Coorg beckoned me!! - I

15th March 007


I was really pumped up for this trip after 6 weeks of gruelling rounds of interviews and discussions for my IIM selections. I needed to take some time out and was wondering what to do. And then Lo behold there was a tailor made trip for me arranged by our tour manager(actually he is our Cisco ka gyan dad) the great Rakhi bhai which I gleefully jumped onto. My interviews were to be over on 14th and the tour started on 15th, a 4 day exodus to Coorg!

It was 15th and even after my pathetic performance at the IIM C interview I had the expression of a school boy finishing his last exam of his annuals. And now Coorg beckoned me!

I took a train to Mysore in the wee hours from Bangalore to join The Gang – Rakhi(Dandipa), Manoj, Sandeep and Venkat(Narendra was missing), who would have already arrived in Mysore.


Mysore to me came across as a laid back Maharaja attitude-wallah city and hey there were also some chariots ahem tongas waiting for me right in front of the railway station. Instead i took the conventional auto to the bus stop. We took a bus to Madikeri which was about 140 kms from Mysore. Madikeri is a hill town in Coorg district which is the best place to alight at, to cover all the beautiful places in and around Coorg. The bus journey was a roller coaster ride and the worst part of it was that we managed to get a seat only in the last 2 rows of the bus. It was like a motored camel ride to be precise, with our heads kissing the roof everytime the driver decided to go wild. During the journey, we already started comparing it to Ooty and Munnar citing the height above the sea level and the chillness and stuff. While we were chatting on all the topics on earth ranging from college natkhats to politics, Rakhi was busy dozing away to glory, already dreaming of the beautiful trip awaiting us. I jumped onto my digicam and took a snap of him and teased him on this later.

After arriving at Madikeri the quiet and beautiful hill town we managed to drag our heavy luggages to the Chitra lodge. Our researchers Mr. Manoj and Rakhi had come up with huge figures of the hotel rates in Madikeri, but to our surprise the rates were reasonable and this being an off-season helped our cause. All 5 of us managed to squeeze into a single room which was spacious enough, if not luxurious. It was already 3 in the afternoon and there were elephants and not rats running up and down in our stomachs. So first climbed our way up the steep road and rushed to the nearest vegetarian hotel, 'The Athithi'. We had full meals and literally so, munching everything leaving only the plantain leaf to mercy. After a small nap we kick started our adventure trip.

Our tour manager Rakhi bhai slated 2 to 3 places for the evening in Madikeri itself. So we decided to load test any auto coming our way with all 5 of us ready to sandwich into it.And yeah we finally found a volunteer for that, Auto Charlie who risked even the police and agreed to this for a premium, with a rider that at least two of us had to get down twice during the journey in steep places. With Rakhi on the rod and Sandeep learning to drive, taking instructions in Tamil we started to Abbey Falls. We passed through many huge private Coffee estates on the way. For starters, Coffee grows in the shade of the tall trees surrounding it. So if u had visited a Tea estate before and expecting the staircase view here, you will be in for a disappointment but the tall trees surrounding the coffee plants would surely belittle you. We arrived at the Abbey Falls, it actually is a part of a private coffee estate but let open for the public view. As we were already told by Charlie and thankfully so that there was some drainage water mixing in the waterfalls we did not dare to step into the water. Instead we marveled at the sight of the water falls and we shutterbugs in a jiffy started taking snaps of us on the backdrop of the falls. Our personal cinematographer Rakhi bhai(yeah we couldnot afford Rajiv Menon or Ravi K Chandran for this) got his camera rolling as we did our antics.

Luckily on the return we got another auto to fit two of us and we were relieved from walking up the steep roads. I was the spokesperson for our party ahem Gang since I am a Tamilian and to my relief many of the people in Coorg could converse in Tamil. On the way back we struck a deal with Charlie for our adventurours pursuits the next day for a K bucks on an Omni. The driver, a friend of his would come at 8 30 AM and we were already dreading the thought of waking up early for that, mainly Sandeep.

We then set out on foot after successfuly load testing the auto. We visited Omkareshwara temple, a Shiva temple which had a large beautiful tank too. We then went to jail, dont mistake us for commiting any crime there, it was actually the Raja's fort which was now converted into a jail. We then headed towards Raja Seat which we were told had a beautiful bird's eye view from the top of the greenery below. But it was already getting dark and we dropped the plan. Instead we shopped for the needful for that night, we then managed to find a Chat bhandar to relish the cutlet chat and left for the lodge. We enjoyed the evening watching TV, playing cards and other things finishing a whole Sprite bottle besides the drinks. The game of cards ended with a tough battle between me and Rakhi bhai who won it eventually. We went to bed soon since we had to wake up early the next day.

To be cont........ wait for Coorg beckoned me!! - II