Hill station to the rescue - Madikeri

The year was ending, my last trip was in April to the mind blowing Gokarna. I just wanted a get away, felt like going to Madikeri, packed our bags and left. As everyone know there was a flood in Madikeri during August. Most of the locality of Madikeri was affected, most of the people lost their land, their own houses and the effort that they had put in growing crops.

We started our journey by bus from Bangalore on a Friday night. Catching up with the bus was fun, we selected our pick up point as Nayandalli, it's a area in Bangalore that is busy all the time. Our pick up time was 11:30 and the whole area was quiet, for our fortune the bus came very late. We somehow managed to stay safe???? Just kidding, we were safe the whole time, it's Bangalore.!

We reached Madikeri around 5:30 in the morning. Our plan for the first day was to trek the Mugilupete hill, before it becomes hot. We had booked a room in Samara Adam estate. The location of the estate was mind blowing but quite far from the city. It will be nice for the people who wants to spend their weekend with a view and amidst of greenery.

We had already said the estate people for a bike apparently they couldn't arrange a vehicle. So we had to wait for the auto to come and pick us. By the time auto came it was 9, our hopes to trek the Mugilupete was still high. We reached Mugilupete around 11:00 am, it was already sunny. Don't know what we were thinking, we started our trek when it was damn sunny.

Mugilupete is a bunch of hills located in the pushpagiri wildlife sanctuary. We trekked all the way up to the view point. It takes almost an hour to trek, along the way here and there we stopped for photos. The view was so mesmerising we forgot all our tiredness. One should see how the mountains there will have the shadows of the clouds above them.

From there we came down, and went to a small falls that was situated near to Mulayangiri. We spent some time playing with water and relaxed ourselves. From there we came back to the city, we brought some gifts and spices, for which the coorg is famous. But we have to be careful with selecting the shops to buy. As there are many shops, one wouldn't know which one would have good quality of products. After the purchase we went directly to Raja's seat to watch sunset.

It was one hell of crowd, So many people to see the sunset. It was very nice, since it was cloudy we couldn't see the complete sunset but by far the best sunset I have witnessed. There will be lots and lots of shops outside Raja's seat, I took a colorful cotton candy, ate churmuri and loved every bit of it.

We then walked ourselves to a temple near Raja's seat, Omkareshwara temple. The temple was so quite and calm, we took blessings of Lord Shiva and spent some time in the temple until our driver arrived. We then had dinner at a hotel, BTW our driver was very sweet and guided us through all possible places

We were super tired went to the estate, the route to estate was quite long but was calm and peaceful. That's how we ended our first day at Coorg.

Fresh morning, fresh start with a quick breakfast from the estate people. Before our driver arrived we quickly took a tour in the estate and also photoshoot of ourselves. The estate had coffee plants, pepper plants. Once the driver arrived we vacated our room and left for the day.

First we were headed to Dubare elephant's camp, the famous in Madikeri. We got to see the bunch of elephant walking around, taking bath. There was this baby elephant which was so adorable in this camp, that was the sweetest thing we saw in Dubare. We then finished our tour in Dubare elephant camp and headed towards

Fresh morning, fresh start with a quick breakfast from the estate people. Before our driver arrived we quickly took a tour in the estate and also photoshoot of ourselves. The estate had coffee plants, pepper plants. Once the driver arrived we vacated our room and left for the day.

First we were headed to Dubare elephant's camp, the famous in Madikeri. We got to see the bunch of elephant walking around, taking bath. There was this baby elephant which was so adorable in this camp, that was the sweetest thing we saw in Dubare. We then finished our tour in Dubare elephant camp and headed towards Nagarahole national park.

We went to Chiklihole reservoir, spent some time there. We weren't allowed to play in water as we were warned saying there were crocodiles in the river.

After that we had lunch, went to Narmdroling monastery. The best thing about this place was there were so many varaites of flowers, the silence and the peace. We were able to spend quite a time in here sitting in the hall.

Later we went to Nisargadhama, it is a park which attracts tourists with a few deers in there. We could see the deers, we fed them and enjoyed our time, There was also a small waterfall here. Here our trip ended, the driver dropped us off to the bus stop and left.

Since we have not booked any tickets back to Bangalore we took a KSRTC bus to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore around 2 am.

This was a unplanned trip, but was so nice. The nature pictures are still in the blink of our eye.