Coorg (May 23rd 2008)

Coorg is there in my list for quite some time. Finally we made it over this weekend (May 23rd). This time it is just our family (Usha, Srujana and I) travelled. Because of project issues, I had to stay back late in the office till 9:30 pm on May 22nd. I had to postpone my original plan of starting early morning at 5:00 am. After breakfast we started at around 9:15 am from home. Nothing write about Bangalore traffic. By the time, we reached outskirts of Bangalore it was 11:30 am. This time we skipped Kamat's Lokaruchi and tried lunch at Indra Dhanush. We did not like the food and I would not recommend to any one. This comes after Ram Nagar on the right hand side (Bangalore to Mysore). After Lunch we started at around 2:00 pm. Luck did not favour us. There was road block by some political party just after Sri Ranga Patnam. We were stranded for 1 hour in in the midst of the traffic. Again started from there around 4:00 pm. Took some time in Mysore to connect to Hunsur road. This is first travel after I bought GPS. GPS also failed to show correct route. I took the help from locals after that it is joy ride. Road from Mysore to Peria Pattanam is great with low traffic. There is a stretch of 2.6 KMs bad road at Peria Pattanam. To cover this it took 20 minutes.
Our initial plan is to stop at Bylekuppe and proceed to Madikere. Because it is becoming late (we reached Bylekuppe at 5:00 pm) we decided to go to resort first. On the way we stopped at Nisargadhama (just after Kushal Nagar) for coffee break. Again bad patches till we reached Madikere. It is 7:30 pm and almost dark and complete opposite to Bangalore crowd. I could not find single person on the road. Capitol Village resort is 5 kms from Madikere. We had scary drive from there on the narrow road without any people in the visibility and no lights. The approach road to resort is more scary. Anyways finally we made to the resort by 7:40 pm. We got ready for dinner by 8:15 pm. Dinner is Rs. 100 buffet and it is good.
Morning as usual I woke up at 5:00 am and looked out side window. The resort is located almost middle of forest kind of environment. It is dark and there are lot of trees. I spent 30 minutes to clean the car and we started at 6:15 am (on 24th May) to reach Raja's seat. The place that looked scary in the night was very pleasant now, after a brief drive, we reached Raja's seat at 6:25. The view is breathtaking.we spent about 20 minutes and from there we left for Thalacauvery,the birth place of river cauvery. We reached Tala cauvery at around 8:30 am. The road is good other than little patches for 4 to 5 kms in the beginning. Someone should drive very carefully because it is ghat road, narrow and there are many curves.

The view of Brahmagiri hills is great from Talacauvery. Though we did not dip into water, there are lot of devotees did holy bath. We reached back resort at 10:15 am. Breakfast got over and we had to satisfy with bread and omelet. Later we attempted forest walk with the help of a local guide, but did not enjoy much because of torching heat. We came to back to resort had lunch and took rest for one hour. I had a nice sleep. While vacating the resort, I asked the manager to reach Kushalnagar. He drew a nice map and also pointed Duberi elephant camp. This time we took Siddapur road and the road is fantastic. However it is narrow with lot of S curves and not advisable to go beyond 50 kmph. We reached Duberi at around 4:15. We need to cross cavery to reach the other side Ferry costed us rs. 20 per head other wise the elephant show is free (from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm). It’s good experience to Srujana.

We started at 5:00 pm from there and reached Kushal Nagar at around 5:30 pm. Bylekuppe is Tibetan settlement and the little google search revealed that they have been there from 60s. I also spoke with them. The person I spoke born and brought up at Bylekuppe it self and never went to Tibet till now. They looked fairly happy and smiling. I also happened to see monks playing cricket and that looked different. Recently I read that Budhist monks are the inventors of marshal arts and when they moved from India, they also took these arts along with them. And now they are playing cricket!!! There are total 5 camps in Bylekuppe. This is nice different place and suddenly you get a feeling you are entering a foreign country without Visa and Flight.

We left Bylekuppe after doing little shopping at around 7:15 pm. Our next destination is Mysore where we had to attend Ranjini’s (Tesco friend) marriage. The journey from Byle kuppe to Mysore is fairly good (I was psychologically ready to face that 2.6 Kms bad stretch). We reached Mysore at around 8:30 pm. Next day morning we attended marriage and reached Bangalore at around 4:45 pm in the evening. Because of election results there was slow traffic. But otherwise the journey was good.

Best Practices:

Finally GPS I bought and used GPS
Pre decided on what to see
Booked the resort before starting (just before starting)
Carried India route map and 52 weekends book

Lessons learnt:
GPS is not so useful. Still I depended on locals for directions
Friday started bit late and that bit late was converted to too much late because of traffic problems
Should carry important medicines and a torch.

Somanathapura

This is memorable travel for bad reasons. The roads are bad, it's painful to travel in mid summer in dusty roads. We started from Bangalore at around 6:15 am. Picked up Harish and Neelima on our way. Swapna and Shekhar also joined with us. This time we took Kanakpura road from Banashankari and joined NICE road to connect to Mysore road. We stopped for Breakfast at Kamakth on the way (Rs. 60 per head). Ofcourse from here we made multiple mistakes.
Mistake #1: In fact we planned to go to Bhimeshwari fishing camp. But Somanathapura is in our pending wish list. So we planned to go there first and on the return we planned to reach Bhimeshwari.
Mysore is good. We took left turn to Malavalli. One interesting thing here is the Sunday cattle market. On a stretch of close to one KM, there are many cows, buffaloes for sale.
Mistake #2 : We did not ask anyone for directions. We travelled 6 Kms extra instead of taking right turn to Somanathpura.
We took an U-turn and came back. The roads are pathetic and they are in such bad shape, I do not recommend any one to go to this place. A stretch of 19 Kms took more than 90 minutes. Finally reached the temple at 12:30.
Without any doubt, temple is great and in the similar (Hoyasala) style of Belur, Halibedu.

Mistake#3: We avoided the road that we took to reach Somanathpura and took one more road, which goes to Talakad assuming that, new road will be better. In fact it is worse than the previous road. After doing many enquiries, finally we reached Talakad (it is not in our list). Spent 30 minutes there. The place is very crowded. We started from Talakad at around 3:15 pm (no lunch).

Mistake#4: We asked for directions to go to Bhimeshwari, some one showed a narrow road (right turn while coming back from Shivana Samudram to Malavalli). But after travelling for 10+ kms we realised that it will not take us to Bhimeshwari.

Again came back to original road. Finally, we took a right turn on to reach Kanakpura and on the way saw a board which says 19 km to Bhimeshwari. By the time we exhausted fully and decided to reach bangalore asap to catch up with Monday blues.

PS: The roads are so bad, after two days Neelima said, she is still feeling like as if she is walking on the clouds. There is always next time and we will do it better with a smile!!!