Last weekend (February 21-22), I went for an overnight trip to Madikeri with two of my colleagues and the company driver. Madikeri is about 270 km west of Bangalore, beyond Mysore, in the Western Ghats. It’s not exactly a Hill Station, where the British used to go to escape the heat, but even so, the area (Coorg) is one of coffee and tea estates, and supposed to have a cooler climate. In fact the weather forecast said highs of 18 C with rain all weekend, so I packed my fleece jacket, raincoat, and umbrella. That forecast turned out to be worthy of Environment Canada due to its awe-inspiring deviation from reality.
On our way out of Bangalore toward Mysore, we saw the Sholay Hills, where Sholay was filmed, then stopped for some breakfast at a Kamat restaurant, a chain of roadside restaurants. It was only a day since my food poisoning attack, and my stomach was still very queasy, so I didn’t eat much; some idli steamed in a leaf, some rice, curd, and tea. A little later we stopped for some coconut water by the roadside. Coconut water is supposed to be good for the digestion, and that’s what I needed. A fellow with a bicycle loaded with coconuts hacked the top off a coconut for each of us with his machete.
The day got hot pretty fast, and it takes a five to six hours to drive the 270 km, even taking the ring road around Mysore. Our first sightseeing stop was at Cauvery Nisargadhama near Kushalnagar, a park on the Cauvery river with paddle boats, elephant rides, bunnies, deer, and of course lots of monkeys roaming around in the bamboo groves. The Cauvery is pretty shallow here, and looking down from the suspension bridge to the island, the river was nearly churning with fish. We took out some paddle boats, had a snack of cucumber with chili powder, and then cooled our feet in the river.
When we got to Madikeri, we decided to find the hotel before doing anything else. Lots of stops for direction were involved in that. Madikeri, built on hillsides, is a town of narrow, twisty, steep, dead-end streets. We were looking for the Hilltown Hotel. When I first heard that, I thought, “Madikeri has a Hilton???” Well, no, it’s not exactly the Hilton: no toilet paper, no shower (just the usual buckets), but clean and comfortable, and not bad for Rs 900 (C$25). They have old-fashioned padlocks on the doors, and of course you leave the key at the desk on your way out. You’d never forget to do that, as the key fob weighs about a pound. The hotel is behind the “Jedi Hospital” according to the key fob, but I didn’t seen any Jedi (as far as I know).
After a quick wash, we headed out again while there was still some daylight. A few kilometres out of town is Abbi Falls, a picturesque waterfall accessible by walking through a coffee estate. During the monsoon, the water is supposed to really roar, and you can stand above the torrent on a short suspension bridge. Abbi, by the way, means “waterfall” in the local language.
Sunset was approaching, so we drove back to Madikeri to the Raja’s Seat, a spot on a cliff where the Raja used to watch the sunset over the Western Ghats. We did that too. The sun sets very quickly; it was all over in less than two minutes, but it was a great sunset. We waited another half an hour while it got fully dark, and then watched the musical fountain.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Shree Omkareshwara Shiva temple for a while. I went back in the morning in the daylight.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. Well, the other guys had dinner… I had tomato soup and pushed some rice around on my plate, as my appetite was still zero. I did have dessert though, a “Hilltown Special”, which is a lot of ice cream with fresh fruit. They also had a Tribble Sunday on the menu. I wonder if the tribbles were beamed down fresh every day?
After that it was bedtime. I was exhausted from the combination of food-poisoning aftermath, hot weather, and exercise, so I slept like a log from 9pm to 6am, then woke up and had a nice bucket bath.
I knew I wouldn’t sleep past 6am, so Anil and I arranged the night before to go for an early walk through town while Kiran and Saif slept in. While the sun peeked up above the hilltops, we found our way back to the Shree Omkarashwara temple again and had a more leisurely visit. Anil explained the meaning of the various scenes painted on the walls, some of which I was already familiar with. On our way back to the hotel, we got lost, and had to ask for directions several times. My GPS was, unfortunately, packed in my bag back at the hotel.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already starting to get hot outside. We took breakfast in the hotel restaurant, but I still wasn’t too hungry. I couldn’t handle anything heavy like a curry, so I had to order the “American Breakfast”, an omelette and toast. How embarrassing. Still, at least it went down (and stayed down).
We continued on from Madikeri, down into the valley and then back up onto the mountain side along increasingly-narrow roads with switch-backs until we got to Tala Cauvery, the “birth place” of the Cauvery river. Once a year, during the monsoon, a fountain appears. It has religious significance, and there’s a temple there.
By this time, the heat was like a blast furnace, and it had to be 35 C. My guidebook, the usually-excellent “Rough Guide to South India”, helpfully suggests, “Wear something warm.” There’s a staircase leading 300 feet up the Brahmagiri hillside from the temple to an excellent view, but there’s no shade at all. In the picture, you can make out the vein popping out of my forehead like one of those meat thermometers built into grocery store turkeys. I was cooked.
On our way back, we stopped at Bhagamandala to visit the Bhagandeshwara temple. Temple visits are always barefoot, of course, and the pavement was so hot I couldn’t stand on it, so I had to walk across the road on my heels.
Across the road from the temple is Triveni Sangam, where the Cauvery, Kannika, and Sujyoti rivers meet. Water from there is used in funeral rituals, and ashes are scattered there, but it’s also considered good for the soul to take a dip there while alive. The cool water was definitely good for my soles, after all the hot pavement, stone, and sand they’d seen.
Back at Madikeri, we washed, had lunch (I had a fruit and ice cream salad), packed, and checked out. On our way out of town, we stopped at the Coorg Cardamom Corporation store, a government shop where you can buy local coffee, cardamom, and honey. I don’t think I’d get any of that across the Canadian border, so I just stood in the store and enjoyed the spicy smells while the other guys bought bags and bags of spices.
Our next stop was Namdroling Monastery near Kushalnagar to see the Golden Temple. This place is one of several Tibetan refugee settlements in India, and has special status as Tibetan territory. Officially, I wasn’t supposed to be there without a special permit from Delhi, but apparently that isn’t strictly enforced for day visitors, because I certainly didn’t blend in with the crowd. The temple is very ornate, gold leaf and brightly-painted murals everywhere. Outside, some young Tibetans were having a cricket match.
By this time, it was 6pm and the sun was getting low. We had planned to stop in Mysore on the way back if there was enough light, to see the one Mysore sight I’d missed in 2006, Chammundi Hill, which overlooks Mysore. Alas, it was completely dark by the time we got there, and we decided to drive through to Bangalore. Kiran used to live in Mysore, and pointed out landmarks as we passed through the city.
We made one last stop on the way back, to have dinner at the same Kamat we’d stopped at for breakfast the day before, this time for dinner served on banana leaves. I found out they have their own cows, which you can see behind Saif in the photo. I guess that wasn’t pasteurized milk in the curd I’d had for breakfast the day before. Maybe the weather’s hot enough to pasteurize the milk straight from the udder. In any case, my still-upset stomach insisted that I skip dinner, and instead I ate everyone’s dessert bananas and a handful of betel nut.
