[theMAG]

Go upto Kushalnagara along the traditional Hunsur route as mentioned by others. After Kushalnagara, take a left and head towards Siddapura, instead of continuing straight on towards Bylakuppe where the road becomes very ordinary. The Siddapura road is beautiful, very scenic, runs parallel to the main road and rejoins at Madikeri town onto the main road itself.

[aka_iitd]

I am also in Coorg during Christmas weekend. I am staying in estate owned by princezahed. Anyone else is coming to Coorg this time. I would be starting from Bangalore on 25th Morning and after visiting KushalNagar monastery would reach Coorg

[@ri]

You could have a look at this thread for loads of info
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...rip-coorg.html

As for the best route, I feel it is best to start on mysore road and take the deviation to the right after srirangapatnam (after the bridge same one that goes towards ranganathitoo) and continue straight on crossing Hunsur. then continue on to Kushalnagar and don't miss the monastery and the momos there!
I stayed at a Home stay there run by a retired couple (also Estate owners) they were very good and the house (1st floor) that is where I stayed is really good. only thing it is about 10 Kms before the town. PM me if you would like to know there contact number.

[manjubp]

Originally Posted by theMAG

Go upto Kushalnagara along the traditional Hunsur route as mentioned by others. After Kushalnagara, take a left and head towards Siddapura, instead of continuing straight on towards Bylakuppe where the road becomes very ordinary. The Siddapura road is beautiful, very scenic, runs parallel to the main road and rejoins at Madikeri town onto the main road itself.

+1,
Good route to reach Madikeri. Less of traffic, good road, very scenic. But average speed will be lesser than the other route. In this route, other than at Siddapura, you wouldn't get any place to eat or attend your vehicle. Any day I would take this road via siddapura rather than Bylakuppe.


regards,
-manju

[princezahed]

Lots of tbhpians are gonna be in coorg the christmas weekend thats why i suggested that maybe we could have a mini get together either in town or at my estate,if thats not a problem with people.

[Iswear]

Originally Posted by aka_iitd

I am also in Coorg during Christmas weekend. I am staying in estate owned by princezahed. Anyone else is coming to Coorg this time. I would be starting from Bangalore on 25th Morning and after visiting KushalNagar monastery would reach Coorg

Hi Aka_iitd, I would be starting on 26th morning from Bangalore. Princezahed is helping me out in getting accomodation at Coorg.

Originally Posted by princezahed

Lots of tbhpians are gonna be in coorg the christmas weekend thats why i suggested that maybe we could have a mini get together either in town or at my estate,if thats not a problem with people.

I am game with this idea. In anycase, I would visit your estate for sure man!

[aka_iitd]

Guys this week i am traveling to Coorg. i think it is better to join NICE road from Kanakpura after Metro take right which has a toll of Rs.44.
Guys any suggestions or update

[superamerica]

I have also planned to chill out at coorg for the new year wkend. I will be leaving on 28th, couple of days at Palace estate and then a couple of days into the new year at club mahindra. Any other team-bhpians driving to coorg around that time?

[arindambasu13]

Originally Posted by theMAG

Go upto Kushalnagara along the traditional Hunsur route as mentioned by others. After Kushalnagara, take a left and head towards Siddapura, instead of continuing straight on towards Bylakuppe where the road becomes very ordinary. The Siddapura road is beautiful, very scenic, runs parallel to the main road and rejoins at Madikeri town onto the main road itself.

@Mag and Manju: Thanks for the suggestion. But does this route make the distance to Madikeri longer? and what is the distance from the beginning of this road till the point where is joins Madikeri?
ALso, why do you say that the average speed will be lesser?

AM leaving tommorrow, so would appreciate any last minute suggestions
Cheers!

[prabhuav]

@Mag and Manju:This is a good info. Will help for the next trip

[shajufx]

I was in North Coorg from 22nd Monday to 24th Wednesday as mentioned in the earlier posts. We prefered P N Heritage (homestay in the middle of a 55 acres of estate with cardomom, pepper, eucaliptus, coffee, mango, banana etc. owned by Prabhudev). It was a very good experience overall. We had very good home food, swimming, campfire, estate visit, tree climbing with lot of photographic and videographic experiments !

We were 5 adults and a kid for 2 days and 2 nights. Total expenses including food (non-veg), drinks (2250 litres of DSP Black), Petrol (55 litres full tank in an Innova), Shopping ( 4 litres of Honey, 4 kilos Pepper, 1 kilo Coffee, Budhist momentos etc.), and any other miscellaneous on route all came within 15k. That figure was a shocking surprise for me as I was considering Orange County for stay. Accomodation and food alone would have gone over 20k if we prefered that place.

I would happily recommend this place to anyone. Its very friendly, quiet, scenic, romantic place by all means. Only tip, dont rely on the cooks there, be specific on what you want and how you want.

The route we took: Bangalore North - Kengeri - Bidadi - Ramanagaram - Channapatna - Maddur - Mandya - Srirangapatna - till here its SH17. After second bridge from Srirangapatna we took a right towards Elivala junction (Hunsur-Mysore highway). At Elivala we took the right. Next is Hunsur - later found the Y junction, took the right hand path - Kamapalapura - Piriyapatna - KushalNagar- Somavarpet - Belur Village. Total one-way 250 kms from Bangalore Hebbal. On the way back, we visited the Budhist Temple and followed the same route. Innova was a very comfortable and luxury travel experience without any doubt.

Google maps on Blackberry tracked the complete route except the destination village and estate, I could make calls and go on messengers without any issues even in the middle of the estate.

[aka_iitd]

Back from coorg yesterday night.
Best part apart from stay was SX4 gave FE 14.5 + KM/L approx. Due for 2nd free service.
Was not able to stay in Zayed estate but he arranged a very comfortable stay. Many thanks to him.Will post more details in a day or so.

[princezahed]

Originally Posted by aka_iitd

Back from coorg yesterday night.
Best part apart from stay was SX4 gave FE 14.5 + KM/L approx. Due for 2nd free service.
Was not able to stay in Zayed estate but he arranged a very comfortable stay. Many thanks to him.Will post more details in a day or so.

Hey Anand bhai sorry I was unable to answer your call. I had left my spice phone in the estate. It was only in the night when i returned that I saw it. Hope Ginger was comfortable enough to stay.

[prabhusati]

Originally Posted by shajufx

We were 5 adults and a kid for 2 days and 2 nights. Total expenses including food (non-veg), drinks (2250 litres of DSP Black), Petrol (55 litres full tank in an Innova), Shopping ( 4 litres of Honey, 4 kilos Pepper, 1 kilo Coffee, Budhist momentos etc.)

Hi, 2250 litres of DSP? or 2.25 litres?

[aka_iitd]

Vehicle: SX4 Vxi Supreme Red
Total KM covered 695 KM FE 14.5+KM/L
Start date 27th Dec 08 Morning 6:50 AM from Sarjapur
Place: Coorg

We (Me, wifey and volcano (my 2 yr old kid)) started from Bangalore at 6:50AM. My son was still in dreams so we took him in the night dress in the car and started our journey after having hot tea at home. We were there at NICE road through Kanakpura road around 7:30 AM and after paying toll charges of 21 bucks headed towards Mysore. We lost somewhere in NICE area but soon recovered by offering a lift to a person who was a worker at the toll road.He was the only person on road otherwise all were zooming past
Roads were almost empty and weather outside was good and I drove at a speed of around 80+ touching 120 once. Though RPM still was around 3.5K.I think car has lot more to extract but i don't like very high speed so returned back to 80+.Reached Mysore at 9:15 AM and took SH88 and took rest for 30 mins
Now my better half took control of the beast and we headed towards the golden temple. Reached at temple around 11:00 AM. Temple is awesome. Big treat to your eyes. Very lively and colorful.Spent about 2 hrs there at temple. We tanked our tummy there. Worst part it was very hot there. We again started for the Madikeri from Golden temple. Roads till Kushal nagar is very good but stretch from Kushal nagar to Madikeri town which was 30KM was very bad. Average speed was 40 KM. Somehow we reached Madikeri town at 2:00PM and went straight to KSRTC bus stand where Zayed was there waiting for me. As my plan was changed he helped me in getting another home stay which turned out to be very good and comfortable. Thanks Zayed for that. Though I thought to vist Zayed home stay but in the end was not able to do so due to my changes.

26th Evening we spent time with home stay owners and their kids. My son had a good time with their daughter. We had dinner at home stay and slept at 9:00PM which was quite unusual for us as it was totally dark outside.

27th Dec
We woke up at 9:00 AM full 12 hrs sleep and after having heavy breakfast prepared by the home stay Aunty we headed for Talacauvery.It was 45KM driver from Madikeri. Place was nicely situated but we reached in afternoon so most of the morning fog and cold breeze was gone.
Parking was a problem as many visitors were there and place was crowded. We saw the place where Cavery river comes out. Planned to take a dip in the pond but didn't had a spare cloths so dropped the idea.We spent an hr or so there and headed again towards Madikeri town after visiting some temples in between. We reached Madikeri at 2:30 PM took lunch (OK types tried searching good restaurants but not able to find such) and headed towards Abbey waterfalls. Roads here were narrow and tempo traveler’s guys were driving at very high speed. At one place my SX4 got stuck in loose gravels by giving pass to fast moving tempo traveler. Need to push to and fro to get it out. After this episode I tried not to get down from the road for fast moving tempo travelers. We reached abbey waterfalls at 3:30PM and spend good time in water. Nice place. Took me back 4 years back when I came with my friends when i was a bachelor . Again started back to Home stay and by 6:30PM we werethere. Took dinner had chat with other visitors and again slept as nothing much to do.

28th Dec
Again we woke up at 9:00 AM and after breakfast at home stay headed towards Omkareshwar temple. Nice place surrounded by water. Before starting my home stay owner gave a bath to my SX4 which got very dirty yesterday. After that we visited raja seat. We had a ride on toy
train. Also visited Madikeri fort etc and wrapped up for the day as we planned to visit Dubare and Nisargadhama.
We packed our things and said goodbye to our home stay owners and headed towards Dubare at 1:45PM.We reached Dubare but came to know that elephant bathing, feeding etc which is a major attraction is there till
12 noon. We can only see elephants. So we crossed one small river and saw few elephants and clicked some snaps with them. There were 3 wild elephants which were catched recently were in cages. After Dubare we went to Nisargadhama.This place is awesome with bamboos all over. There
is a deer park and elephant ride. You can feed both these animals. Lot of rabbits was also there. My kid was very excited to see all this. We took our lunch here.From Nisargadhama Kushal nagar is just 2 KM so we were able to avoid that rough patch through which we came to Madikeri.
We started from Kushal Nagar at 5:00PM and touched Mysore at 6:30PM. Reached Bangalore at 9:00PM after taking break at Mandya and was home at 9:30PM

Snaps in next post