So this Republic Day long weekend, four adults along with two toddlers planned to head out to coorg... Myself, N and O and our friends S,P and A packed in our elephant(for those who dont know thats what we call our Tata Safari) and to start at 7:30 am was the plan...
I absolutely love Coorg... This is the second time we went there and it was as beautiful as it was the first time... It never does fail to charm...
For me its the heaven in South India... a gorgeous place to say the least
so we started at about 8:20am from our house and I think that was pretty good considering I had O and N also with me ;-) the drive in the city took us pretty long and we picked up the S family at about 9 am from Banarghatta Road and then proceeded on the NICE road to meet the Mysore highway... the traffic on the road was pretty bad... I guess the whole blore was heading out for the long weekend... We stopped for the breakfast break at Barista about 10:30 in the morning and had a stumpous meal of eggs, hash browns and tea... A (about 2.5 yrs old) had a nice pineapple pastry and O had some cereal that I was carrying with me...
O had so much fun here... running around all over the place, going and making friends...
he even went behind the counter so I know if he doesnt do anything else he will atleast be able to sell pastries...
About an hour later and having wiped out all available food on the table we started back towards Mysore and then there is was a huge huge huge traffic jam near Mandya we were stuck for about 45 mins there and we finally managed to cross Mandya 12:30 (127 kms from the base) from Manday to Mysore took us about 50 mins in the midst of traffic and we hit the Mysore ORR at 13:10 (145 kms from base) and took a right turn there to head towards hunsur... the road from here was actually superb... very well metaled and brilliant to drive on and we reached Chilkunda at 14:25 (242 kms from base) and from here we took a left turn in one of the insignificant looking roads... the road was pretty thin from here on we reached Pariapatnum (coorg discrict yippe) at 14:35 (252 kms from base)... till now the landscape looked like plains... no coffee plantations to be seen and we were all getting very disappointed... as we knew that the place we have to go is not very far from here... anyways from here on we drove through a dense jungle patch where the road was just wide enough for the elephant to go if at this time there would have been a vehicle from the opposite side that it would need to go reverse till a point where the two vehicles could pass and now it was getting interesting :)
The only problem we were having was that A was having a bad motion sickness and had thrown up thrice during the trip poor girl...
We reached our friends estate at 15:00 (280 kms from base) and what a lovely place it was... the first thing that happened when we landed their was O and A playing with chickens and dogs... though A was a little scared and my daredevil was trying to catch them...
They had a lovely lake in the back of the estate
had some juice and some yummy Jackfruit sweet made by their granny in their lovely house...
the whole was so nice that I was so J of them to have a place like this to spend the weekends...
After spending about an hour their we started for our final destination the bamboo club in Pollybetta... we went through siddapur and reached Bamboo club at 17:00 (310 kms from base)... A was doing better now and we were all very hungry as lunch had not happened till now so the first thing we did was hit the dining hall and had some nice veg and chicken sandwiches and Ojas had some egg bhurji which was followed by some excellent Coorgi coffee....
The children didnt seem tired at all and immediately found the small play area and had a blast there
The evening was spent drinking in our room with some nice kababs made by the chef... the original plan was to go the bar and have fun being a club they have an excellent bar but P had forgotten to get his shoes which was required to enter the place... The rooms were actually huge with private balconies and it was a evening well spent...
Fierce discussions were had on where we want to next morning...I wanted to go see the Kushal Nagar monastery as I had missed it the last time I went to Coorg too... but P and S were afraid of A's motion sickness and didnt want to drive so far which was fair and hence for the children's sake it was decided that we will go toDubare Elephant Camp
The dinner was gobbled with with dal-rice for the kids and surprising O eat without any fuss though the dal was slightly spicy for him... A did a lot of drama though and eat only french fries and kurkure for dinner... and a brilliant mutton curry and paranthas along with some goobhi aloo... the food was really good
The next morning started by O trying to cuddle with us in the bed which rare and nice in itself as he sleeps in his own cot at home... and then slowly all three of us moved from the bed to the balcony and had fun... this the coffee growing right below the balcony
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and here O's fav game became opening and closing of the balcony door and peeping from it :)
After gulping down the breakfast of eggs and toast and not be missed coorgi coffee... we started for Dubare at round 11:30 or so very well aware that the main attraction in Dubare i.e. the bathing and the feeding of elephants would be over by now but we wanted to show the kids elephants anyways... We reached their about 12:15 or so by the new road suggested by the club guys and the route was lovely... we encountered some beetel trees on the way and they looked so pretty
We also saw the a thin very thin Cauvery flowing, we actually couldnt believe its cauvery but then it was written so.
The first thing that stuck us all when we reached there was boy its damn hot... much much hotter than blore... which was strange and we decided that this weather demands that a ice cream be had... and we all had Chocobars and the kids shared a vanilla cup, interestingly it was O's first ice cream and he loved it...
And then after finishing the ice cream we realized that oops there's a lot of crowd here :) The main park was to be reached by a short boat ride, we took the ticket and stood in queue... S was really worried that the boat will be able to take us to the other end as it looked really shabby and overloaded...
While we waited for the boat O had fun dipping his legs in water, he actually refused to come out
My fearless son O sat on the elephants, touched them and actually wanted to go down and hold his legs...
some of the elephant pics for u :)
the elephant taking bath
The boat ride on the way back...
Post this we argued on where to eat... another fierce discussion with everyone throwing in their view :):) and decided on Orange County and at the entrance in the lobby there was a wood structure on which my son decided to model a little... check out his poses
We had some excellent food and the star of the shows were A and O whom so many people wanted to click them together... they were actually bonding very well apart some some minor fights here and there for toys... A was behaving like a perfect elder sister I guess... if O would venture a little far she would go hold his hand and bring him back... they even shared food... check out A trying to feed O cheerios...
We reached back to BC in the evening around 5:00pm and tried to put O to sleep so that we can catch up some sleep too but kids have an amazing sense of timing and he just refused to sleep infact he was so full of energy so we decided to go to the park and play for sometime we also drank two cups of coorgi coffee here (ya i know i have mentioned the coffee too many times but then what is coorg without coffee???)
The evening was again started with dear Vodka and sprite and we had a good time chilling out... Post that we went for a walk in the club and surrounding area and wow the sky was looking amazing with so many stars that one cant imagine to see in the cities... whenever u go out thats my biggest thrill...
The next morning was time to start back... alas but in the morning post breakfast we went around the BC and did some photography...
at the fireplace BC verandah
and thats the full view of the verandah
mr.hero on one of the chairs...
O and N i love this pic
there was also a 165-year old church in the BC campus... some pics in and around the church
and finally the whole group together in front of our rooms
and post this we started the journey back at about 11:45 (370kms from base) and we stopped in a place to buy some Coorg Coffee powder how could I come back without that and reached Hunsur (which we had totally missed while coming so engrossed we were in talking) at 13:20 (438 kms from base), the roads were brilliant and A was also doing fine this time as we had given her anti-vomit medicine before starting from Coorg... we reached Mysore at 14:05 (490 kms from base) and had some absolutely yummy fish at Fish Land... I still have the taste in my mouth... We started from Fish Land at 15:10 and by mistake A saw the rhymes CD in the car and the result from Mysore to Blore we heard only Wheels on the bus on repeat... We reached Mandya at 15:37 (523 kms from base) and then we reached Blore S&P's house at 17:28 (633.6 kms from base) and starting towards our home sweet home and reached back to Base at 18:15 with a total of 657 kms done...
It was indeed a great trip... coorg always is...
