It is about 6 hours from Bangalore to Coorg and if you're in a KSRTC bus and the driver is in the mood to waste no time, you'll get there in about 4 and a half hours like I did.
We had booked a homestay, "Silver Oaks Homestay" in the south part of Coorg and this homestay is the strong reason why I'm writing this blog. You'll find out why later on. Now, this majestic homestay was somewhere in between the forest amidst acres of coffee plantations and random flower gardens (there were a lot of those as well), about 40 kms from Gonikoppal. The lady, Sachi Ponnappa, the grand owner of the homestay had 'booked' a taxi for us from the bus station to her end of the world homestay. We reached Gonikoppal at around 9pm and the taxi driver was waiting for us. The excitement and the enthusiasm was high as this was my first trip to Coorg. The excitement slowly dwindled as the driver drove fast through the deserted forest roads. It was bloody scary. The man didn't know English/ Kannada or Hindi and I didn't know Tamil, that being the only language he spoke. It was a scary 1 hour drive and we finally got to our destination. The homestay. Silver Oak, yeah. Mrs Ponnappa appeared proudly as if she owned half of the world and greeted us. We greeted each other and she showed us our room. The room looked big, sort of. I thought to myself, it was good though it had no place to walk around as the furnitures were huge and wrongly placed. But I had surprise in store. Mrs Estate owner asked us to freshen up and get ready for dinner. Well, as I entered the room and looked around, I realised we couldn't lock the room door. The lock was sort of triangle shaped. There was more, as I entered the bathroom to have a quick wash, I realised Mrs Sachi Ponnapa was a romantic person, she seemed to have loved her days of dim lights and romantic dinners. The bathroom had a zero candle bulb! She claimed it is the best light for a bathroom. Sure! If you can manage to find the right place for the right deeds, else nothin more than a few layers of shit from the previous guest would stick onto you. Yikes! Nasty.
This grand room was priced at just Rs 1600, promising a good meals which included breakfast, lunch and dinner.
So after freshning up, we went to have dinner, she served large, cold white pieces of grated coconut and a few hard chapatis along with the surprisingly tasty beans preparation. That, being the only thing I could eat.
Well, then, we decided to sleep with unlocked doors. She promised to mind her own business and not interfere/ peep into our room.
Next day, a friend who was with me fell ill. I seriously think it was because of the ugly looking coconut something, apparently a great delicasy, had disease like stuff in it. She managed to be nice this time by constantly asking me what was wrong and I reassured her rather acted like it definately I wasn't blaming her culinary skills. Then, we decided to leave the place. We paid an extra 100 bucks and was about to leave when she and her nasty looking mother-in-law who constantly stared at us like she was some hungry cannibal spoke in some tribal language and the lady, Sachi told us "My bill is Rs 2000, I never wanted to give this room to you." Sure! We could not found a place with good food or just a place where we had decently lit/ safe rooms and bathrooms. The aggressive me was on the go almost immediately, the friend beside me was too reserved or shy to be loud enough to the big mouth in front of us. I must confess, I'm sort of good with such stuff. So I argued about her palace like room and the great ambience her Silver Oak had to offer! She was in the mood to continue this fight for another hour. I was thankfully in the mood to leave the place and actually enjoy my holiday. I asked her to shut up and we just left without any good-byes and the lady was still cribbing in her tribal language to god-knows-who on the phone.
The walk, out of the Silver Oak resort was rather a majestic one. We walked quietly, sometimes smiling at each other to the character we had met.
Confession 2 - I judge people with very small things. I had obviously judged the people of this part of the town.
...And the rest of my trip was amazing.
Must Dos-
->Try Bhel puri at the 4th stall when you visit the Raja seat in Madikeri.
->The best place to stay is a hotel, can't remember the name near Raja seat. Clean rooms, tasty food and well mannered staff.
-> The Tibetan monastery
Peace.
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