I love holidaying. It’s probably an inherited gene from my Mum who eternally has wanderlust. This leads us to pick up on any opportunity to HOLIDAY. Which is why, you’ll understand the reason I planned a 1 day trip with my friends to Coorg – The Scotland of South India. A.K.A. the massive coffee land with delicious pork curry.
A colleague of mine was to be married in Coorg on the 28th of January. And after months of detailed and focussed planning, it was agreed that we’d drive down the 300 odd kilometres to get there. A lovely lad even booked us beautiful rooms in a hilltop bed-and-breakfast. Needless to say, like all plans, this one too got canned. From 6 wanderers we were reduced to 3 enthusiastic girls.
So off we went at 10am hoping to get to our destination by two. Oh and yes, we now had an extra seat. The third musketeer was a no show! But it worked out well for my rather large picnic basket. It now blissfully sat within easy of my eternally food finding hands., waiting to get away from the city. And from a swanky car driven by an equally swanky boy, we found ourselves at the Mysore Road Bus Station. Ah well at least it was an air-conditioned bus!
It’s hard really to say the journey was splendid. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t horrific either. We had a couple of stops for food and other necessities (yes, apparently drinking Coconut water on the highway and halting to pick up random non-ticketed people has become a necessity) and eventually made our winding way to Mercara – Coorg at 4pm.
My travel mate and I know had this daunting task ahead of us. 1. Find a vehicle to get to the “home stay”. 2. Find “home stay” 3. Find a way to speak in the local people in order to a. Find a vehicle to get to the “home stay” and b. Find “home stay”. And now that it is clear that we have no idea what to do and how to do, let us go about figuring out this task!
After much persuasion using some semblance of sign language and frantic waving of arms, we got into an auto rickshaw and pretty decent one at that. So off we went in the general direction of “Balakrishna Niwas” – the afore mentioned ‘homestay’. Thanks to my memory (It’s as good as that of a half dead goldfish) I managed to direct my travelmate and the auto driver up the completely wrong hill. Luckily, the gentleman we ran into gave us accurate directions to the place with of course, a brief history lesson on how he knows Mr. Babu Sommaiah. They were class mates you see!
On reaching hill number 2, we realised that we had a mountain to climb. No seriously. The vehicle couldn’t climb the gradient and as I realised later, neither could my co-traveller! But somehow (she clawed and crawled up) got up the hill and to the quaint Balakrishna Niwas.
It was truly a lovely sight. The place even had its own personal hill. Yea that’s right! Some more climbing!
We were given an attic room with glass windows instead of walls. With the sun setting over the horizon, the view was perfect. It was absolutely worth the trek up to get to watch the golden and orange hues lazily withdraw into darkness across coffee plantations. And some tea with piping hot pakoras made it that much better.
True to its website ‘Balakrishna Niwas’ was indeed the “perfect setting to rest your body and still the mind”. We walked up the hill and spent the rest of the even gazing at the undulating hills and fields as they faded into oblivion until the moon came out. As gorgeous as the place seemed in daylight, it was perhaps more so at night. For the first time in many months I actually saw shooting stars. Ah...absolute bliss.
The night was made even better by the spectacular dinner! Although it did come onto the table only at 10 at night! Since we were two young, innocent, famished, tired (and lazy) girls, we decided against wandering into town for dinner. So we took up the owner Mr.Babu on his offer to have tradition Coorgi food. And my my...what a treat it was. The chef and staff we all from Orissa which was lovely as my co-traveller was from there too. So after a brief exchange of “oh you’re from there” and “ooh I’ve been there too”, we got on with the fabulous dinner of Pandi curry (pork curry), chicken masala, akki roti (rice roti), sautéed potatoes, ladies finger, rice, dal, and pumpkin curry. Mmmm perfect!
We went for a stroll around the plantation and then made our weary way back to beds. And you can’t stay awake even if you tried. What with the trek up, the meal and the serene surroundings. Nature will herself sing you a lullaby. And then gently wake you up too!
We woke up to the dazzling sun streaming in from the glass panel and that is when I realised that this was really a relaxation haven. The hospitable staff lived up to their expectations and gave us a spectacular breakfast of idilis, sambar, aloo parathas and fresh juice. It really was unfortunate that we had to leave immediately after the wedding. I was just about getting used to the pampering!
The wedding was a lovely event and it goes without saying that it was great fun. What more can one expect when there’s free flowing alcohol, unlimited supplies of good food and great company! And of course, a newly married happy couple!
We just managed to get away from the wedding in time to pack, change and rush to the bus station to catch out bus home. It had hardly been 24 hours since we even got there and we were ready to get back home. But as they say, girls will be girls. So we found exactly 7 minutes to do some shopping before we got on the bus back to Bangalore.
Despite the hectic nature of the trip and the long detours that our bus took, one things was certain...COORG...we’ll be back!
Great stuff. Great writing!
ReplyDelete