A trip to "coorg - the land of bravos"

Coorg is one of the coolest place i have ever seen. It is also known as madikeri. It is situated in south India in south karnataka. Its lush green forests is a habitat for various wild animals, some of them are towards their extinct(thanks to poaching). We reached coorg at around 1-2 AM (i m not sure as i was fast asleep), booked a lodge in shakthinagar.

In the morning we had a brief walk in the cold breeze, took few snaps, had our tea(which we desperately needed). Got ready and left to visit Golden Buddha, which was situated in a near by chinese monastery. This monastery is filled with chinese infiltrates, who have now setup their dwellings here. The monastery is well maintained - neat and clean. The huge gigantic golden(not sure) budha statues are a joy to the eyes.

After this, we vacated our lodge, and started towards Kaveri Nisarga Dhama. It is a park with a hanging bridge at the entrance, which made a very good first impression on the visitors. Not much was there inside except for few rabbits, and huge trees and a cool ambiance. The bridge is built over a valley(almost still and dry). Some people enjoyed boating, but it didn't interest our crew, and we moved out of the park after resting for few minutes.

Next we moved towards a valley which is about an hour drive from the Kaveri Nisarga Dhama. Although I don't remember the place name, but the memories of crossing the valley in a small boat, taking the snaps of the ladies gang who were trying to climb the trees, all of us getting into the water and slowly making our ways towards the middle of the valley by walking on the hard rocks and asking the two young ladies to take our snaps, all these naughty things we did, are still fresh in my mind. The valley was not fierce, but still some people were trying to have fun with some water sports, but we felt that it would be a waste of time if we tried it, and some were of the opinion that it would not be any fun in such a valley. So we decided to move towards our next spot - Talakaveri - the birth place of CAUVERY.

Cauvery is referred to as "Jeeva Nadhi" in Kannada, which means "A river of life". The journey of this sacred river starts from here and culminates into Arabian sea. There is near by hill top view, which took around 10 mins for us to reach there. On reaching there, we were exhausted, but this was only for a short time. On seeing the marvelous scenic beauty all around us, we were immediately refreshed and all our tiredness were absorbed in the dipping sun, which slowly engulfed us giving us a beautiful view of the sunset.

We then left to the main city of Coorg where we lodged into a house which was just perfect for our team. This didn't happen before we wasted our precious time in searching for a place to dwell for the night. We were mis guided by a person, which really ate up the time. May be God had booked this beautiful Villa for us to stay that night. This was a home, lent for the tourists. The owner made some money from this, just as many others did in the vicinity. We went in search for our dinner, which again took up some considerable time. This was mainly because of ordering the food in 2 different restaurants , one for veggies and the other for non-veggies. All of us were sucked and we hardly had energy left to have a long dinner. Had a few pegs of wine (i guess i took rice wine & pineapple wine), and this was my first opportunity to taste the home made wines. The dinner constituted chicken, fish fry(actually fish curry), chicken tandoori, and mutton biryani. Soon all of us went to sleep without much 'after drinks talk'.

This however helped us to get up early in the morning, and soon after having our tea(thanks to our sweet owner), we left for a morning walk. We didn't knew the arena, but the ever burning curiosity to explore, energized our feet's and we went till we felt lost. Took few snaps and returned back to get fresh. Packed our baggage and took leave of our owner(now i remember that he had given us his card, fortunately its intact with me, details furnished at the end). He sold us fashion fruit juice, which he advertised by saying that they were home made. I got hold of one small bottle. The taste was quite good, and different as I had never tasted it before.

Next we went into the city, had our breakfast, left for a near by small park where we spent few minutes enjoying the beautiful scenery of faraway mountains and a steep hill side. After this we were all geared up to watch the ABBEY falls, which is one of the famous falls in Madikeri. On reaching the spot we had to walk for about 5-10 mins to reach the fall. I had took my swim clothings, thinking that we may get into the water, which never happened since they didn't allow any one to get into water. A hanging bridge was built in front of the fall, across the water pathway, on which people stood which appeared like birds perching on an electric line. I didn't board the bridge and stood outside taking some 'matrimonial' photos :-). Abbey falls is a small falls, with quite normal water gush. Don know, whether it was an off season(during december end). But it looked dull, and failed to impress me. This may be because of my prejudice, formed due to my earlier visits to gigantic, fierce, roaring, deep falls like Jog & Unchalli in Shimoga. Abbey looked like a baby, in my minds eye, when compared to these falls. Nevertheless the images of the 'pleasant smile of this baby' is still warm in me which relaxes me, when i recall it.

With not clear plan in our mind we boarded our qualis, and started moving. As it was still afternoon, some of us planned to visit more places. Thus we started towards the city, thinking we can have our lunch, during which we can plan further. While on our way back, in the qualis, we managed to get hold of a wine bottle. Each of us would sip every now and then, and me having a bigger share of it. We came back to the same place where we had our break fast. It took more than an hour to finish our lunch.

By this time everybody were tired and sleepy, and we decided to pack our bags to bangalore. Some did their last minute shopping like purchasing honey, while some wandered, and 'others waited for others'. After the reunion, we started our way back to bangalore. during which we felt like we didnt make much visits that day, so atleast we can visit mysore temple. Some felt that ist not feasible, and it eventually turned out to be true. However we halted briefly at mysore for our evening snacks, and resumed our journey. Its not fair, not to mention about the talks(especially with Yathish, Vinayakam & Sandeep) we had on our way. Every body were involved in the talk, thus no one realized how fast the time had slipped and thus we reached bangalore merrily.

This was an incredible trip from my point of view as i discovered many places and most imprtant of them being Talakaveri and Abbey falls. I really enjoyed the company of all my colleagues at Flextronics Designs - Ajith, Deepak, Ramesh V, Sandeep, Srini, Vinayakam, Yathish.
I thank you all guys for making me a part of this wonderful and memorable trip.


Link for snaps:
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Coorg Contact:
K. B. Vasanth Kumar
Mobile: 9342363633
#88, Mangaladevi Nagar,
Madikeri. Ph: 222907
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