A 2 day visit to Coorg, Coffee country

How did we do it?

We took a two day taxi from Coorg to Mysore, it was a small Hyundai car, but it was comfortable and our driver spoke enough English to converse and help us with information on the sites and temples. Coorg is known as the Scotland of India, and true to form it rained, heavy showers on and off all day. 

On the first day we stopped at the golden temple in Bylakkuppe, a Tibetan colony which set up in India after being forced out of their country. The temples are gorgeous. And these are like none of the other temples we had seen in India. The temples all had golden roofs and an 18ft giant statue of Buddha, as well as 2 other gods flanking him. After visiting the temple we grabbed a bite to eat in a restaurant across the road that was full of Buddhist monks, we chose steamed Momo's (thinking it would be good to try a traditionally Tibetan snack!). However, we waited for nearly 30 minutes for this...we weren't expecting this to take so long and eat into our day so much! Following this we saw Kaveri Nisargadhama an island formed by the river Cavery, its pretty and has lots of deers there that you can feed!

Then we were taken to Haringay Dam/reservoir on the recommendation of the tour operator, as we pulled up the security told us it was closed and we couldn't walk around the dam...Also the water we expected to see flowing out of it (as in all of the spectacular pics) wasn't there... This was frustrating but there was a sign to a local temple which was preparing for the Ganesha Festival. They welcomed us and showed us around, they were very welcoming and even realising I had a cold they told me to eat a plant used for Ayurvedic medicine.... It didn't taste too nice, a bit like tea tree. And it did make my throat hurt a little less, mostly because I was concentrating on the horrible taste in my mouth. From this we drove on to Abbey falls a large waterfall in the middle of the forest, it was rather gorgeous except the rain was trying hard to dampen spirits and we hadn't taken precaution for Leeches, a big problem in Coorg in the wet season. In less than 30 mins out of the car, I was bitten twice....Abi got away with none!

After this we had a 1 hour drive to a coffee plantation, where we were walked around and told everything there is to know about coffee, the guy taking the tour was great, and helpful, and we bought a couple of bags of coffee, this tour cost us 800 INR where we saw coffee growing, cardamon plants, oranges, and the guide told us how the wild elephants have worked out how to get through the electric fences designed to keep them away from the crops. 

We stopped in the Madekeri fort around 5pm, we went for a little walk around, and this was a bit disappointing, it was run down and not well kept as well as having a few bits of graffiti. They have a museum of Indian archaeology within the Fort which was small but had some interesting artefacts. After this we were taken to Raja Seat a view point that the Rajas used to sit at and watch the sunset. Whilst we were there at sunset, the grey fog had rolled in over the hills and the view was limited. But it was simple to see this would be a wonderful view if the conditions allowed. 

We stayed in Madekeri that night in a hotel called Madekeri Heritage hotel. At first they gave us a room with no shower (due to it being on the top floor the pressure couldn't get to the shower). They moved us out of that room to a room on the second floor, the shower worked great and the hotel was very nice and clean. They were good hoteliers besides giving us a bad room to start with they helped with everything and made sure we were ok, we didn't do too much in the evening due to feeling a bit ill. Gary ate at the hotel which was ok, and fairly priced food. The next morning the buffet was reasonable with a mix of continental and Indian options. Although the hotel we stayed in was pretty good, there isn't much else in Madekeri, so would have preferred to stay in one of many of the homestay's in the area (its famous for this!). 

The next morning we were collected at 9, taken to Bhagamandala where we saw the Bhagandeshwara Temple and Triveni Sangama (joining of three rivers - Cavery, Kannike and the mythical Sujyoti river). This is a pilgrimage place where it was tradition to wash arms and legs in the river before entry, this temple was nice but very busy in preparation for the ganesha festival. Then we were taken to Talakaveri, which is the source of the river cavery and has another temple. It also had a beautiful viewpoint at the top of a climb up 300 steps, and sure enough what was at the top of the steps but COWS. It was a little cooler at the top and so once we had cooled following the climb we were putting our jumpers on!! The temple had a washing pool, and seating area to look over the hilly scenery of Coorg.

All in all it was a fairly expensive 2 days with the taxi costing 4250rs for a non a/c small car plus hotel, food etc, but it allowed us to see the beautiful Coorg countryside and the sights it had to offer in a short period of time.

Small Village temple! looking a bit Psychadelic!!

The greenery around Coorg

Enjoying the wash in the Cauvery River

Kochi and the Keralan Backwaters

Arrival in India

So we managed to get through Kochi Airport pretty quickly and changed our last few LKR into Indian Rupees (INR) we went out the exit and grabbed a mobile sim from Airtel. We'd read getting this sortred at the airport was a good idea as its not the easiest place to get a mobile sim, they need a copy of your passport and take a photo to cross reference with the passport. This took about 20 mins to sort and was up and running about 1hr later. From the exit we walked to the  right about 100 metres and found the Fort kochin bus, its bright orange!!

We were on the bus from the airport for about 90 mins before we were in Fort Kochin. You will go past lots of big bus stations, but hang on you will know when your nearly there by the increase in density of guesthouses\homestay. Fort Kochi is rumoured to be the birthplace of the homestay.

Accommodation

We stayed at a place called Allan's inn

When we arrived the guesthouse owner had come to meet us at the bus stop and showed us where to go. We stayed at Allan's inn, a budget stay, the hosts are lovely. But the time we were at the guesthouse it was getting late so we dumped our bags and Fexy made us a tasty fish curry for dinner.

Our breakfast was included which was tasty, the first day was idly and curry, the second day was pancakes with spiced coconut sugar. Fexy and Nestor really looked after us, checking our plans for each day to make sure we knew where to go, whether we needed buses/rickshaws etc.

Fort kochi
We spent the morning of our first day walking around seeing the sites in Fort Kochi, the Chinese fishing nets, the basillica catholic church ???? The church??? Then from there we hopped in a rickshaw for the rest of the day, he took us to the jain temple, Dutch palace, Jew town...... and for lunch he took us to a busy local restaurant to have our first Indian Thali. Afterwards, we moved on to a spice warehouse and ginger factory, followed by a large hand washing laundry place where all of the hotels get their laundry done...it was really interesting! He dragged us to a few shops also -Most rickshaw drivers will do this as for each of these we went into, The rickshaw driver said he gets a litre of fuel and if we bought anything he would get 2% commission. It was quite nice to know the reason they all want you to go shopping. We finished the day being dropped off at a cafe called the teapot. Where they specialise in tea, we stayed in the cafe for about an hour researching our next Keralan adventure.

Planning...
The next day we took a day off to plan the next couple of weeks of our trip. What we were going to see in Kerala and we'd read a lot that in India for some trains you need to book weeks in advance. So we tried to setup accounts with Cleartrip and IRCTC. Due to website issues and intermittent internet at our homestay this wasn't a hugely productive day. (This seems a recurring theme in budget accommodation in India and Sri Lanka.)
However for our lunch that day we went out for a walk and ended up at the Chinese fishing nets where we bought 2 Kerala fish and 3 squid. We took these to the restaurant on tower street and they cooked them in Kerala curry sauce. This was delicious. The fish cost us 500 inr and getting the restaurant to cook it was another 350 inr. This made it quite an expensive meal but you were paying for the novelty of picking your fish and taking it to the restaurant. After this we went back and continued our failed attempts at trying to book trains.

Keralan Backwaters
We booked our trip to the Kerala backwaters with Stanley Wilson tours. We didn't go to Allepy as it is very expensive and very touristy. We also read a lot about the damage the masses of motorised boats are doing to the beautiful backwaters and its wildlife. So we picked an eco-friendly boat that was based in a little village called thurovor, (half way from Kochi to Allepy- easily accessible by bus). It cost us 4000 INR for an air conditioned (at night) one bedroom houseboat tour, this includes all food and the day relaxing on the boat whilst the boat owner punts the boat or walks pulling it. This was very relaxing, sitting on the porch of the boat drinking tea\coffee, getting fed good food, and sitting on a still lake. In the evening the boat owner takes you to his guesthouse and parks up for the night, he then got his wooden 2 man kayak out and let Abi and I row around the lake. This allowed us to get up close and personal to some Chinese fishing nets. The boat was basic, no hot water, a bucket to wash with. But it had so much charm, and I cannot think of a more relaxing day than this. Just don't forget bug spray as you'd expect, the is a lot of bugs on a lake.

The next day we woke up on the boat, were given breakfast which was also tasty, then got a rickshaw back to the bus stop to get the bus back to Kochi to collect our bags from Allan's inn (They kindly stored them for us overnight whilst we were on the houseboat).
It was very hot so we ended up sheltering from the sun and killing a bit of time, by going to a restaurant on princess street to use there WiFi and get some masala chai. They agreed to store our bags if we had dinner there. We were trying to kill a bit of time as that night we were getting our first sleeper bus to take us from Ernakulam (the KSRTC bus stand - which is different to the main bus stand in Ernakulam).
We took the ferry from Fort Kochi to Ernakulam (8 Rupees for us both) and then took a rickshaw to the bus stop.
Opposite was a bar (where they sold actual beer!) where we had a drink whilst waiting for the bus, which wasn't until 23.50! But it was fun chatting to locals passing the time!