We had no plan, just a goal to
reach Kodaikanal and spend a few days there. Early one Monday morning, a black
VW Polo with two and a boot full of randomness set a south-bound course. Destination
1 – Manipal.
The seven-hour drive was hot,
flat and as it turned out fairly boring compared to what was to come. Over the
next two days, the service apartment witnessed grilled cheese sandwiches,
Pictionary and Taboo battles and a decent bit of lazing around. It was humid
around Manipal Lake but quiet and relaxing. The Museum of Anatomy and
Physiology (MAP) was quite the eye opener with its embalmed human body, baby
Cyclops and strange but true disfigurations.
Over the next eight days, we
picked our way across a small section of south India to places we never
imagined we’d go. Each time we planted ourselves somewhere, we’d find a host of
things to do that we mostly never ended up doing, but had fun anyway. The
drive, however, was fantastic!
Manipal to Kudremukh kicked off routes
through forested area and miles upon miles of breath-taking views. We passed
through Kudremukh National Park which is home to a number of species of wild
animals, a horse-shaped mountain which gives the place its name, trekking
routes and waterfalls.
Delicious pork and a campfire
marked the night at Silent Valley Resort, and a trek uphill the following
morning. We then drove just over a couple of hours to Chikmagalur. This time,
the car wound its way through the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary, part of Project
Tiger, and the site of the sacred Baba Budan Giri Hill. There was no one else
at Winter Green Resorts, so we got the pick of cabins at a discount and the largest
bonfire we could manage.
The next morning, the Polo
decided it was suffering from PMS – lights began blinking on the dashboard, and
the music system involuntarily sent the volume rocketing to maximum. A trip to
the town’s chaotic garage ended in a decision to switch the route from Coorg to
Mysore, where there was a Volkswagen service centre.
It was a week before the famous
Mysore Dussehra, which pulls in enormous crowds for the parade. The Royal
Orchid was renovating its rooms and bumped us up from a standard to a deluxe,
complete with bathtub, minibar and snacks. While Sweet Brown was getting her
insides checked, we stole a trip to the Mysore Zoo, which houses a wonderful
array of animals, birds, and reptiles over 157 acres.
Since the technicians said there
was nothing they could do with Sweet Brown just then, we made our way through
the Bandipur and Mudumalai National Parks to Kotagiri, driving along the
Nilgiri Ghat Roads with 36 hairpin bends with a whole lot of ‘oohs’ at the view.
It was meant to be a single night’s stay, but with a room looking across tea
plantations, it was impossible not to change our minds. So stay on we did,
taking morning walks through waist-high bushes of fragrant tea and breathing in
lungfulls of fresh mountain air.
Then, a week after we’d left
home, we hit the road to Kodaikanal. We stayed outside the commercially over
run town in Vattakanal. Our cottage was a hike up muddy pathways on a steep
hill with the most magnificent view we’d seen so far. Bisons often graze in the
darkness, adding an element of thrill, the danger only slightly muted by the
presence of the guest house’s friendly dogs.
We made a night visit to City
View to see the twinkling lights of Kodaikanal, paused at the deplorably
touristic Coakers’ Walk and stood on the edge of the cliff at Echo Point. There
were beef momos, carrot cake, pear jam and muffins in town; sweet corn on the
cob, Maggi noodles, baby carrots and boiled eggs in our cottage on the hill.
The views made the trip more than worth it.
On the way home, we stopped in
Bangalore for a few days, and took a short trip to the hill station of
Yelagiri. Sweet Brown made it back home after two weeks on the trot with two
happy faces and a boot still full of randomness.
First published in The Navhind Times on November 21, 2015
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