My wife and I have been thinking of visiting Coorg for quite a few years. Truth be told, we were hesitating to make this trip because we had heard conflicting reviews. After about five years of deliberating, we said to ourselves "there's only one way to find out", and set out for Coorg for a four-day trip. Thursday Jan 26 being a holiday, I took leave on Friday, and had four full days to relax. My wife, Sweta, did all the planning and bookings. She was very clear that she wanted to stay in a homestay, because we had heard about Coorgi hospitality and cuisine. The crux of the plan was this - Day 1: start for Coorg from Bangalore, reach there and relax in the estate where we had our booking. Day 2: visit one or two local attractions. Day 3: Pure unadulterated relaxation. Day 4: Drive back to Bangalore through the famous Nagarhole National Park. On Jan 26, my son Limu, Sweta, my driver and I started off.
The distance to Coorg (door-to-door) is 245 kms. From my residence in Sarjapur Road we took the Electronics City flyover and then the Nice Road to hit Mysore Road. Driving through Ramnagaram (where the famous "Sholay" was shot), Mandya, Maddur and the historic town of Srirangapatna, we bypassed Mysore city and hit the Hunsur highway. This by-pass is easy to miss. Look for the huge signboard that says "Thank You for Visiting Srirangapatnam". The by-pass is the first right turn after this signboard. After leaving Hunsur behind, we reached a Y-junction where we took a left towards a place called Gonikoppal. Gonikoppal, I was later told, is an important commercial town for South Coorg. We looked for the 'More' department store in Gonikoppal, and took the first right turn after the store to hit the Pollibetta Road. After about 3 kms, we saw a sign saying "Victory Homes - Brigadier Ponnappa", and we followed the signs through a huge coffee estate, till, just like the curtains get drawn out from over a cinema screen, a beautiful bungalow appeared before us, nested on a hillock. We had reached our homestay, and the ever smiling Kaveri Ponnappa, the Brigadier's wife, was waiting for us.
I'll take a few words to describe Victory Homes, because this is important. The bungalow is in the middle of a huge coffee estate (4 acres). The bungalow itself was constructed about 20 odd years back. It's a two-storey affair, with 2 rooms with attached baths on the top floor, and a drawing room, dining room, pantry, store and 2 bedrooms with attached baths in the ground floor. The Brigadier (retired) and his wife live in one of the bedrooms in the ground floor, and the other three bedrooms are let out for homestay. The entire house has a woman's touch, with simple yet beautiful decorative pieces of brass, wood and glass scattered systematically all throughout the house. My wife liked the Pooja-room so much that she made me promise that we would get replicas of everything that the room contained. The bar was well-maintained. The rooms themselves were simple affairs. No unnecessary zwing-zwangs, and yet they had everything for comfort. No televisions. The house was surrounded on two sides by a garden and an orange orchard. A lilly pond flanked the house on the left, and the backyard had the kitchen, a couple of garages, the water tower, store rooms, workshop and two kennels. The estate itself had woods full of coffee-plants in full bloom, orange orchards, four ponds, several servants' quarters, engine and generator rooms and an area where coffee-beans are dried. I will not mince my words - if I were to be asked to spend a month in that estate without venturing out, I wouldn't complain. There's no sound of traffic, only the chirping of birds in the day and the sound of cricket (errr....you know what I mean) in the night. One day, I even heard a Nepali plucker happily singing "Teri adaaon pe marta hoon, LOVE, tujhe LOVE main karta hoon" with wild abandon, completely ignorant of the fact that I was watching him.
I could understand why I had heard conflicting reviews of Coorg. If you go there with the expectation that you'll do a lot of sight-seeing, you'll be disappointed. The points of interest are (a) pretty far apart from each other, and (b) nothing great. There're the Abbey Falls, the Tibetan monastery near Kushalnagar, the Dubbare Elephant camp and the Thalacauvery temple, which is said to be the origin of the river Cauvery. My driver Prakash went to visit this place all by himself and offered pooja. When I asked why, he described how his elder brother had built a house in the village and the borewell was not giving any water, and how his brother and his wife had offered pooja at Thalacauvery and had gone back to find that the borewell was spewing divinely sweet water. When I asked him if someone was still drilling during the time this pooja was being offered, he answered in the affirmative, but vehemently denied the remotest possibility of hitting water without such pooja being offered. When I asked him to at least explain why he had boarded two wrong buses while returning from Thalacauvery to Victory Homes and ended up missing his dinner and almost getting bitten by the dog, he realized that his employer was a devout disbeliver in organized religion and gave up. Moving on, don't go to Coorg expecting a Darjeeling or Ooty. If you're interested in lazing around, taking a refreshing walk amidst nature, admiring a flower you've never seen before, or hearing ripe fruits falling from trees into a pond, or seeing the wings of a dragonfly shining in the sunlight, chances are, you'll like Coorg. If you get happiness out of simple things that you've not done in a long time, like making a paper boat and sailing it in a brook, or pelting stones into a pond or falling asleep on a verdant lawn, then you'll like Coorg. The cuisine is great, and tastes better when Mrs. Ponnappa holds Limu while my wife and I eat! The hot breakfast in the mornings are particularly mouth-watering. I felt the meals are a tad expensive, but the affection with which she cooked them for us perhaps justified the price. The Brigadier, a thoroughly well-read golf-loving gentleman, gave me company during the evenings. We discussed my love for cinema, his love for golf, we discussed the contributions made by the British to this country and I took tips for my retirement home from him.
We did end up visiting Orange County, an extremely overpriced luxury resort, to savour their famous buffet lunch, and taking a tour of the place. My suggestion to you: please make good use of your hard earned money by buying and reading books and don't blow incongruous amounts of money on 21-grands-per-night rooms that overlook a jackfruit tree. The only thing I liked about Orange County was the loo. The buffet spread was quite good though and was reasonably priced. Don't miss the Coracle ride in the Cauvery 2 mins from Orange County. The boatman took us out on request and we saw the sun set on the Cauvery from the depths of a dangerously unstable Coracle. That, in my opinion, was the highlight of the trip.
While driving back, consider taking the route through Kutta (the condition of the road is quite bad) and driving through the Nagarhole forests. Try and drive through very early in the morning, and you can expect to see elephants, deer, wild boars and langoor. Since I had a langoor sleeping in my lap, I wasn't too interested in seeing one outside the car, but the forests are scary yet beautiful.
Coorg has always eluded us, but in the end, when we did manage to go to her, she did not disappoint. I wouldn't mind going back if she beckons me again.
No comments:
Post a Comment