Xylo: Wanderlust Tales - Road trip to Coorg

Coorg, deemed as the Scotland of India, is worth a visit. The ideal time to visit Coorg is anytime during the monsoon or the winters.

Coorg is famous for coffee plantations and its variety of spices and honey.

Coorg - the land of misty and forested hills is filled with luscious greenery. Scenic!

Road trips are icing on cake during these kind of long vacations. :)

Coorg is located approximately 250-300 kms. from Bangalore.

We started from Bangalore,and it took us approximately 6 hours to reach Madikeri - the city. Given the traffic condition in Bangalore and the intended breaks we took on the way - to make most of nature , this time was well justified :)

Had we started little early, it would have given an escape from chaotic Bangalore traffic and led us to reach there early.

Try to start at the earliest, that would be my advice!

Till the time you hit the nice roads, it takes approximately 2-3 hours to escape from Bangalore city.

There are two routes - you either go via Mysore which takes a longer time to reach apparently. While going we took the other route, where the roads were not really good, most of it was kachha roads - that did instead eat a lot of time.

The route which we took was -

Bidadi -> Ramanagaram -> Chinnapatna -> Maddur -> Mandya -> Sriragnapatna -> right via KRS garden -> Rangathittu -> Hunsur -> Periapatna -> KushalNagar

Since, Coorg falls on the way to Ooty, which we had ventured last year, the roads were quite known to us. Just at one point we needed to take a right diversion(for the route we took - not via the Mysore road).

Rough notes:

And as I always say Google maps are your best friend on these road trips, and of course little help from passers by is a great way to get help on the directions.

On all,the road trip to and fro was enjoyable.There are a great number of restaurants and petrol pumps at every stone's throw.

In fact on the this NH, there is abundance of good eateries. And since Coorg is famous for coffee - you can see almost 20-30 Cafe Coffee Day's on the way.

Try to take breaks on your way - it is a great way to enjoy the perks of nature - immense greenery!

We took ample amount of junk food to serve as our time pass. We even took milk in a flask, and we totally enjoyed making coffee on the way. Every experience is a new one! :) We even packed sandwiches - it is always handy to carry food items - really helps during uncontrollable hunger pangs.

The city of Madikeri - quite reminded us of the city of Ooty. It was a pleasurable stay here - I would say rejuvenating - break from our daily chores. Just fabulous!

The major attractions here are:

Abby falls
Raja seat
Madikeri fort
Madikeri city
Dubare forest
Namdrolling monastery

Since, we were here on a short trip, we could only visit the Abby falls. Next time, of course we shall cover the rest.

If you go to some local tourism centers in the city, they arrange for one day trips to these places along with the coffee plantation trip.

It was kind of costly,and since we had our own car, we preferred to drive ourselves to these places.

Anyways we did not intend to cover everything in this trip, so we could forego this. :)

Here are few pictures from the trip:

Ganapati Bappa murthy on the road

Farmers with their hard work

Everyone uses the NH ;)

Carefree elephants on the road

Coorg welcomes us!! :)

We stopped at a dhaba type restaurant, once we reached the city of Madikeri. Unable to find some place to eat - we finally stopped here, did not want to take the chance of not finding any food at all. The plates were just fab, the old kitchen way we had food in banana leaf. The authentic way of having your food. The South Indian Thali consisted of rice, sambhar, rasam, curd, papad, pickle and some sabji and sweet dish.
It tasted about OK and was dead cheap of course. :D

And then we made our way ahead into the city.

The city of Coorg

City market

One of the waterfalls that we visited in Coorg. It was about 15 minutes from our hotel in Madikeri (Woodstock villas).

It was ride through the busy roads - little curvy and crooked. It was fun driving on these roads. Please take help from the locals for the proper directions to reach.

Once you reach there, you have to park your car - no parking fees here, and walk for about 10 minutes to reach the falls. The falls finds itself in between the dense bunch of trees. The pathway to the fall is more like a narrow passage. You need to be very careful, as you step down.

The place is quite serene. The fall is a small one actually. And it was pretty crowded during the time we ventured. And as the selfie craze goes, there were numerous people just clicking away selfies. There is a bridge to get better view of the waterfall. Going in the water is prohibited, yet as we all know there will be a bunch who would never adhere to the rules. So, these group of people made their way down.

The history goes as from the British times, this fall was called the Jessey falls in memory of the daughter of the first chaplain of Madikeri.

Abbi means "waterfall".

Midst dense forests

The magical steps

On our way back we stopped at this shop. Here they were selling a variety of spices, handicrafts, hand made chocolates and honey.
We did quite some shopping of fresh spices from here. I think they were a bit pricy but were of good quality. Do try this place!

For lunch - we stopped at the Annapurna restaurant. The last time we were here from our Ooty trip, it was known as the Sharma's. Looks like they have undergone a takeover probably. :D

It was quite a nice and clean restaurant. They had clean washrooms as well.

Since they serve lunch only till 15:00 hours, and it was almost 16:00-ish by the time we reached here - we could have only the MASALA DOSAS - authentic, ghee clad South Indian taste. Yumm...one of the best masala dosas I have had. Hunger always adds the fire. ;)
The location of the restaurant is such that it offers a nice nazara around. It is right on the highway.

Right across there is a petrol pump as well.