting vacations are the ones that are completely unplanned. And I can sure vouch for at least one such! The national bandh called on 5th July provided a long wished, extended weekend for a quick getaway. Unfortunately, the office folks announced it too late on Friday evening to plan a holiday well. Adamant as I and Ritu are, we decided the limited time to plan is not going to get in our way of taking a break that we have been planning for the past 6 months. Coorg, located just 250 kms or 5 hours from Bangalore was not just an option, it’s something that we have been thinking of since the past 3 years since I first visited this amazing place.

So finally at 11 pm on Friday, we decided we were definitely heading off to Coorg – with no confirmed accommodation, no camera, no idea about the places to visit and very limited knowledge of the route…..so much for the generally, professionally-well planned me and the every outing-well planned Ritu. Anyways, so we took off the Mysore highway pretty early for a Saturday morning and boy, wasn’t the drive truly amazing. I have always been fascinated by all forms of engineering marvels and such highways just add to my fantasies. A sumptuous breakfast at Kamath Lokaruchi, fuel tank topped up and I was in the mood for an early siesta. But the idea of revving my car at over 100 kms an hour was enticing enough to grab the wheel once again. I don’t remember when was the last time I did that. Bangalore traffic and its infamous interceptors far outweigh any acceleration specs any car brochure publishes.

There are a number of small towns en route Mysore, but what’s more interesting are their nicknames. First there’s the Silk City Ramanagara, then comes the Sugar City Mandya and then the historical town of Srirangapatna. If my history grades testify, I guess it’s the place where Tipu Sultan fought the British. Moving on, apparently Coorg is known as the Scotland of the East.

Cruising along, enjoying the drive with an eye on (as I-just-realized) my limited CD library, we reached Kushalnagar. This town has a very popular Buddhist monastery, surprisingly called the Golden Temple. I am not sure if it is inspired from the one by the same name in Amritsar. I was surprised by the sheer number of (from what looked like and I spoke to one) Tibetan monks. These monks have made Kushalnagar their home – it’s almost as if you are in a completely Buddhist town and you see practically everyone with features similar to India’s north-eastern population. One cannot help but marvel at the sheer serenity of the temple and the huge 60 ft. statues of the Buddhas, and at the same time wonder why they chose Kushalnagar, a place that’s so far from Tibet to meditate, learn and pray.

The next stop was supposed to be a homestay that I had temporarily blocked as accommodation. I have been told by a number of people that homestays are comfortable and cheap. It took me close to 2 hours to find ours and while the place was beautiful, I wasn’t comfortable encroaching on someone’s privacy (and vice-versa). Our room was inside the bungalow, through the living room without any private access route. We came out within minutes. As much as I had enjoyed the drive through single lane, muddy roads lined with coffee plantations on both sides and the beautiful cottage with a huge courtyard in the midst of a coffee estate, I was equally disappointed by the prospect of exchanging uninteresting pleasantries with total strangers on a long due, holiday time with my wife.

So here we were – 5 hours of driving, completely exhausted, not visited a single tourist spot and no place to rest. We could have either checked into a hotel (but all within our budget were full) or head back home. The latter wasn’t an option after the long day. So we tried our luck at one of the hotel agents and he offered us a private cottage by the Kaveri river at a pretty comfortable price. Sounds good? Not until we reached the place. Again the drive was amazing (and I keep on saying that), but once there the cottage (1 amongst 5) was a really small, cramped up place. We didn’t have an option, so we stay put and crashed to rest.

The next morning, I thought we’d take a stroll around the river that apparently is the USP of this cottage. Everything around Coorg is named after Kaveri river….Kaveri estates, Kaveri hotels, Kaveri travels, Kaveri adventures…..for that matter Bangalore gets its water from Kaveri. The name has disappointed me since its water doesn’t flow to my home and I have to buy drinking water every week. This after being such an honest tax payer all 5 years of my professional life! Perhaps the curiosity to check out the personally non-gratifying river led me to check out its banks. I must admit, it wasn’t all that great, but not too bad either. Check it yourself here:

Next, we headed off to Abbey falls. Winding through a long road uphill and then down the valley, this waterfall was well worth the previous night’s anguish. One look at this picture and you’d know why. You can hear the waterfall from a distance and feel its cool drops (tushaar as they call it in Marathi) as you stand on the bridge. How I wish I had a similar mini-waterfall in my home…..sometime soon!

Since we were already past noon, there was limited time to see something else in the day before we began our back-to-boring home sojourn; we thought we’d make the most of what’s available. So the next stop was Dubare. This place is famous for its elephant park-of-sorts and river rafting. We were pretty late to see elephants, but we did catch a glimpse of one across the (once again) Kaveri river. We were more interesting in rafting though. So we bought the tickets, clamped on our helmets and life jackets, played with our oars and jumped into our raft, only to be thrown off right in the middle of the river. Kaveri isn’t that bad, dude! It was cold, still and it’s water gushed into my ears…..hey, but how often do you enjoy this kinda thing? Back on to the raft, a few kms down the river, tired rowing, I wanted to dive back in….and I did. This time it wasn’t the same……the first time is always more memorable…..it always sets the benchmark…..and that applies to everything!

7.5 kms of unskilled, haphazard rowing left me completely exhausted. Thankfully, there was a Mahindra Commander jeep waiting to take us back to the starting point. How I wish I was driving it. After a good lunch, we started our drive back home……and again it was awesome…..only until we reached the Mysore highway. Reality strikes! I had to show off my lane cutting, two-wheeler blocking, truck and bus overtaking maneuvers and what better than the SH17 to test them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t half as good as my co-drivers.

Completely drained of any energy, we reached home and the only thing that I could remember from the journey was…..you guessed it…..the drive. Just as my wife enlightened me sometime during the holiday, the journey (or in this case as I read it) is more enjoyable than the destination. And in case of Coorg, it’s captivating!

PS: A word of advice, if you plan to drive to Coorg – stock your car’s glove box with piles of audio…..you will always run out of them. As for me, I wished I had some more old Hindi songs’ CDs……coffee estate lined roads, Kishore Kumar and the person you love by your side…..who the hell needs to plan holidays more than that?