Coorg - places to visit and things to do.

My husband and I went on a Coorg-Mysore trip last week. Strangely for December, it wasn't cold. It was a very exhausting trip - as it was ghat road though scenic and it was very hot in day time(!). We expected fog and we went with all our sweaters, jackets and scarves. But we rarely used them. Our travel package is from Wow Holidays and it has costed us 26K rupees. Apart from this, it costed us 4K more for Hyderabad to Bangalore and back.

Travel to Coorg:

We took a bus to Bangalore as the flight timings were odd for that day. We reached Racecourse road after 10 hours of journey at 8 AM! So there was lot of traffic and it took considerable amount of time to just get out of Bangalore. On the way, we freshened up and had breakfast. It took more than 4 hours to reach Kushalnagar - a town in Kodagu(Coorg) which is 25KMs away from Madikeri- core tourism town of Coorg.

You will see lot of CCDs(Cafe Coffee Day) through out the journey.

Stay:

We stayed at Palm Era resorts in Kushalnagar. It was good enough. But we were scared when we heard scurrying noises on the roof at night. We thought rats must be there inside the room too and I had to drag all the luggage from hall to bedroom in the middle of the night so that I can be sure that rats aren't eating away my clothes. When we asked the staff about it, they were already aware of it and told us that rats are just on the roof and won't be inside the room. That didn't give me any peace. Also as it was surrounded by trees, there were occasional tiny frogs in the bathroom. We had to call staff every time this happened and they would sweep it off and leave it in the nature.

Apart from these side effects from being too close to nature, staff were very polite. Food was good. Breakfast buffet didn't have much variety and was okay-ish. The resort also has badminton court, swimming pool, play area and other games.

Palm Era Resort Villa

Day 1: Dubare Elephant Camp and Nisargadhama shopping.

We reached Palm Era at around 1 in the noon. We ordered lunch and freshened up.
We started to Dubare Elephant camp at 3.30.
Distance: 11 kms and 20 minutes away from the resort.
Timings: 4.30 to 5.30 PM.
Ticket : 30 rupees(though the board says 20)

There are few stalls for shopping. You need to buy a ticket and go on a boat to the other side which just takes about 5 minutes. There were about 10 elephants in the camp. You can feed them for 20 rupees and bathe them for 100 rupees. Apart from the elephants, the camp itself had large area to roam around.

Dubare Elephant Camp Boating

Dubare Elephant Camp Entrance

Elephants following each other for bath

From there, we started to Nisargadhama at 5.30 - only to realize that it closes by 5. Nisargadhama has lot of stalls for shopping - dresses, footwear, spices, chocolates, fancy jewellery,food, etc. I could have shopped better if only I didn't have a throbbing migraine then. We left around 7 to the room and ordered dinner.

There are lot of river rafting places in Kushalnagar. If you can squeeze in some time, you can give it a try.

Day 2: Golden Temple, Nisargadhama, Raja's seat, Madikeri Fort, Omkareshwar temple, Abbey Waterfalls, Bhagamandala, Thala Cauvery.

We started to Golden Temple/Namdroling Monastery at 8.45 from resort.
Distance: 10Kms and 20 minutes away from the resort.

After traveling all the way, we came to know that it's closed for renovation since June. Next day in newspaper, we saw that Dalai Lama was going to re-open it on 23rd December :(. We saw lot of Tibetans in the streets volunteering to clean the trash. They were carrying scythes and cutting out the weeds wherever trash was accumulated. I was really amazed by the number of people taking out time to clean drains and ditches and making the streets clean.

Golden Temple Entrance under renovation

Golden Temple Coorg

We then went to Nisargadhama which is this large area with trees and a stream of Cauvery river.
Distance :2 KMs and 5 minutes away from resort.
Timings : 9AM to 5PM.
Ticket :10 rupees

You need to enter Nisargadhama through a hanging bridge that wobbles when there are lot of people on it. But it was cool! There's an old bridge running parallel to it. You can spot fish in the river below from the bridge.

Nisargadhama Entrance

Nisargadhama hanging bridge

Inside, there was greenery, but it was not swept and it was all dusty. It was poorly maintained. We saw that it was being renovated with some statues like those in Shilparamam, Hyderabad. There are long trail paths to walk around. Tree houses with ziplining was there too, but we didn't see anyone there - we were probably too early. We spotted few deer in the deer park.

Inside Nisargadhama - statues, deers and tree houses

Cauvery stream inside Nisargadhama

We then came to this stream of Cauvery where you can walk in the middle on the rocks. We sat there for sometime immersing our feet in the water.

From Nisargadhama, we started to Madikeri. We wanted to visit Abbey Waterfalls first. But we got lost as our driver was not familiar with Coorg and was relying on Google maps. We lost about 2 hours in finding our way back. In the core of Madikeri, Raja's seat, Madikeri Fort and Omkareshwar temple were all nearby in 2 KM radius. So we started with Raja's seat which is basically a view point with a park. It was very hot and sunny, so we clicked few photos and went to Madikeri fort.

Raja's Seat

Madikeri fort is now converted to a court. We roamed around the mossy walls and dilapidated buildings. There was a small temple and a museum inside the fort.

Madikeri Fort

Inside Madikeri Fort

View from Madikeri Fort

Madikeri Fort Museum

After the fort, we had lunch in a nearby restaurant. I had some Kodagu specials - pot curry and coffee that has ginger. They were okay-ish.

After lunch, we went to Omkareshwar temple which has a pond surrounding the inner temple. It was closed :(. People told us that it opens at 5 PM. We just saw it from outside.

Omkareshwar Temple Entrance

Omkareshwar Temple Coorg

From there, we started to Abbey waterfalls - which is 17KMs away from Madikeri fort. This time we asked people about the path and confirmed. You need to get down lot of stairs to reach the falls. You can't actually get under the falls, but can just see it from the railing.

Old bridge at Abbey Waterfalls

Abbey Waterfalls

Abbey Waterfalls

From Abbey waterfalls, Bhagamandala is 47KMs away. It has a temple of Shiva and Triveni Sangam where 3 rivers meet.

Bhagamandala Temple

Thala Cauvery is 8KMS away from Bhagamandala. It closes by 6. Thala Cauvery is the birth place of Cauvery located by Bramhagiri hill. It has a temple for Cauveri and a place within the temple to take a dip in Cauvery water. By the time we went there, entry to see the actual origin of Cauvery in Bramhagiri was closed by 4 PM. The temple was very peaceful and had scenic view of the mountain range nearby - which were all covered with fog. It was quite chilly there. Around 5.45, they start Cauvery Maha Pooja.

Thala Cauvery top view

Foggy view from Thala Cauvery

Stone stacks

Behind the temple, there's a place where people stack stones by balancing them perfectly. We didn't knew the significance of it, but just did it anyways as it was fun.

From Thala Cauvery, we went back to our resort in Kushalnagar. It took around 2.5 hours.

We wanted to visit Iruppu waterfalls and Nagarhole dam, but they are another 80 KMS away. So we couldn't.

We left to Mysore from Coorg next day. More about Mysore trip in next post :)

Tips:

1. Make sure to start to Coorg early morning from Bangalore to avoid traffic.
2. Get a driver who is familiar with directions and timings of Coorg tourism places.
3. Google Maps are not completely reliable. Ask people to make sure. Also, you won't probably catch a network signal, so it's better to be ready with the Google map when you have the signal.
4. Carry travel pillow. You will spend most of the time on road.
5. Wear comfortable footwear. You will walk a lot.
6. Keep each place timings in mind and plan you day accordingly. Otherwise you will miss lot of places.
7. It's better not to postpone spices/coffee beans shopping. We told ourselves that we will buy it later after we have visited all places and we ended up not buying anything.  
8. Coffee sucks. Be mentally prepared. I don't know - may be it's just me. I hated coffee in Munnar and Alleppey too. It seems contradictory that hill stations with coffee plantations will have such diluted light coffee.

My own stone stack

~ Peace