Weekend spent in Bliss It was afternoon of Monday, 2nd April when I was sitting at work thinking what I was going to do for the long Easter weekend. I knew it was too late to start planning things, but wanted to check nevertheless. My long weekend was from Sat - Mon, unlike Fri - Sun which most of my friends working in other companies had. Which meant, that I probably would not be able to do a trip with friends. So this was going to be a trip with my parents.
Purpose of the trip was to beat the summer heat and also to get away from the maddening city crowd. So started short listing hill stations in the range of less than 400 Kms from B lore (since I was the lone driver). Narrowed down destinations to Sakaleshpur, Chickmanglur & Ooty. Started searching for accommodation, but was not very optimistic. Several hundred websites and 2 days later, there was still no luck! Finally on Wednesday, one of the Homestay persons called me back and provided me a number to call to check if they have any cottages left.
Called the number and spoke with one gentleman Krishna Kumar (aka Krish), who owns home-stay called Bliss at Coonoor. He confirmed he had one cottage available for the weekend!!! He also offered to give us the cottage for "Non season" rate even though the season had started on April 1. Checked the website - looked nice, looked up reviews on Tripadvisor - very good! Asked for the account details and immediately transferred 25% as the booking amount. Et voila!
There were a couple of things to be taken care though - the spare tyre's puncture had to be repaired, and the car needed a wash. Got both done on Friday. Now, the question remaining was of which route to take - Kanakapura or Mysore. Posted a question on the Ooty route thread, and finally decided to take the Kanakapura road.
The journey - Woke at 4.30 am and were on road by 5.45 (KR Puram). Took the ORR via silkboard, JP Nagar to join Kanakapura road ot Sarakki singal. By 7.15 we were at Kanakapura town, it was pretty easy to continue on NH9 here. However, it gets a little irritating in Malavalli and Chamraj nagara, as once you enter the town the NH signs just disappear. And they come back only after you have managed to check with locals and have managed to find the right road!! The road conditions were good on NH 209, with minimal traffic. We stopped for breakfast (9 am) at a hotel opp bus stand in Kollegal. The road from Chamrajnagar towards Gundlupet had hardly any traffic! A few KMs before G'pet noticed a red punto flashing lights, I let the car overtake and then saw the LTD sticker on it! The car stopped a little ahead and so did I. My parents were puzzled as to why I suddenly stopped the car. I showed them the sticker, and they kind of got an idea what this was all about. Met the gentleman who was driving the car, I think his name was Kala (?, am really bad with names :((). We exchanged a few words and then carried on, they were on their way to Wayanad. It was a very pleasant experience indeed, a first for me meeting a fellow BHPían while driving.
Driving on, we reached Bandipur around 10.45 am I think; was really disappointed to see how dry the whole landscape was. Needless to say, I did not expect to spot any animals in that kinda weather, and sure I dint. Well, the plan was to take the Gudalur route as it was more scenic and also because we could visit Pykara on the way. However, as soon as we approached Teppakadu and noticed the deviation on left leading to the Kalhatti ghat road, I changed my mind! I was too tempted by the 36 HP bends!! The road from here until Masinagudi (and also a little further) is not very good. It gets very narrow at places, and with heavy on coming traffic you are forced to get off the road several times. Whats very annoying is that nobody follows any rules here, nobody cares about giving way to the vehicles driving uphill!! By this time, I was kind of feeling tired with slight body pain as well. I reckoned it was probably because of lack of sleep the past 2 nights, and also driving since morning.
Kalhatti - I took the first HP bend in 2nd gear, and that was the last I think! After that all of the bends were taken in 1st gear; at most of the turns there was some oncoming vehicle. Further, there were several cars that were being driving much slower than mine, so had to slow down too. By time I finished the 36th HP, I noticed a couple of things. The temperature, which was almost 34 at the foothills and now probably dropped to 22 - 23; and I was also feeling much much more tired now. Kept driving on, and reached Ooty town which greeted us with crazy traffic. The thought of driving another 25 Kms in the back-to-back traffic to Coonoor was scary, given my health condition. I hour and some crazy ghat traffic later, reached Coonoor town; called our host, who in turn promptly guided us with the route. We were finally at our destination, Bliss Homestay at 1.30 PM.
Krish was there to receive us, and showed us the cottage - it was very very nice! I had no energy to even take out our luggage, I just wanted to hot the bed. Krish asked if we had finished our lunch on the way, and I replied in negative. He suggested some restaurants in Coonoor town, in case we wanted to drive down. But I was in no condition to drive; hence he offered to take us in his Innova. We were back in an hour after having lunch at a very very crowded Veg restaurant called Sri Lakshmi. As soon as we returned to the cottage, I popped some pain killers and paracetamol and crashed into the cozy bed. By this time, it was evident that I was running temperature.
Last edited by chikkars : 16th April 2012 at 23:06.
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