Spontaneous Serendipity

Club Mahindra Resort

The plan to go to Coorg was made within minutes when Angshuman & Shipra came up with a brilliant proposition to make bookings at Club Mahindra Resort for all of us. The idea was to just go there, relax and enjoy the rains… and we ended up doing exactly the same!

We originally planned to reach the place around noon but due to pathetic road condition in the fag end, we got delayed by over two hours. Initially, we were really surprised by the excellent road condition between Mysore and Khushalnagar (80kms) but the road thereafter, for the last 26kms, could be best described as “barely motor-able”.

We had a late lunch at the resort on day one, followed by some game activities in the “Fun Zone”. Neiv liked the children play area but rains played spoilsport for him. It continued to rain the entire evening and we decided to call it a day and have a quiet relaxing evening at our room. It continued rain the whole night.

In the morning we enjoyed an elaborate breakfast at the resort and then headed for Abbey falls, which is around 10kms away. The road to falls is a single lane, mountainous and very scenic.  As it hadnt stopped raining we waited for the rains to slow down before heading out towards the falls. Neiv was specially very excited while going towards the falls. We later realized that all the excitement was as he actually expected to see Dinosaurs in the forest/near the falls

Abbey Falls

The falls, which are about 300m away from the parking area, were in the full glory at this time of the year with +9% extra rainfall being blessed in the state of Karnataka this season. However, due to the increased water flow, access to the falls was restricted.  Seems you could sit under the falls during summers, when the falls are just a trickle.

We again spent the rest of the day indoors, enjoying the rains and few games of “dumb charades” while Neiv watched his Fav show “Tom & Jerry” on the DVD.

Next day, we started our return journey immediately after breakfast and though we had planned to make a stopover at the Buddhist Monastery @ Khushalnagar,  as Neiv dozed off enroute, we decided to skip it and directly head home. We reached Bangalore/home at around 5PM after almost a non-stop drive with just one coffee break.

Summary: Coorg disappoints you as a tourist place… all the sight seeing place are scattered far away from each other and the connecting roads are pathetic. But I would still rate the trip as a good one as it was a relaxing trip at a nice resort with excellent food and the entire trip was planned & executed without hassles

How to Reach Coorg From Bangalore: Bangalore – take SH17 to – Ramanagram – Chennapatna – Maddur – Mandya – Srirangapatnam – Mysore – Take right at Ring road towards Hunsur – take right/merge into SH88 – Hunsur – Khushalnagar – Medikeri (Kodagu/Coorg).

Road Condition:
- SH17: Excellent, 4 Lane, pothole free
- SH88: Excellent, 4 Lane till Hunsur and 2 lanes till Khushalnagar (80kms), pothole free. Thereafter the road becomes pathetic, 1 lane, mildly mountainous and full of potholes.

Thanks again to Angshuman and Shipra for giving us company (& of course for the free stay!).

You can check the pictures here.

Cheers!