Coorg

I had no special interest about Coorg. I had already visited it once in good old college days. Apparently most of the engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu would have come to Coorg in the excuse of industrial visit. Because our friend insisted on going to Coorg, we accepted. Made plans for the trip and decided on two things to do in Coorg, Trekking and River rafting.

As usual, we were late to start from Bangalore. We started by around 9 am. Had our breakfast in one of the Thatte idli shops on the way to Mysore. Wanted to try the authentic idlis. Thats what the shops claimed to sell. But not sure if that is true, because the idli's didn't seem to be so great. It was so depressing to see people waving their hands and whistling to attract customers to their shops. It was depressing because they literally fall in front of your vehicle to stop in their shop.

Thatte Idli

As we were already late and wanted to catch up, we were fast and wasted no time after that. We reached Madikeri around 3. Had lunch and enquired about river rafting. Unfortunately it was not the right season for rafting. There was very less water and we tried rafting. We would not call it rafting, might be I should call it sailing.

Jumped into the cavery and took bath in the river. The day was done. It already started getting dark. We need to get a room and have dinner. I was expecting a cheap place to stay like in Murudeshwar. We spent around 500 bucks there for a room. The room was comfortable enough for a days sleep. But in Madikeri, we were not able to find a decent place for a decent price. Might be it was because of the season. As the time was running out, we had to settle down for a hotel and went to sleep. The plan for the next day was to trek to Thadiyandamol. It's an 8kms trek to the second highest peak in Karnataka and the first highest in Coorg. We planned to start early so that we can leave Coorg as early as possible to catch a bus in Bangalore.

Again as usual, we were late getting up. The trip to the starting of the trek was one hell of a ride. The place was full of fog and looked so beautiful.

The view from the hotel room

The way to the base of the trek

The twilight effect

Reflection

The way were we drove the car was a dangerous one way. It's my first time driving in a mountain one way road. Whatever extra ordinary skills the driver had, the passengers were pissing in their pants. The whole 3-4 kms drive, everyone was quite. Later we learned that all the other vehicles were parked a long distance away. We didn't notice that and we had taken our vehicle to a point we can't go further. We parked our car in a slope, and used big stones to stop it from rolling.

Then we started walking. We carried only few bottles of water. When we started we saw people coming down. They were all prepared for the trek. They had camping bags and proper shoes. We neither had shoes nor food with us. We kept on walking. The trek was the awesome part of the trip.

The view from the top

On the way back we caught up with the golden temple and fled back to Bangalore.

Hogenakkal

We had planned for a short one day trip and was looking for options. Among all other places we choose Hogenakkal.

Started from Bangalore at around 12. Had lunch in a small hotel in Hosur. Ate heavily since it was a long time after which we are having food in a tamil shop.

The trip was not so fun till Hosur, since the day was hot and there was traffic. From there we took a state highway. The scenes around were good, and we started enjoying the ride. The air had turned cool and the road had less traffic and was peaceful.

 

The things which come to mind, when you hear about Hogenakkal are oil massage, fish and coracle ride. We reached Hogenakkal by around 4. People started leaving by then. We had parked our car, and people started approaching us asking if we needed an oil massage. There was a lady who was ready to cook for us, if we buy her fish. She said she will cook us food and fish by the time we come back from our bath.

We were in no mood to eat and, we rushed to the massage place. We had oil massage. I will literally say we payed them to beat us up. I knew this coming, but I thought it would be relaxing after the massage. But contrary to my thought, I had bruises in my stomach and the next I felt pain in my body. I seriously don't think all the people who offer you massage there are professionals. And there is no way you can find one. Everyone wears a uniform. I will never advice anyone to get a massage there.

We went to the falls to take bath. It was awesome. There was a lot of water in the falls. We were afraid about the availability of the water before staring to Hogenakkal. Tried asking google if there is enough water in Hogenakkal falls, but sadly google didn't have the answer for it. The water level didn't disappoint us.

The falls and man catching fish

We then started from there once it started getting dark. Sunset and sunrise are the most beautiful things wherever you are. We didn't have time to go in the coracle as there had shut it down already by the time we had reached there.