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Far from the madding crowd

October 29th, 2006  |  Published in Adventure, India, Living, Nature & Wildlife, Photography, Travel  |  25 Comments

A road trip to Chik­ma­galur on the Diwali week­end. Octo­ber 21–23.

A jour­ney through Karnataka’s beau­ti­ful coun­try­side and a cou­ple of days in the peace and quiet of a cof­fee plan­ta­tion is all I needed to relax and reju­ve­nate. While I love the fes­ti­val of lights, the noise makes me crazy. I must have been a dog in my ear­lier birth, I think! 

Another road trip we decided would be per­fect way to spend the week­end. We packed our equip­ment and lug­gage (I threat­ened every­one to carry just one piece, since my Zen can only accom­mo­date that much) and we set off on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

The weather was per­fect, the skies were azure blue dot­ted with beau­ti­ful fluffy white clouds. The high­way was smooth and it didn’t take us long to reach Belur. 

Fields of yellow and green

After that the roads dete­ri­o­rated, but the scenery made up for the pot­holes and bumps. Once we started ascend­ing the Chik­ma­galur hills, we got the true taste of off-roading as the Zen bounced up and down the hilly ter­rain. But all in all, she behaved rather beautifully.

Two hours from Chik­ma­galur, as we were ascend­ing yet another hill abound with dense cof­fee plan­ta­tions and I was giv­ing up hope of reach­ing any­where that my fel­low pas­sen­ger pro­nounced, “we’re nearly there”! 

After about 20 min­utes of ascend­ing, we descended about 1.5 kms from the nar­row road, through another thick plan­ta­tion and sud­denly in front of us is this lovely 30 year old bun­ga­low! Nes­tled deep within the plan­ta­tion, perched on a slope, she sat com­fort­ably look­ing onto the mist cov­ered hills of the West­ern Ghats. Even in my dreams I couldn’t have asked for a bet­ter location.

The trip meter read 344 kms. 

In the morn­ing, I woke up to the most gor­geous view ever. A river of clouds snaked through the dis­tant hills with the rays of the sun just begin­ning to touch the moun­tain tops. It was an almost sur­real feel­ing to wake up to such a sight out­side my window! 

Waking up to the Western Ghats

We spent much of our time at the home­s­tay laz­ing around, look­ing out into the hills, sip­ping end­less cof­fees on the patio and eat­ing like it was going out of style. With a Man­ga­lorean cook in the house, we had every kind of chicken pos­si­ble for all our meals and it was all so deli­cious that I had visions of not being able to leave the place as I couldn’t get out of the door. 

I con­vinced one of my fel­low trav­el­ers into a game of Fris­bee so I could burn a few calo­ries though I don’t think much was expended. Scrab­ble, sketch­ing, lis­ten­ing to old songs and day dream­ing and a camp­fire in the evening were the other pas­times as the hol­i­day quickly passed and it was time to leave this lit­tle cor­ner of paradise.

It's a dog's life!

On the way back, we made a small devi­a­tion via a place called Magundi, to another plan­ta­tion called Avanti Estates where we met Philom­ena Perez, who hap­pens to be a politi­cian besides own­ing a few plan­ta­tions in the area. She told us about the woes of the trib­als, her stint in the Women’s Com­mis­sion, before she sped off for another meet­ing. She said she hated going to Ban­ga­lore these days. “We are blessed,” she said to refer­ring to the peace and quiet exis­tence and we fully agreed. She showed us around her lovely house (includ­ing a bath­room that was the size of my bed­room, actu­ally big­ger!) and we could only gape in admiration. 

From there, we made a stop at the town of Belur, where after lunch, the ancient mon­u­ments invited us with their beauty and grace. The hot after­noon sun burnt into our bare feet as we trod around the tem­ple premises, but we were a deter­mined bunch. We roamed around and then sat for a while admir­ing the stone carv­ings and surg­ing crowds who had braved the after­noon heat to lis­ten to the guides explain the his­tory behind the temple. 

Alas! It was time to move on. 4.30 pm. We were back on the high­way. Good roads again and after a cof­fee break at Chanan­raya­p­atna (where we also took some time to admire the beau­ti­ful sun­set) we were back in the hus­tle and bus­tle of Ban­ga­lore city around 9.30 pm. Hun­gry and tired, we stopped at Casa Picola for dinner. 

The trip meter read 700 km.

A great week­end. And a great sight to end another trip!

Oh, what a feeling!

Facts about Chik­maglur

Chik­ma­galur, the dis­trict head quar­ters of Chik­ma­galur dis­trict is 251 km from the state cap­i­tal of Ban­ga­lore and sur­rounded by the Baba Budan­giri hills and dense forests. The rivers Bhadra, Tunga, Hema­vathi, Nethra­vathi, and Veda­vathi flow all year round. The dis­trict is rich in iron, mag­netite and gran­ite deposits. The name Chik­ma­galur is syn­ony­mous with ver­dant forests, beau­ti­ful water falls, cool cof­fee estates and charm­ing tem­ples tucked away in the moun­tains. : From Wikipedia

- The Chik­ma­galur Album

Responses

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  1. Mehak says:

    October 30th, 2006 at 11:36 am (#)

    Sahi Hai Yaar.….every long weekend..n u guys hit the highway !!!! :)

    Lovely pics as usual Anita.

    BTW have u vis­ited Pondicherry ??? if not, any plans of com­ing here in the near future ??

  2. Divs says:

    October 30th, 2006 at 3:08 pm (#)

    truly a blessed morn­ing anita… i really loved that pic to bits… look­ing for­ward to wednes­day holiday :-)

  3. blogpastor says:

    October 30th, 2006 at 9:01 pm (#)

    Very beau­ti­fully taken pictures…conveys feel­ings of fresh­ness and idling in the cool moun­tain air. Thanks for sharing.

  4. DesiPundit » Archives » Far from the maddening crowd says:

    October 31st, 2006 at 1:17 am (#)

    […] Anita trav­els to Chik­ma­galur over the week­end. Check out the beau­ti­ful photos. […]

  5. Vp says:

    October 31st, 2006 at 3:47 pm (#)

    Awe­some pics… came here thro a search page — would love to get some info on the home stay estate that you stayed in Chick­man­galur — looks amazing…

    thanks
    vp

  6. Swapna says:

    November 2nd, 2006 at 1:08 am (#)

    Beau­ti­ful pho­tos. Sounds like an awe­some weekend. :)

  7. Anita says:

    November 3rd, 2006 at 8:05 am (#)

    mehak: thanks! i have vis­ited pondicherry, both in 2004 and 2005. not this year though…

    divs: thanks! it was indeed a nice holiday :)

    blog­pas­tor: thanks a lot!

    vp: thanks! a friend organ­ised every­thing so will try and get the details from him.

    swapna: thanks! it was awesome!

  8. Eapee says:

    November 5th, 2006 at 10:02 pm (#)

    Hi Anita,
    Apolo­gies for barg­ing into your inbox like this. I was doing some research on home­s­tays in chik­maglur and was won­der­ing if you could pos­si­bly share the name of the home­s­tay you stayed at?
    I plan to go this com­ing week­end.
    Thanks,
    Eapee

  9. Anita says:

    November 7th, 2006 at 10:25 am (#)

    eapee: if you can drop in a mail to anitabora5 at red­iff­mail dot come, i’ll send the details across.

  10. sebastian says:

    November 10th, 2006 at 5:45 am (#)

    The pics are just beautifull.

  11. tarang says:

    November 20th, 2006 at 3:48 pm (#)

    hi, could you pls pls tell me the name of the home-stay! i’ve bin searchin every­where.… cant find the suit­able one… pleeeeeeeeeese help!

  12. Vijay Yadav says:

    November 29th, 2006 at 8:28 am (#)

    Hi..I had vis­ited a place called ‘Nature Craft Home Stay’…very sweet peo­ple and the food is unlike any­thing I have ever tasted and the place is clean, very com­fort­able …par­adise on earth :-)..no won­der no one wants to leave Chikmagalur…Guy who runs the place is Ansar Zahoor..08262–262026…Cheers!!

  13. Venkat says:

    December 16th, 2006 at 10:16 am (#)

    Hi,

    Could you please give me the con­tact details of this place that u had been ? I intend to go there for NewYears along with my friends. Also please let me the cost etc.

    Thanks,

    Venkat

  14. Ritu Bhardwaj says:

    December 20th, 2006 at 2:40 pm (#)

    Hi Anita,

    Where is this home­s­tay? I wanna visit them.

    Best regards,
    Ritu

  15. Marcelle says:

    February 27th, 2007 at 11:33 am (#)

    Hi Anita

    Could you please let me know the name of the estate you had stayed at and the cost for a night’s stay.

    Also could I have a num­ber where I could call and maybe get more details about the estate facil­i­ties etc

    Thank you

  16. Prasad says:

    March 27th, 2007 at 11:05 am (#)

    Could u please send me the details of the home­s­tay and the con­tact number.

  17. Abhijith says:

    May 2nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm (#)

    Hi,
    I got your site while search­ing for home­s­tays at Chik­ma­galur. If you dont mind can I have their con­tact details.
    Thanks,
    Abhijith

  18. Barnita says:

    May 21st, 2007 at 3:38 pm (#)

    Hi

    I came across your post­ing while ser­ach­ing for home­s­tays at Chik­ma­galur. Can you pls let me know the name and con­tact num­ber of your home­s­tay? Sounded inter­est­ing.
    Thanks

  19. ruchika says:

    March 19th, 2008 at 3:55 pm (#)

    Hi

    I came across your post­ing while ser­ach­ing for home­s­tays at Chik­ma­galur. Can you pls let me know the name and con­tact num­ber of your home­s­tay? Sounded inter­est­ing.
    Thanks

  20. chitra says:

    March 24th, 2008 at 7:22 pm (#)

    kindly mail me the details of the home stay

  21. Sandy says:

    April 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pm (#)

    Hi Anita

    Could you please let me know the name of the estate you had stayed at and the cost for a night’s stay.

    Also could I have a num­ber where I could call and maybe get more details about the estate facilities 

    Thank you

  22. Computer desktops. says:

    May 9th, 2008 at 6:29 am (#)

    Com­puter desktops.

    Com­puter desk­tops tuc­son. Free fairy desk­tops for the com­puter. Com­puter retailer pc desk­tops hard drives.

  23. nchsaz says:

    November 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm (#)

    the best place to check in for your trip ion chik­ma­galur is NATURE CRAFT HOMESTAY
    CALL THEM AT 9972161237 OR 08262262026

  24. Prakruthi Banwasi says:

    January 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am (#)

    All you enthu­si­as­tic eco lovers should visit my site www dot chik­ma­galur­info dot net, bet you’ll love it…

  25. Researching Chikmaglure Getaways says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 5:32 pm (#)

    Why are you keep­ing the name a secret? It would be great if you said where you stayed!

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