Adding one more page to my blog. This time it is Coorg that was destined by us. This trip was special because after so many initial hiccups we finally made it happen. From a long time, trip was being planned by chandu, jana, ashok and Sudhakar(thatzz me) and it came into reality on 24-Jan-2009. It took 1 week for us to plan and schedule it , and thanks to Chandu for making it finally.
The main priority was given to vehicle by Ashok and we sticked to Innova 5 seated+ driver. We are 4 and our search for 5th member ended with Jana's brother. But our search engine ws so strong that it also flagged 6th member as Jana’s Cousin, and finally ended with 6.
The trip was kick started on 24th Jan early morning 4. A bit surprising, but that’s the best time to start with no traffic and no tensions of night travel. We booked a innova with the capacity 2 + 2 + 3 seated and LCD display for movies.
Manju is the driver and guide for the trip. He is one of the best drivers I had came across and a big thanks to him for his superb control on the vehicle and also for some wonderful edge of seat turns. On the way we had breakfast around 8 AM after Mysore. We slept for some time and the other time was spent to discuss on recession (idi chala hot topic guru or sakkathh hot topic maga).
Around 10 AM or so on the way to Coorg we went to a Tibetian Temple. We spent around 30-45 mins there, the temple is well sculptured and a good way to start trip from temple. Then we started to Coorg. Coorg is around 250 kms from Bangalore. Our next halt was some park near Khushala-Nagar. As it was a long weekend every place is crowded. There was a boating camp in a small lake in the park. All of us are eager to do pedal boating and did it in 3 groups. We got a 2 seated pedal boat, and went in 3 groups. First myself and Ashok, then it is Jana and Chandu's turn and finally Jana's brother Balakrishna and his cousin Upendra’s turn .
It’s time to say about the other people in trip. We all are friends through PMC, all 4 of us joined PMC at same time. Jana's brother and cousin are good fun in the trip. Jana's brother completed his engineering and Upendra is pursuing his 3rd year of engineering. We used to make a lot of fun of them and they used to give it back hard to us.
And after the boating halt we started once again and started to think about accommodation and reached a place after Khushala-Nagar and 20kms before Madikeri alias Coorg. There we found a Coorg County Resort and enquired about the stay. The manager told each cottage is 3.5k per day for 2 people which includes stay, breakfast and games(Swimming, Billiards cricket badminton etc). We were 6 and he agreed finally for 7k for all 6 for 2 days. It might sound as a surprise but its true and we took the resort option finally after some more enquiries on other resorts.
Then we went to Abbey Falls and came back to resort and had lunch around 3 PM. Then it is pool time and we tried to swim. Ashok is good in swimming so he had more fun, I and Chandu know some basics of swimming@IIIT so had fun in recollecting them, did a bit of swimming and had fun pulling each other legs. Then we played cricket for some time and after 6 we went back to Cottage. As everyone was tired we took bath and went for campfire and dinner. We had dinner near campfire which was good and different. Then slept giving the day a break after having a long journey and loads of fun.
The next day we got ready by 10AM in the morning attended the photo-shoots of Jana and Ashok, had breakfast, played billiards and started again to visit some more places. The next point in trip is river rafting. It was crowded as usual and waited for some 45 mins for our turn. Then finally we were given one boat and we were accommodated by one more family(4ppl) and started rafting. We rafted the boat happily finished the onward journey and started the backward journey. Now it has been so much in the trip and there was no twist or no happening, and you might have got bored reading it. So its time to add some sansani khabar(Aaj Tak style) to it. So after starting the return journey Ashok's watch costing around 5-6k slipped into the water. He is a good swimmer, so he dived into the lake and started searching for it, and the remaining batch on boat started to guess the whereabouts of watch and gave him different directions to search and the operation failed and we came back to shore without finding the watch.
But still we are not happy and felt bad about the watch and wanted to give one more try, so we went along the shore to the place where he lost and then Ashok again started searching for the watch(obviously as it costs nearly 6k), and we failed once again and went back in despair with defeat on our faces(of not founding it). But we learnt one thing that from next time leave your valuable belongings behind and go into water. Good point to learn in a 3 day trip :).
Then we had lunch and went to Talakaveri(birth place of kaveri). In between we went to one more place Bhagamandala where there is triveni sangamam of kaveri, kanika and sujyothi rivers. Talakaveri is a very beautiful place and the sight from top(1350mtrs altitude)is superb. It is the border of kerala and karnataka on western ghats. So the view from it was simply awesome and refreshing. After that we went back to our resort ordered for dinner and to our luck it took 2 hours to get the order and in the mean time we played billiards and had fun with Jana and Upendra(who fell in love with a girl near talakaveri). And as usual ended the day with a good sleep.
The final day started with some small adventure from Ashok, Chandu and me. We went deep into the resort and had some fun and feel of adventure. Then got ready, had breakfast, then billiards and finally photo-shoot of our resort and started the journey back. We started around 11 AM, had lunch near Mysore and again started back to Bangalore. We reached around 5 30 PM to Bangalore then Chandu bhai went to a movie while others went back to their den. I reached home around 6 PM then went to a Jain temple in Jayanagar with Jaya, had dinner and slept with some good memories of the 3-day coorg trip.
This is one of the trip where we spent the time more in leisure in resort by playing than seeing all the places around in a hurry, that is the specialty about the trip and had a great time with everyone who are part of the trip. We had lot of funny sessions and a big thanks to Jana who could bear us for 3 days and also the hell time we gave him. So finally these are the few words I had spelt on the trip from my pages of memories on this trip.
Have a great time and take care of your belongings when you are going for rafting or swimming. Small precautions will be of more benefit than overlooking them.
Thanks for reading this .... Comments are invited ....
