Break from the Busy Town to Coorg
First time at Coorg but we didn’t plan much about exploring as we just wanted to chill this weekend. Before talking about Coorg or aka Kodagu district, Coffee is where you start from. A common sight in Coorg is people drying the coffee seeds infront of their houses. The initial stage which gets your daily coffee in your mug starts from these houses. Coorg is a famous hill station with the combo of luscious landscapes and acres of plantation around it. Till 1956, Kodagu was an independent state after which it got merged to Karnataka.
Coffee Homestays
It gets better when you are searching for Homestay’s at Coorg. As the coffee estate owners have made their properties accessible to everyone. You can visit and stay at one of such Homestay enjoying the actual beauty of Coorg. You also get to enjoy the Coorgi cuisine as most of these Homestay’s offer you food cooked by them. We booked our Homestay near Kushalnagar which is little away from the main town. But yeah, we had this unplanned and most of the places there were already booked and we had few options. We had to ride little off road to reach this place, but we loved some photos of the place. Red little rooms with greenery around which also had a beautiful swimming pool in the middle of palm trees.
Reaching There
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You can travel to Coorg with the different modes of transportation from Cochi or Bengaluru the nearest airports. And Madikeri Bus stand if you are travelling on a bus. We rented out a car as it gives me the freedom to just stop anywhere I want to explore the area. The only reason I would love to own a vehicle someday. But yeah owning any vehicle for me will just make me stay out of the house to explore the places around me till I am out of fuel.
It was a warm morning when we started the journey gulping a little breakfast to not starve us for some hours. It took us around 8 hours to reach Coorg. A little more than we expected as the rented car from Zoomcar had a tire with no treads and got punctured just before reaching the Homestay. But yeah, something funny happened as some drunk guy stopped near us and was like he would help us if we pay him. But we just ignored him as we thought to figure this up by ourselves. With no knowledge on how to replace the tire, we managed to do the same with Youtube. We reached our Homestay before sunset, which felt good as it was situated around some forested area and after the tires and some road detours. We were not in a mood for more surprises.
The Evening
We ended the day hanging out at the Homestay as it was a cold night. But we thought to get into the pool to just relax. We were called for dinner yeah the Homestay owners cooked an awesome meal for us with the essence of home. The journey which tired us little as we had to deal with some painful stuff on the road. We chatted, laughed on the incidents of the day and also a small plan on where to go and when to return.
Day 2
With a cool late morning we checked out of the stay as we were returning back the same day. Again, we had a flat tire in our car’s dicky so we thought of getting it fixed, but just to confirm if Zoomcar would be giving us a refund. But yeah the reply was that you can get it fix but we don’t refund in such cases so what would you do with a tire if you don’t own a car so we just risked on visiting some spots and returning back home.
Harangi Dam, Kushalnagar
Our friend at the Homestay told us that this place was near our stay so we should definitely check that out. Harangi Dam is located about 9kms from the heart of Kushalnagar and 36kms from Madikeri. It’s built around the tributary of Kaveri river and has a height of 47 mts and 846 mts in length. This place is a picnic spot and also has some short walks which you can try.
The dam is open for people in monsoon its when they release the water, which adds up more serenity to the view there and you get to enter the gates to the dam. I would love to visit here again on some of those times around August to September.
Abbey Falls
After the dam, we headed to Abbey Falls, which was approx 38kms from the dam. We drove through the beautiful roads in Coorg wondering if it would rain but it changed to a clear day later. We crossed the town of Madikeri on the path to the falls. After reaching which we saw people managing the place helping you to park your vehicles in the parking area which was too crowded that day.
Parking your cars you have to walk for about 10mins to reach the falls which is situated in the middle of a coffee and spice estate. It is one the best waterfalls in the Coorg region, but you are not allowed to go near the fall or take a jump into the water. The most you can get from the falls is the view and capture its beauty with your cameras. A hanging bridge is also built there to give you a better view of the fall. But it was closed on that day, maybe due to some repairs or the huge crowd out there that day.
After Abbey Falls, we started our journey back home. It would be great to visit Coorg once again in the monsoon and would recommend you guys the same. As this has been just a chill time visit to the place so we didn’t explore much, but yeah, some of the places which Coorg is actually known for include the Raja’s Seat, Mallalli Falls, Iruppu Falls.
Also I did a Videolog of our Journey to Coorg so checkout the below videos on youtube – 🙂
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