Friday, February 27, 2009

COORG

We visited Coorg from Mysore. There are two options for staying in Coorg. One can stay in Home-Stays apart from the regular Hotels. Home-stays are Coffee estates turned into Guest houses. Would you believe, there are about 2000 such home stays in and around Coorg...!
Home-stays are lovely for nature lovers. You escape the Buz of the town and immerse into the Nature. I stayed in one such Home stay..Honey Valley..a special one. It is on the mountain, about 4000ft above the ground level at a distance of 4Kms. One has to climb up on foot or by 4 Wheel Jeeps. Regular cars can not climb up. The path is real steep. The Home stay will send pick-up jeep to the foot hills. (Rs 50/- per person..)

We took a cab from Mysore and reached Virajpet. From Virajpet reached Kakabe. The Jeep was waiting for us. The Jeep ride started on a good note, the winding path amidst the Green trees was very invigourating.. All of us enjoyed the ride till it reached a stage where from the road was really steep. The driver shifted to I Gear and it was I Gear all the way from then on...! Still a great ride, till we reached a place. The driver stopped a while at the bottom of a slope that was at about 60 degrees from the ground level.. We were supposed to climb up.. I asked the driver if we should get down and climb up on foot the small distance. The driver did not answer, the vehicle stopped briefly as if to gather some breath.. The flight took off with a roar...But the vehicle moved at a snail pace making huge noise..! Amidst the thrill, I frantically gathered my camera and started shooting photos and video clips, holding the door handle with one hand and the camera on the other...!

VIDEOS and Photo stories at the end...!

To Honey-Valley   -->  Click here for photos

 Home stay Room and around   -->  Click here for photos

 Home stay Dining   -->  Click here for photos
Break fast at 8:30am, Lunch at 1pm and dinner at 7:30pm. The Buffet was great.

 Hydro Power station Honey Valley   -->  Click here for photos
They generate their own power, the Honey Valley has got a solar power generator..!
Did I tell you.. there are no TVs, No loud music....!

 Relaxing Moments   -->  Click here for photos

 Trekking to Water falls   -->  Click here for photos
This small water fall will be all yours, it is like a private water falls.. no body else visits this.. Great place to while away the time in seclusion..
This is one of the most polular trekking spots around Honey Valley. One can get the glimpse of the dense forest from here.
I happen to click a great Combat on the way down, two bulls at logger heads..!

 Hosts of Honey Valley   -->  Click here for photos
The Chengappa family .. the perfect Host...!
Suresh, Sarath(son), Susila Chenngappa, the cute little daughter (I forgot her name..)

 Contact
I know you've booked your train ticket. This is the contact details for your bookings at Honey valley. You have to book in advance over phone.. Call them they will tell you what to do..!
Suresh Chengappa or Sharath Chengappa
Honey Valley Home Stay Retreat
Yavakapady P.O, Kodagu – 571 212, Karnataka. 
Tele:(08272) 238 339 / 238 888
mail:honeyvalley_2000@yahoo.com
Website: http://honeyvalleyindia.in/

 The Return   -->  Click here for photos
We wanted to taste the bus journey. The road was great. So we thought will try the state transport. We got dropped at Virajpet in the Jeep.. (Of course paid Rs 600/-) from where took a bus to Mysore.

Other places  
On our way to Honey Valley, we took a small detour to visit Talakaveri and a Tibetian Monastery.

 Tala kaveri  -->  Click here for photos

 Tibetian Monastery  -->  Click here for photos
What a place..! These monks chant something like Vedha.. Very enchanting to hear..!
The cameras are allowed...! I also took a few video clips..!

 Videos & Photo stories
The above photos are made into a photostory with music -- >  videos can be seen Here.

 The End..!
The starting is always difficult for some of us... but the ending is always painful for most of us. More so, if you have to leave behind a great place like Coorg.. the gruelling mundane drill that awaits you often puts you down... But re-living those moments like this rejuvinates me..!

(I normally am too too lethargic  to review what I write.. o just bear with the spelling mistakes and poor English..)



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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Mysore

We visited Coorg via Mysore in Jun 2008. A memorable trip indeed. This Blog covers Mysore. The places in and around Coorg is covered in a separate Blog.
Though most of us have visited Mysore, there are some places that escape our iteranary and I found a few in this trip. I will say Balmuri falls (rather false!) is one such spot. Cauvery falls down from a distance of not more than a few feet across a wide boundary, more of the river flowing than of a fall..However, It is a great picnic spot. Melkote Narasimhar Temple is another place that one should never miss. Melkote has another Perumal temple that is famous for its Vairamudi sevai. Many would visit that temple and miss the Narasimha swamy temple built on top of a small hill. We happened to do the other way round. We visited Narasimhar temple on top of the hill and We had to return to Mysore to see the Illuminated Palace. It was a sunday and only on Sunday evenings the Palace is Lighted. We returned on time just to miss the event..! We could have as well covered the other temple.. But I guess, we are ordained to visit Mysore again. I would do so gladly. Mysore is a great place to visit again and again and so is Mysore Dasaprakash.
I wanted to Stay in the Dasaprakash. Nearly managed to do so. But missed it..! We stayed in Mysore Dasaprakash Paradise. This is in a place that is bit out of City. The old Dasaprakash near Mysore palace was full. Dasaprakash Paradise is a new addition and is great in itself. Though excellent, I would still want to go and stay in Dasaprakash, the old one. It's rooms are traditional, the Nostalgic Old styled..!
This Blog will cover the following
Dasaprakash Paradise Hotel
Balmuri Falls
Chamundi Hills
Brindavan
Palace
Sangamam
Sri Ranganathar Temple (Excellent..!)
Tippu Palace
Melkote Narasimhar Temple
NanjanGud and Kapila River Ride
Bandipur Forest.
I guess you will ejoy these photos..!

Videos at end...! 

Click on the name of the place to view PHOTOS if the slideshow below does not show PHOTOS

We did the booking by Phone and Email. No internet booking. But faced no problems. Nice Hotel, Good restaurant.


I am not an around the Globe in 80 days person. We stayed in Mysore for 3 days and spent morning half in sight seeing. Will return to the Hotel before 2:30pm to have some rest till 4:30pm and to have a leisurely sight seeing after 5pm and return to the hotel for dinner.
We retired to bed by 9:30pm on all days. So the trip was less hectic and we could relax and enjoy our time. So Somebody else could have more places covered than we've done..!
Balmuri is on the way to Brindavan gardens.. about 10kms from Mysore(?). A nice place for Children and males to take bath. Plan to reach there by 4pm and return by 6:30pm. It looked a bit secluded for me.. and I spotted a number of Beer bottles around..But don't be scared it is quite safe.

This is very famous in Mysore. Any body who visits Mysore will not miss it. Clean, Well maintained temple. I liked it. I enjoyed snapping the Lalitha mahal palace( a 5 Star Hotel now!) from the hills..! I miss my Panasonic FZ50 that did a great Job in the Trip..! (I shouldn't have sold it..!). Well I haven't been able to complete the blog now.. A few more places to cover. Will continue soon..! Till then Bye... Hope you enjoyed these photos.. I did...! revisiting them is refreshing to me..!
You know, One can not carry camera inside.. So these are some snaps taken outside. I'll visit the Palace once again some day to capture its Grandeure in the special Evening lighting..!

Might have visited this many times... Still carries some charm.. Good place to take family photographs..! I've snapped quite a few..!
This place always reminds me of the Great Thippu Sultan.. a Moghul King.. in the Hindu mold.. His tollerance to other relegion is legendary...!
But there is more to this city than just the Tippu Palace.
Sangamam means confluence of rivers. Here Loakpavani the other branch ov Cauvery is reunited with Cauvery. Picturesque and Nice for Boating.!
Well maintained lovely temple. The architecture is great. The stone statues and pillars are left as it is without modern(!) painting and look great. There is a Thulasi madam outside the temple (within the compound) . When you come about doing the Pradhakshinam you will encounter it. Remember to take a close look.. It has miniaturized carvings all the four sides..They are exquisite and breath taking...!
Very nicely located. We waded thru different kind of trees and Garden to buy the tickets for the boating. I bought the tickets (Rs 25/-per person) and stopped by a hoarding that carried a Crocodile's picture. I thought it had a Crocodile form too somewhere else. Yes .. It had indeed.. but not elsewhere.. there were marsh crocs in the river we were about to boat...! The boat man was waiting... and we were waiting too... hesitating to take a step further.. My wife yelled that we should turn back. Though, I felt chilling sensation in the spine at the tought of wading thru the river along with the crocs.. the prospects of photographing them in close quarters thrilled me...! I did not talk to her and went ahead and sat in the boat.. My good wife followed her husband.. We were in the same boat..! Yes..We all feared the crocs..!


Great place to while away some time.. Picturesque.. 

Tippu Summer Palace..! Definitely Nostalgic, if not Great..!

Melkote is at about 50kms from Mysore and has two temples One Narasimhar temple on the Hill and Thiru Narayana Perumal temple at the foothills. I could not visit Thiru narayanar temple. I'll plan to do it next time I visit Mysore.
The hill-top temple of Sri Narasimhar is breath taking from the foot hills. The stone steps and the Mandapams in between are all typical of the olden era..!
Nanjangud is a very famous Shivasthalam in Karnataka that has Puranic significance. It is on the way to Bandipur Forest at about 80kms from Mysore. As is with any other Kannadiga temple, this temple too is well maintained and clean. The shrine is further beautified with the Kapila River that was flowing with abundant water when we visited. We took a trip across it by a Parisal.

Nothing to rave about. We took the bus run by forest dept. We could not hire the Jeep as all of them are booked by the time we reached. It is said that early morning is better time to go round the forest.We didn't come across any wild animals. Not even elephants...!
Well, a ride amidst the forest itself an experience.
Some Video clips can be viewed here
Hope you liked this compilation.. Will see you soon with the travelogue on my Coorg Trip..!

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