Wandering around Coorg, Kasargod and Kannur

Planning for an unplanned trip can be very exciting. Thats what I found out while planning for a trip during Ugadi holidays. Me and my wife Shemy decided to go for a trip during the four days, but as usual no plans until we reach Mysore. We only know that we will be going to the Mysore side. Mysore because there are many destinations possible from Mysore and also because we are quite familiar with the routes, places ect in this direction. We were excited and impatient on the last working day before the beginning of the 4-day holidays. The excitement comes from the fact the we dont know where we will be going, where we will be staying ect., We will be deciding these things on the way and a travel guide book from Outlook with sufficient maps and information is our guide. And we dont have any hesitation to talk to a villager on the road, in all possible languages, quite often it is a mix of English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam!, because we are poor in kannada so we take help of other languages.

Mysore

So we were out of office a bit early on Thursday evening, which was our last working day of the week. We did not have the patience to sleep that night in home and start early in the morning as most people do, instead we decided to start the same evening. Needless to say, driving out is one thing we both are equally mad at, so Shemy did not have any concern for starting in the night. This has an added advantage that we can break the long journey giving enough rest to the driver (myself!) and the vehicle (swift).
After doing preparatory work of packing, filling petrol, taking enough cash ect., we started our drive towards Mysore road. After crossing hurdle of bangalore city, we were finally on the Bangalore-Mysore highway at 9pm!, with no booking for staying tonight.
Driving in Mysore highway after Bangalore city limits is a breeze and average speed is quite close to 100kmh and this road is where I feel Karnataka govt is compensating for all the bad roads and jams in Bangalore. A mix of Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi songs added some spice to the cool air.
We stopped at Maddur for dinner at Maddur Tiffany. After having heavy food, i felt quite sleepy and so we decided to find out a hotel in Maddur itself for stay. We did not have any problem in finding a good hotel in Maddur itself beside the highway, being a Thursday there was no problem with room availability. So by 11pm, we started sleeping in a hotel at Maddur!

Morning near Maddur

Coorg

Friday morning, we were ready to go by 7AM. Still the big question lies ahead, just like the long and wide Bangalore-Mysore highway in front of us, where are we going?? After considering options like Ooty, Wynad, Kozhikode, Coorg, Nilambur ect., we zeroed in on Coorg, as we have never gone to this popular place of nature lovers. So we took the deviation from Srirangapattanam to Hunsur on the way to Coorg. We decided to take Hunsur-Gonikuppa-Virajpet-Madikeri route. We drove, drove & drove and reached a place called Periyapattanam. We took the help of Map to see where we have reached and found that we are indeed near Coorg district, but on a different route than we thought of taking. Since we have already driven quite long on that route, we decided to go to the place where that road goes! and it was Siddapur in coorg. After finding most places dry and unattractive due to summer and roads quite bad, we decided to go to Kakkabe close to the Brahmagiri hills in coorg district. At kakkabe, we went up to the foothills of Brahmagiri peak known as Tadiyantemol. This is a trekking place, but the hot sun did not encourage us to try out our bit on trekking there. After seeing few home stay estates, we decided to head towards Madikeri. Unlike other places, kakkabe was still lush green even in this hot summer. On the way to Madikeri, we braked for Friday prayers in a mosque. The people in and around the mosque were all Malayalis, kept us wondering if we are in coorg or kerala.

We reached madikeri by 3pm and checked into a hotel. We took rest and on the evening visited Raja seat, where from we can have a panoramic view of the coorg valleys. More than the view, we had fun watching a guy forcing his wife to take his photos in a particular funny pose, where he himself is with another camera and posing like a photographer taking photo! And every time complaining that her way of taking photo is not correct and asking for repetition. This continued for numerous numbers of clicks in the same pose at same place, we counted up to 16 clicks in the same pose, after that we lost our count!

On Raja seat

Talacauvery

Saturday morning 7pm, we are ready to go, and took a quick decision to head to Talacauvery through Bhagamandala which is around 35km away from Madikeri. At Talacauvery we climbed the peak and took photos of the surrounding hills. The entire area is full of hills and forest. We saw a mud track going through the mountains and forests and a shopkeeper told us that it is a short cut road to Kannur in Kerala. But this is currently used only by forest officials and closed for public, so we did not try out that adventurous road. On the way back, we stopped at a honey shop and bought coorg products like honey, cherry, honey jam ect. We had some chat with the shop guy and we came to know that Kasargod in kerala is very near by and there is a good road to that place. Earlier we had thought of seeing the usual tourist places in coorg like Abbey falls, Nisargadama ect., But coorg was dry in the hot summer and was not as scenic as we expected. Added to this, the bad roads made our drive in coorg not so enjoyable, so we were not in a mood to drive 35km back to madikeri before going to Abbey falls ect.

Hills around Talacauvery

Coorg-Kasargod route

As we are always excited to take a route less travelled, we decided to head towards Kasargod district. So we took a deviation from Bhagamandala near Talacauvery. Panathur is the border town in Kasargod district of Kerala and is 35km from Bhagamandala, but we did not have any idea what to see in Panathur or kasargod. The drive to Panathur from Bhagamandala was excellent. The road was good and the route was through thick evergreen rain forests and mountains.

The traffic on the road was almost nil. This is what we were looking for, we took enough stops to enjoy the cool and scenic surroundings, to refresh our faces with cold and pure water flowing down the hill top on the roadside, to refresh our eyes with the green valleys on the sides. Karike was the last village in karnataka side before entering kerala at Panathur at 2pm. Panathur was a small town and we took lunch at panathur. Kerala is promoting tourism like Andrapradesh promoting IT or our union minister Mr. Maran promoting Tamil Nadu. So the moment we entered kerala at panathur we have tourism sign board with list of tourist places near by and the distances from there. From the list we picked up Ranipuram Hill station, which was, just 18km from Panathur, again we never had heard of Ranipuram until we reached panathur!

On Bhagamandala-Panathur route

Trekking at Ranipuram

The drive to Ranipuram was difficult with narrow road and steep uphill. When we reached Ranipuram, we were disappointed at first because it looked like a normal high range village in kerala and didnt look like a tourist place at all. We were the only tourists present there with all the villagers present there staring at us with surprise. After some talk with the local people, we came to know that the attraction there is a soft trek to the hilltop where we can have a panoramic view of the hills around. There were tourist cottages available for people interested to stay at night. Karnataka border was just a throw stone away and we saw karnataka forest people going to their work place. Again we took a quick decision, take the trek up to hilltop and head back to near by town to stay at night.

On the way to Ranipuram

After some fight and blame game with Shemy over not taking her trekking shoe, we started our trek with Shemy on her havai chappal! I suggested havai chappal than the high-heeled beautiful useless dangerous footwear she was wearing. The trek was really good through thick forest and only we two in the middle of the forest. It was a soft trek according to me with paths clearly laid out and with stone steps at many places, again the tourism department/villagers have done a good job even in this not so popular remote hill station. I was really enjoying the trek, but Shemy was struggling to climb up places where there were no stone steps.

During the Trek to Ranipuram hill top

Midway she suggested to go back, but with lot of persuasions, pulling, pushing, suggestions, we continued up to end of the forest section. We had taken only half bottle of water and it got over in no time. We reached a hill with lot of grass around and from there it was climbing a small hill, no more forest trekking. In the mean time another group, a group of local girls and boys came, crossed us and reached the hilltop while we were still struggling down. Shemy suggested that she will stop the trek there and i continue the trek to the hilltop if i wish and she will sit at that place waiting for my return and that i will be able to see her sitting down from the hill top. Sitting alone at an uninhabited mountain close to a forest, at kerala-karnataka border! From that suggestion, i came to a conclusion that i had pushed her to the maximum she can to climb up to there, so i decided to stop the trek there. We took rest there and enjoyed the view of the hills and valleys around.

Halfway through Ranipuram Trek

This hilltop will be good place to spend an entire night there with only hills and forests surrounding you. Since we didnt have such an adventurous plan, we started our climbing down. On the way back we saw a wild hen and some wild birds crossing us. For Shemy, climbing down was as difficult as climbing up and finally we reached the valley by 6pm. Being tired of climbing up & down, we rested at a near by shop for a while and had short chat with the shop guy. From the shop guy, we came to know that the forest we crossed has enough wild animals including elephants & leopards! but they come out only once in a while and never attacked humans.

To get a decent room to stay we have to go to Kanjangad town, which is around 35km away, so we started our drive to Kanjangad. View of the sunset in the background of hills while driving down Ranipuram was taking my attention away from road. The twisty yet good road to Kanjangad helped us reach Kanjangad around 8pm and after a quick search, we camped in Elite Tourist home in the town. Kanjangad unlike my expectation looked very rich, with a number of Gold bazaars, Textile showrooms and luxury cars
touting the town, the influence of Gulf money is more than evident. We started sleeping at around 10pm.

Bakel

Sunday morning 7AM we are again ready for today’s adventure. We went through the Outlook magazine and found out the places near by to see. Our first destination was Bakel Fort. The Sun was furious and we were sweating. The interesting thing about Bakel fort for us rather than the history behind the fort, was the view of Sea from the elevation of the fort and simply enjoying the breeze from the sea while resting at the view points in the fort. The sea was quite violent and foam due waves hitting the rocks made the water looks white like milk. We took some time to read through the leaflets to find out the history behind the fort. It was constructed by Nayaks and was a bone of contention between Nayaks and Kolathiris. Finally it went through Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan before reaching the hands of the British. This was an important Navy station for Tipu.

View from Bake Fort

As usual the history did not interest me so much to continue our exploration in that lines, then i remembered my friend Manjunath, who would have been interested in knowing the history behind each and every stone there! From Bakel we headed to a near by beach known as Kappil beach, but the beach there was so violent that we were scared to go near that. Also the place was so quite and there were no people around other than the houses few hundred meters away. Just near the beach, a backwater lake was starting; it looked like a typical back waters of Alappy. We saw a young man studying hard on the shores of the backwaters. We had a short chat with him before leaving. He was studying for PSC (kerala govt service) exam, and he was very interested to talk to us coming from Bangalore. We wished him best of luck and proceed to the car.

Near Kappil beach

Kannur

We drove back to Kanjangad and again the big question comes back, where do we go now? It is Sunday morning, so we have one day before heading back to Bangalore. Also we never want to go back to Bangalore through the same route which we came. Mangalore is just an hour drive away, but we decided to go to Kannur since it is on the route back to Bangalore and also due to Payyambalam beach we found from Outlook. Generally roads are quite smooth in Kerala, even in small villages and that is quite evident when you cross the state boarder. But driving in Kerala highways is rather dangerous, the road is smooth, but not wide enough to meet the traffic, the traffic is not so much to cause traffic jams and that adds to the danger, it is just two line and there is no median! added to that the road is twisty, twisty like malayalam words for a non-malayali. So during each overtaking, we need to be really cautious. The private and govt bus drivers in kerala think the road is their private property, inherited from their grand fathers. They drive and overtake without caring about the opposite traffic, so to give space to an overtaking bus many times you will have to literally stop your vehicle, and when they pass you, you wonder if it was really a bus or a bullet train from Japan. Many times i feared if my Swift will fly behind the bus due to the strong wind created by its flying. An overtaking bus can directly hit you, if there is an error by a fraction of a second in the calculation of the bus driver, So when you drive through the highways in "Gods Own Country", you unknowingly call god many times!

We reached Kannur by 2pm and had a look at Payyambalam beach. The beach was within the town itself and was very good, just enough tourists around, enough to feel safe, not so much to feel crowded. There was a good park right in front of the beach, to sit down in the meadows and enjoy the view of the sea. We decided to get into the water. I wish if we had such a beach and park in Bangalore. We had not taken lunch, so we went to a near by hotel, Taj. The food was great, no wonder the Malabar region is known for its food, especially non-veg. After lunch, we ran to the beach and enjoyed the water up to evening, it was a good escape from the summer heat.

Payyambalam beach

Iritti-Peravoor

After payyambalam beach, we got back into car and pondered where to stay for tonight. We decided to have some drive back to Bangalore direction, so we started to Iritti, which is border town in Kannur district. Virajpet in Coorg is around 50km from Iritti and
is on the way to Mysore, but we had already heard that this road is pathetic now. So we decided to go through Mananthavadi in Wynad, since there is a route to Mananthavadi from Iritti. It was around 6.30pm in Iritti and since we were not hopeful of getting any hotel after this, we decided to look for hotel in Iritti.
Unlike our experience so far in North kerala, Iritti and the places near Iritti was different. I feel there are too many BARs in this area and after sunset you can find lot of people on the roads near the BARs, some of them arguing in their "own language". If you happened to seek their help for any route or hotel information unaware of the BAR near by, you will get lot of help and suggestions and at the end leaving you confused which way or hotel is good. One of them suggested me that the hotel just attached to the crowded BAR is the best hotel in this town and that his own family is staying there! It is more than evident why he chose that hotel to stay and i couldn’t help in remembering one of my friends back in Bangalore, who would have found this place heavenly! There were only few hotels to stay which is not bar attached and to our surprise all of them were booked. We wondered what is there so much in this little border town to have all the hotels fully booked. We learned that lot of business people come here due to availability of hill products like pepper and also due to a center for interstate trade or smuggling. While we were asking people on the roadside for hotels, a police jeep came and stopped beside us, when we told that we are searching for hotel, they went away. While we stopped to enquire with another hotel, the police jeep came again and the police guys had a quick question & answer session with us. We showed our company ID cards and that made them to understand us. They told us that they just wanted to do a procedural check because our searching for hotels made few locals suspicious! Iritti and near by places are sensitive due to political and communal clashes recently, when people are drunk by evening, no wonder if clashes happen. After the Q & A session with police guys, Shemy was a bit scared, we decided to escape from Iritti at any cost. We stopped all our hotel search in Iritti and drove on the way to Mananthavadi, but we learned that the drive to Mananthavadi is through a ghat section and it is better if we avoid that drive in the night, it is already around 8pm, but we still continued the drive expecting that some other town will cross our way before the ghat section to find a hotel to stay. We reached a town called Peravoor, due to our bad experience in Iritti, we didnt stop in the town to ask a guy on the road about hotel, we continued few meters and stopped near a house to enquire about the possible stay options near by and we got a hotel name which we have already seen. We went to Rajadhani tourist home in Peravoor and got a room to stay for 300 bugs. The room was really good, it would have costed Rs.700/1000 in Mysore. Surprisingly this hotel with four flours in this small town was almost full. This hotel also had a Bar attached but left with no other option we decided to stay there. Our room was in 4th flour, so Bar was not an issue. Again in Peravoor also like in Iritti there were many people on the road who are walking like BMTC buses in Banaglore. So we did not venture out of the hotel at all, we had food from same hotel itself and started sleeping..

Palchuram ghat-Mananthavadi-Bangalore

Monday Morning 7AM, we are ready to continue our journey to Mananthavadi and then to Bangalore. The route was Kottiyoor and Palchuram ghat section. The Palchuram ghat section gave us fantastic view of the Western Ghats, lush green even in this summer. There is a waterfall, known as Palchuram water falls in this route, but this need a 1Km walk through forest. Since it was our last day and we wanted to reach Bangalore by evening, we decided to keep the waterfalls for our next trip.

Palchuram ghat section

We had breakfast at Kattikulam near Mananthavadi in Wynad, it is the second or third time i am having break fast from the same hotel in Kattikulam. We started our drive to Mysore. The road goes through Tholpetty Wild life sanctuary and we reached Kutta. Kutta is the border between Kerala and Karnataka. The moment we crossed kerala border and entered Karnataka the road became horrible, I didnt mean that all the roads in Karnataka is bad, but the roads in border areas are really bad. We were surprised to see pathetic roads in Coorg which is a popular tourist place. From kutta, we took the route through Nagarhole National part, the forest was dry, the drive was really slow. Instead of taking the straight road to Hunsur, we took a deviation within the forest which goes to HD Kote. From there the road, though narrow, was too good. The drive from HD Kote to Mysore was excellent with good, straight two-line road and minimal traffic. We reached Srirangapatana by 1.30PM. After having lunch, we were ready for the last leg of our drive to Bangalore. By 2.45PM we saw the board with "Welcome to the Garden City", it took only 45mins from Srirangapatana to Bangalore city boundary, the speed was 100+ most of the time, what to do, the road was excellent and traffic was less. But from Bangalore city boundary to our home in Indiranagar, it took another 45mins, so finally thank god, we are safely and happily back in our home at 3.30pm with a lot of funny, happy, anxious and adventurous moments to cherish for a long time.

Some useful info

Ranipuram - around 50Km from Bhagamandala near Talacauvery

Bakel Fort - around 70km from Bhagamandala near Talacauvery

Palchuram water falls - around 20Km from Mananthavadi in Wynad