Chikmagalur

It is been very long that I went for any outing with my family or friends. To my surprise I made a last minute decision to go to Chikmagalur. There are many nearby site seeing places in Chikmagalur but we just wanted a break and take test in Home stay which is located inside a coffee estate.

Chikmagalur is a place in Karnataka located near to Bangalore. I had to drive from Chennai to Bangalore and then we halted a day in Bangalore, the next day early morning we started to Chikmagalur. The best route from Bangalore is NH 75 which takes you to Hassan. The road is good and there were some national highway construction going on after Belluru. So if you are going from Bangalore try this route via Nelamangala, Kunigal, Belluru, Channayapattana, Hassan, Belur then Chikmagalur. 

On the way to Chikmagalur, you have many tourist attractions like Shravanabelagola, Belur and Halebeedu(I’ll put then in my next post). We have tried and covered these places. For morning breakfast you can go to Hotel Mayura near Belluru cross, which has very good food and you get authentic Karnataka food like Dosa, idly vada, pongal etc.

We stayed in a Chikmagalur in a Home stay called Athithi Home stay, I should say this place is very nice and the cook there called Krishna made delicious food. The food was amazing and we had been the whole day enjoying his food and roaming around the coffee estate. The homestay is a old house and renovated with all new amenities, where they kept the tradition alive and it was comfortable too. The place is completely surrounded by coffee plants, trees and great view of mountains.

I am planning to make next visit soon to this place, I didn’t had much time to see the attractions nearby Chikmagalur.

The other places you can visit are

•        Baba Budan Range

•        Dattatreya Peetha

•        Kemmanngundi

•        Kudremukh

•        Gangamoola

•        Ayyanakere

•        Hebbe Falls

•        Kalahatti Falls etc..

Summer vacation Holiday Planner Part 1 (Hill Stations - South India)

The exams getting over in another few days, the kids and children’s are awaiting their summer special vacation plan. Now, I could think as parent how much it is difficult to plan such a beautiful trip. To my knowledge, I can suggest some places that would get a top priority for this summer vacation.

Most of us know few places and few more plans you might have in mind. The plan might be visiting a Hill station or a forest trekking or a River base. My choice is to go and visit the Hill station and enjoy the mighty heat buster weather. When I say hill station, I would say Ooty, Kodaikanal, Coorg, Munar, Valparai, Yelagiri hills etc. These places are in south India and would be more preferable place with good reasonable cost. Ooty (Ootacamund or Udhagamandalam), Yelagiri, Kodaikanal, Valparai, Coorg and Munar out of these places, Ooty, Yelagiri, Kodaikanal, Valparai are part of Tamilnadu. Coorg or Kodagu (Origin place of river Cauvery) or Madikeri is in Karnataka. The mighty Munar is in Kerala.

Ooty, Kodaikanal, Munar have the same type of money expenditure and the weather would be awesome. Munar, you might have to afford little more from your pocket since it has become a honeymoon destiny and become more commercial.

To reach Munar, you can either go via Coimbatore or Madurai from Tamilnadu. Ernakulam or Cochin or Kottayam are places which are near to Munar from Kerala. The nearest Airports are Madurai and Cochin. The nearest railway stations are Ernakulam and Kottayam. Munar is in Idikki District, also if you are great lover of trekking then you can go to Anamudi the top point of Western Ghats of the same Idikki district of Anamalai hills. Anamudi is at the peak point of 2695mts higher than the sea level

To reach Ooty you can go from Chennai to Mettupalayam using Niligiri Express, which you can board from Chennai Central railway station. Most of the time this train would be full as the season is already started. The nearest Airport would be Coimbatore. From Coimbatore, Ooty is less than 100Kms where you can take a bus or book a cab in advance.

If you have a plan to go to Kodaikanal from Ooty, you can try the below route if you are going by your own travel by a Cab or own Car. From Ooty get down to Kothagiri, then Mettupalayam, Annur, Somanur, Palladam, Tharapuram, Palani, Kodaikanal. Since I visited few times Annur and I thought this route would be useful too.

To reach Kodaikanal, you can go from Chennai to Madurai by Air or by train you can reach to Kodai road junction. From there Kodaikanal is less than 80Kms. The world famous Palani temple is also the nearest location which you can visit and have Dharsan of lord Murugha or Subramanya.

To reach Valparai, it is again very near from Coimbatore about 95Kms. I would say Valparai is kept undisturbed and the tourism is less in Valparai. Those who want to stay for a week in peace without much noise and disturbance can choose Valparai. If you are planning to go via Coimbatore, do not miss the beauty of Pollachi, Aliyar Dam. If possible please also try and visit Athirappalli falls which is near to Valparai.

There are some details which I have shared in my other post on Munar, Coorg, Ooty, etc

Ooty or Udagamandalam

This is the hill station in south India, 105Kms from Coimbatore. This is located in the Nilgiri hills, situated 2300 mts higher than the sea level. I would say this is the best hill station in south India, the cool climate is always been there almost all the season. The peak point in Ooty is Doddabetta at the height more than 2700 mts from the sea level. You can almost see a 360 degree view of the mountains around. 

Ooty is very famous for its climate and the beauty lies within the mountains. So the summer is nearing in India, it my advice to visit Ooty now. Nilgiries is also called as Blue Mountain. You can reach here either by Bus, train or through AIR. There are buses which very frequently come from Coimbatore, also the nearest Airport is in Coimbatore only. There is lot of trains from Chennai, Bangalore to Coimbatore. 

Places which you can see in OOTY are: 

Ooty Lake, which is located in the center of Ooty, people can go boating and enjoy the pleasure here. 

Botanical Garden, the very famous botanical garden is there in Ooty, which is a very old one and you can see lot of rare trees and flowers here. 

Doddabetta view point, this is the peak point and from here you can have a telescope view of the mountains which are far away. 

Kodanadu, is a famous tea estate view in Ooty. Also there is a watch tower to see the Rangaswamy peak. 

Also around Ooty you have so many other places like Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary, kalhatty waterfalls, Sims park, Avalanchi and the best site seeing paradise Coonnoor. Rather than Ooty I like Coonnoor, it is little lies below Ooty but an extraordinary place to visit. 

The last but not the least, the Ooty train which is very famous goes from Mettupalayam. This is also called as toy train. 

Coorg district

So it’s been a long time since I had been to a pleasure trip. Hectic work pressure and lots of customer calls, I was very tired. We had a thought of going for a small weekend budget trip. I am currently in Bangalore so had a plan to go with in the same radius, i.e. in and around Bangalore and Mysore. After a long discussion with my wife, we concluded either to go to Chickmangalur or Coorg. Heard from the local people that Coorg would be the nice place to go now and rather than Chickmangalur. From August to November it’s a season time in coorg because the great monsoons flourished the river kaveri with lots and lots of water. Most of the south Indians knew that coorg is the origin of river kaveri. So we had started with the itinerary plan, hearing from lot of travel agency we had concluded with trip details of 2 Nights and 3 days plan. The trip was planned to start from Bangalore via Mysore to Madikeri. Every one was very familiar with Coorg, so what is Madikeri?

Madikeri is the district headquarters for Coorg and it is with the elevation of about 1500mts above the sea level. So it the coolest place compared to Bangalore but more temperature compared to Ooty or Kodaikanal. The place is about 260Kms from Bangalore and 122Kms from Mysore. We had booked a tata indiaca from Bangalore to Madikeri. On the way we had a plan to visit Kusal nagar, Tibetians Golden temple and Nisargadhama. Kusal Nagar is on the way to Madikeri, Kusal nagar has lot of Tibeatian settlers and maintains the complete city in a unique way. This place even you can call as Indian Tibet because lots and lots of Tibetian people. I was first surprise to see the people there and later get to know from our cab driver that Tibetian live there in Huge numbers. The entire kushal nagar is so liverly as well as so calm and the wonderful Tibetian architecture is seen around. The Tibetean Golden temple is the place where the Great discover of peace is living, and that is no one else but the Buddha. He is the Great scientist, who had discovered peace and still remains in all our hearts.

Later we had visited to Nisargadhama, a forest resort where you could find only deer’s and lots of bamboo trees around.

Nice place to sit and relax for some time as the Journey was long from Bangalore.

We thought that was enough for the day, so we had reached the Madikeri with lots of tiredness. But once after seeing the place we could able to refresh ourselves with enjoyment. Since we had a little baby with us, we had taken accommodation in a Home stay with a great view of the mountains. The advantage of taking this type of Home stay is to have a home food prepared in a traditional way and been served to us. The place where we stayed was so good and I would thank for the food which was provided for us. The complete hospitality of these people was so extra-ordinary. We had a small nap and then pulled our seat belt in the evening to visit around the city. There is a place called Raja seat in Madikeri, was a very pleasant park with a great scenic 360 degree view of the Nature.

The blowing wind and the small train safari is very nice in this raja seat. We had to missed the opportunity of going in the rain as we were late that day but could able to site and enjoy the great pleasure, we also had some hot Gobi Manjurian on the road side.

Day 2, we had a plan to visit Thala kaveri and Abbey falls. The thala kaveri was around 45Kms from Madikei. This is the great Naadhimula(Origin of River - sanskrit) of kaveri starts almost in 2sqfeet space.

The water stream starts from here and ends in Bay Bengal via Tamil Nadu. This is an implausible thing, how a great river could origin in such a small place like this. This was a wonderful experience; the thala kaveri was a Holy place rather than a tourist spot. There comes lots of people who just workship the river and they call it as kaveri matha(Mother). This river starts from Bramagiri hills of kodagu district. There is a belief that the river was outpoured from the kamadala of the great rishi Aagastiya. So in Thala kaveri you could find the pojas are done for Aagasthiya and Siva. There was a very small temple built there for them and the pujas are happening on daily basis. Above this is a great view of three borders of kerala, tamil nadu and Karnataka, but the sadest thing is that you have to climb a vertial mountain through the flight of steps.

Then we have to return to Abbey falls, which is 7kms from Madikeri. This is a falls which you could view by standing on the bridge. We are done for day.

Day 3, we had a plan to visit Dubare and Harangi dam. This was our return trip from Madikeri to Bangalore. We had visited the Dubara elephant raining camp, the awesome experience to see lots of elephant family.

Here are many elephants, each has different names. Some lives more than 60 years. There is a river which we had to cross with the motor boat to go to this training camp. You could have lot of fun like seeing the Elephant taking bath in the river, Elephant ride and the way they feed the elephants.

Later we have visited Harangi dam and then at last we have reached Bangalore on one fine Sunday evening.

NOTE: You can get some coffee powder and some spices in Madikeri.

Kerala - Gods own city

Kerala – Munar – Alleppey – Kumorokom - Cochin

My next trip was planned for my honeymoon, me and my wife had a plan to visit to Kerala (Gods own country). Though we could not cover all the places, but then we want to go to Munar, Alleppey, Kumorokom and Cochin. This is truly an exciting trip for us; we had to go to Munar from Chennai. So the travel was prepared from Chennai to Coimbatore through Nilagiri express. Then we got down at Coimbatore, from there we had booked a cab to Munar.

Commutation from Coimbatore:

Munar is around 150 KMS from Coimbatore, this route is very scenic and enjoyable one.  You may have to go via Pollachi, Udumalaipet and then you will reach Munar. It is advisable to take an early morning trip because you can reach Munar early in the day and also you would be energetic to enjoy the complete trip. You can add morning fuel in Udumalaipet, good hotels are there. We had a great trip, as well as we could see a lot of sceneries like hills covered with clouds, lot of wind mills keeps generating current, lot of coconut trees and we could see some movie shooting happening. 

Once you are about to reach the border of udumalaipet, you have to cross two security gate. One is from Tamilnadu government and the other is from Kerala government.

 

Now the trip moves over and over the mountain to reach Munar, this was an awesome experience. The great pleasure is that you would completely surrender yourself to the Nature, you can see lot of deer on the way and sometimes Elephants even.

As well as you could see lot of water stream running in the mountain, the beauty of the entire scene is unexplained. You go there you would realize a great pleasure and complete peace in mind. 

 

Now, already the mountains started, you could see lot of clouds touching you when you move on. The real chillness you would feel here.  May be you can have a very nice tea some where on the way would help you to enjoy the trip further. 

Rather than I explain you could see the snaps which would help in better understanding of the trip.

The very excitement trip which I had ever had would be this. The tea estates, clouds and a little sunlight over the view would grab your entire mind blowing experience.

We had taken accommodation in Cloud9 resort in Munar (May be 5 Kms from Munar). The beauty of the resort covers the entire view of the tea estates as well the mountain beauty in 360 degree view. This would give a great peace to your mind. Mostly in the night, Cloud9 will treat you with entertainment stuff like limo dance which are performed by the experts and also elephant rides.

 

More to share .......