HAPPY JOURNEY – To Heaven and Back

So yeah, it was an unusual choice. And I have to admit that our timing wasn’t unimpeachable either but our voyage to Coorg was a certain success! As much as we can remember, this was indubitably our most relaxed & paused trip so far.

Udupi

It started with a beautiful old couple as our company in the train. Stereotypically, uncle was calm & quiet and aunty was a chatter box but both of them symbolized grace…started at 3:30pm on Fri, we reached a serene, sleeping town called Udupi around 6am the next day. The town looks at you & greets you with a child-like innocence where people still use PCOs & coin-box telephones to make calls, where you can still find an “audio cassette” shop! It looks like the town has stood still in time…and mind it! It can easily categorised as one of the most tidy Indian town you can ever see!

on our way

After freshen up & the breakfast, we zoomed off to Madikkeri, our “alleged” destination. Since the short route was under construction, we took the longer one (not by choice though!). When we started, we never imagined that this was gonna be our most entertaining road trip ever! Due to his back issues, my dad was lying down in the last seat, my brother-in-law in front; me, my mom, sister & the little devil of our family were sitting in the middle one (it was a SUV if any of you are still wondering).

The road has more ditches than Abhishek Bachchan’s flops! We were LITERALLY dancing our way to Madikkeri. In the course time, my father vomited & my sister slept! Our driver, though very polite & decent, didn’t know the exact direction. We kept asking & kept getting the same answer - “30 kms more”! Everyone kept showing us the finger (index & not the middle one thankfully) for the direction and we kept driving…there were a few roads in otherwise smooth pits.

By this time, my father was feeling dizzy and my sister was still sleeping! My mother, my brother-in-law and I were jumping, bouncing and dashing our heads to the vehicle’s roof. It was rude of my sister to ignore our wondrous “street-dance” performance and kept slumbering. She only woke up to threw up!

Anyways, after 8 hours of participating in a street-dance reality show, we managed to reach our destiny, Madikkeri around 6:30pm! We had booked a cottage for ourselves and it was cozy, sweet place in the middle of the silent town. It had a living room with TV, sofas & carpet, a dining hall with, of course, dining table, two bedrooms, a kitchen and even a prayer room. After 8 hours of “street-dancing”, we were dead tired and wanted a refreshing bath. But we were warned that electricity goes off here and there was no concept of a generator! And the warning proved true too but we were armed with torch & candles. While others were removing their dirt, me and my mother decided to step out and look for something to munch on as the hunger stroked…stroked really bad!

After a lost search, we found a small but delightful tea shop which also had hot daal-wada! I was already slurping and so was my mom. So we get them packed & headed back to our “cottage” (I love to brag that we had a cottage of our own!)

We all hogged on the daal-wadas and watched TV. That was the night when Madhuri was suppose to perform at the Filmfare Awards with SRK so as expected, I was getting a stroke out of joy! So to sum it up, that’s how our first day at Coorg ended, street-dance performance of the entire family, daal-wadas, spicy dinner, black-out and Madhuri’s spellbinding performance…sounds perfect, isn’t it? Well, it was actually.

From next day onwards, it was the usual routine when you go to such tourist spots, sight-seeing, photos, shopping & lots & lots of food. But the only difference here was we never felt exhausted or bored. Every spot was spot-on! Raja’s Seat, Golden Temple & Abby Falls etc. etc. etc. Beautiful is the word.

Raja's Seat

In the mean while we changed the cottage to a better but usual hotel room. The view was mesmerizing. We used to spent our days visiting these spots & evenings at Raja’s Seat with a divine sun-set view & a musical fountain. Whole Madikkeri has one “good” restaurant, Atithi jahan Jain fooddddd milta hai (picture attached)! Though it looked shady but the food was really good.

The River We Crossed 

One of the days, we went for elephant training session where you can bathe them, feed them, ride them etc. but me & my sister had other plans! First we crossed the river in a boat with my mother chanting “Hanuman Chalisa” in her mind coz she has water-phobia! We did the formality there by clicking pictures with the elephant so that the animal won’t feel ignored and then me & my sister were on the trip of our own! Impromptu enough, we decided to cross the river by walking! It wasn’t deep & the locals were doing it anyways. We knew if we even look at our mother, she’ll apprehend us! So we chose to ignore her & started crossing the river. Poor my brother-in-law, he was given the task to carry my sister’s shoes & my bag and take care of the oldies. Anyways, the adventurous journey begins…we stumbled, slipped & laughed our way to the other side of the river, totally avoiding any eye-contact with our mother. I think it was THE most audacious thing I’ve ever done in my life so to say and I think it holds true for my sister as well. My parents, my brother-in-law & my nephew took the boat to come back & my mother’s “Hanuman Chalisa” was still on.

Painful

The same day, I also sprained my ankle while climbing down a tree-house in a man-made jungle, our next spot. It was painful and my mother almost got a heart-attack. It pained for few more days & I walked in a bandage. But it was worth it!

We also went to a monastery called The Golden Temple. And trust me, it was humongous! I felt lost when entered the temple. Extremely clean, calm, colorful with copious monks roaming around in their typical red & yellow costume…

Golden Temple

We also visited a temple which was on the bank of a river. It was quiet, unsoiled & of course, divine. There they serve free lunch & you’ll see people from all walks of life, sitting on the floor & having that lunch called prasadam. The food was delicious so far with sambhar, rice & sweet Prasad. But then…they started serving butter milk…no no, not in a glass but IN your lunch plate WHILE you’re eating your rice! So suddenly the lunch I was EATING, I had to DRINK it. I was perplexed as in how to “eat” the watery thing in my plate and that’s when my mother guided me. An absolute unforgettable experience!

Then there was Abby Falls. It was like most of the Karan Johar or Aamir Khan movies…overrated & overhyped…

Abby Falls

One day, we decided to do NOTHING! We were just chilling in our rooms in the morning, then went to the market, shopped for a while, came back &; chilled some more! As I said before, it was our most relaxed and tranquilled outing so far.

During our 6 days stay at Coorg, it would be safe to call following, the highlights of our excursion:

• Elephant training

• Crossing the river…walking!!!

• My ankle sprain!

• Deer & rabbit feeding

• Drinking the lunch!

• And hold your breath coz this one takes the cake totally – shopping branded jeans & shoes!

The one thing that makes this unruffled scenic hill station unique is it’s innocence…there is no façade or veneer about this town. Unlike a Khandala or a Lonavla, it doesn’t ‘pretend’ to be a hill station. It’s still unexplored & non-commercialized but with the rate its growing popularity, I’m afraid we’ll soon gonna have another Ooty in South India. Even though I strongly recommend everyone to visit this elated, composed delight, but in my heart, honestly I don’t want many people to visit there & spoil the exhilaration of the place.

Mangalore "ELEPHANT" Hotel

Moving ahead, we decided to come down to Mangalore a day before our train, to avoid any jeopardy. This time, our driver was a pro & he knew all the short-cuts and routes. He was a true gentleman who greeted all of us with a ‘good morning’ when we started; he was polite, well dressed with decent command over English. With such hands on the steering, you don’t expect a catastrophe and fortunately none happened. We reached Mangalore in 3 hours & checked in a hotel which I called an Elephant coz uske dikhane ke daant alag aur khaane ke alag the. It had an amazing, swanky lobby & the reception area with restaurants, sweet shops, discs &swimming pool. But it showed it’s true colors when we entered our rooms. Though you can’t call them bad rooms but they were not holding the analogy with the façade of the hotel.

We were told that there is a pure-veg restaurant in the hotel so after freshen up, we marched towards the food. It was 3:20pm and we sat at the corner seat, overlooking a bustling street of Mangalore. We were greeted with a frown & a no-smile face. The waiter was angry… no one knows why but he was ANGRY! He almost asked us to get lost with his face but the brazen family that we are, we chose to laugh it off & ignore him. I guess that’s what triggered him more & he denied almost all our orders. So we managed in whatever was served to us, we compromised…

Front Building

In the evening, we decided to explore the Mangalore city. We started walking…for shopping. My mother wanted to buy a saree to gift someone & she took over 3 hours to get the right one. Then at around 8 pm, me & my sister took over the charge. We looked, searched & asked for…well, a mall! And we found City Mall nearby which was huge & had almost every famous brand. When me & my sister enter a mall and if God forbidden, there is a sale going on, my brother-in-law gets a mortified expression on his face…and yes! He had the same expressions this time too! We shopped, then shopped again & then shopped more…till the mall had the closing announcement.

On our way back, we stopped at The Punjabi Dhaba which was a spin-off of Urban Tadka. The ambience was warm & endearing, the food was also scrumptious but it took loooooooooooooooooooong to get the food served. Nonetheless, we ate and walked back to our hotel…the roads are relatively empty at this hour of the night, you can see few couples & young lads & lasses walking on the road, on the bike or just gathered around a corner, talking, discussing, fighting & enjoying their age!

Next day, our train was at 2:30pm & the station was 5 mins distance from our hotel. So in the morning, post breakfast (heavy one), me, my sister & my brother-in-law saunter our way to grace the mall again. We shopped a little more till we realized that most of the stuff we bought won’t fit in our bags & we might need to buy extra ones. And also coz we had a pack with our parents that we’ll back to the hotel by 1. So on our way back, we stopped at a nariyal paani wala. My brother-in-law specifically asked him to give us the ones with cream &sweet water. He cut the first one, my sister had, the second one, I had & then he picked the third one…little he knew that the third nariyal will rob him his money! In our defense, my brother-in-law warned him to pick another coconut coz the one he picked was looking ruined. But he was adamant & assured us that there’ll be cream & the water will be sweet. Unfortunately for him & fortunately for us, the water was bitter & there was a zilch cream in the coconut. My brother-in-law refused to give him the money of the third coconut & offered the rest of it but now little we knew that he’ll enact a eminent Amitabh scene in which Bachchan retorted, “main phenke hue paise nahi uthaata”. He blatantly refused our money & threw it back to us and as I told you before, we’re a very barefaced family so we took our money & smilingly moved ahead!!! And now my brother-in-law needed the revenge, with a vengeance! He took us to the adjacent coconut shop & finally got what he wanted, creamy, sweet coconut water.

But that’s not all…after all this ego-action-revenge drama & blood-shed, my hands were sticky so I leaned towards a water tap which was (this might blow your mind away) LOCKED! There, literally, was an iron lock on the tap! Those who know me will vouch for the fact that I’ve absolutely no control over my laughter and as expected I burst out laughing! I was hysterical and my sister was busy clicking the picture of the tap!!!

After this eventful experience, we walked back to our hotel. I was laughing through our way and was looking ditzy with water coming outta my eyes & my face turning red! Now we reach the hotel & sat for the lunch. Parents had heavy breakfast so they decided to skip it. My brother-in-law ordered the worst South Indian Thali ever! Can’t remember what me & my sister ordered but I’m sure it’s not worth mentioning!

Mangalore Station

Hence, after unnecessary shopping, insultingly free sweet & creamy coconut water, locked water tap, hysterical walk towards out hotel & world’s worst lunch ever, we changed & checked out to go to the station. The train was already at the Mangalore station. We settled down in our seats, clicked few last pictures and left the city, taking some really beautiful reminiscences with us.

Our journey back was again, an eventful & a playing-card-full one which got delayed by 4 hours. But that’s another story altogether…will discuss that some other time…so in the nutshell, our Coorg voyage was contentious, relaxed, invigorating &; hysterically funny…go, rejuvenate your life in the serene, tranquil and still uncharted Coorg…HAPPY JOURNEY!!!