Pics: A 6 hour drive from Bangalore for Ayurveda treatment

Birds were in plenty as well, though my rather old Canon couldn't help much with too great pics and thanks to the mist, light was tricky too.

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Wayanad.

A place for you if you're living in Bengaluru, in your early 60's, looking for a few days of routine Ayurvedic treatment, and can't let go of your passion for a long drive. Last Feb, I'd been to another treatment center, Jeeva Ayurvedic (see my post) and for a change, decided this time to try out Chyavana Ayurvedic, a bit further south.

From my very first WhatsApp enquiry, Dr. Anu Viswanath, who manages Chyavana Ayurvedic, was quite helpful and worked out a 5 days treatment plan for my neck and lower back issues. Here's the center's location. GM did a good job all the way without big shocks or surprises.

I started from home around 0610 h on 21 Jan. As always, my breakfast stop was Kadamba Veg, just before start of the NH 275 expressway to Mysore. After the breezy drive with my dashcam beeping near the 100 mph limit, Just after exiting Mysore, tanked up at Shell on the NH 766. Got a complimentary hot coffee for filling V Power petrol! At around 127+/ l, it's slightly cheaper here than in Bengaluru (129+/l).

The last pit stop was for an awesome, though not too heavy lunch at Mysore Veg Cafe in Sultan Bathery on Regency Road seen in the map above (M764+QMM Mysore Veg Cafe, Sultan Bathery, Kerala 673592), a few metres off NH 766. I strongly recommend this place for pure veg, for their good service and food quality as well as quite ample parking.

From Sultan Bathery to Chyavana Ayurvedic, the final leg of about 31 km was a test for my steering skills on sharp turns, blind corners and such. Though on narrow roads, this drive is still not too much of a challenge thanks to Wayanad's much sparser vehicle population, nowhere like that of Bengaluru. Dr. Anu guided me once I reached the center.

Chyavana Ayurvedic is a lovely nature- rich retreat. Amazing fruiting trees were all around. Here's my car under a fig tree.

Arecanut and pepper were around as well.

My room had a balcony that opened out to their coffee plantation. Peacocks would often call nearby, though shy to show up for a pic. But the best part was the misty views every morning like these.

Sunrise and mist are great in combination!

Birds were in plenty as well, though my rather old Canon couldn't help much with too great pics and thanks to the mist, light was tricky too. Got a few shots here that seem fair enough, from my balcony. (Pigeon, Bulbul, Coucal, Barbet in order).

Food was just awesome on all days, of course conforming to a pure veg and non- dairy menu. I'm now quite used to the boiled rice of Kerala, being a regular traveler there.

Like in my earlier trip of Feb 2024, this time too I did a trip to Tirunelly Maha Vishnu temple on 24 Jan. The temple is 45 km from Chyavana Ayurvedic. Road was in good shape for 95- 97% of the drive with about 200 - 300 m of highly broken stretches. Here's a link to one of my dashcam videos on the good stretches in my return drive from the temple:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/144h...w?usp=drivesdk

I'd start my day with a run and Wayanad is just awesome for this. Imagine starting your daily run/ walk on a misty stretch like this.

..leading to a bridge across the Kabini river about 1 km away.

But a 2 km walk isn't good enough for me! I do nearly 9 to 10 km run/ walk cumulatively in Bengaluru, so I explored the surroundings and settled on a 4 km circuit (in yellow) that took me over a large bridge (the Madakannu Vaddekara bridge in the map). Couldn't go for anything longer due to the treatment's logistics.

The circuit route was a delight, with greenery and banana plantations all around like these..

Randomly spotted this beautiful flower on the route. According to Wikipedia, this flower is called the ‘Lesser bird of paradise’ after the bird it resembles.

And finally on 27 Jan, after that awesome 5D/ 6N, it was time for the not so inspiring return to civilization of the urban kind! I took the wider route on my return drive via Kalpetta, which you see in the topmost map in lighter blue, just below the deep blue one.

PoV: Wayanad rejuvenation is like no other!

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