For long I was planning a trip with College friends and it worked out in Nov 2018. Friends came from different places like Coimbatore, Chennai, Singapore to Bangalore. Itinerary was to leave from Bangalore go to Balmuri falls near Mysore, and then to drive to Kutta in Coorg crossing the thick Nagarhole forest, stay the first day in Kutta and then second day drive to Iruppu falls and then to Thalakaveri (Birth place of Kaveri). And then drive to Cherambane near Coorg and stay there for second night. Third day drive to Bylakuppe and then return back to Bangalore. All my friends were very excited for the reason this is their first girls only trip they are going.

These are my college friends Booma, myself, Chandra, Suchitra and Jayalakshmi… 

We decided to start by 5 am in the morning to beat the traffic, but as usual it became around 7 am. Still I feel this is fine, traffic was not as much as we expected.  We drove for 2 hours chit chatting the college incidents and discussions ran about movies etc, etc. All started feeling hungry and so we decided to stop for breakfast in Ambilee resort near Srirangapatna. This is a nice quaint place near Cauvery river banks. One should try this place for the ambiance which will make you keep coming back to this place again and again. I have personaly been there 7 or 8 times, and I wanted my friends to experience it. We enjoyed having hot puri baji sitting next to the Cauvery river bank.


It was little too early for those guys to start the kitchen, so they were hesitant to entertain us. We requested and said we are fine with any food they have. They said they  can prepare poori baaji, we were even more happy. What does one want more that Poori baaji. They prepared amazing poori baaji, which I have never had such tasty poori baaji any where else.

After food we spent some time going arround the resort. Kids will enjoy this place, for the reason there are animals like Ostrich, Rabbits, parrots etc…Clicked few more pics in this resort…

After the breakfast we headed to Balmuri falls. This place is 15 kms from Srirangapatna. Not many people know about this place. I enjoy this falls and make sure to take all my friends here for the reason I love the freshly cooked fish that you get here. The fishes are very tasty since they are caught and fried fresh.

After having one round of fish, we went around the falls and walked in the water and took few pics. This gives a nice view of the whole falls in the back ground…

We had to cross Nagarhole forest to reach our destination Kutta.

This was a shot that we clicked in Nagarhole forest. This was a dense forest and we had to cross this forest to reach our destination. It was an amazing drive in the forest. The forest department have come up with a token system were they give the token with the entry time printed in the token and in 1.5 hrs you are suppose to exit the forest. If you exceed this time you are fined heavily. This way they try to stop people from parking the car in the middle of the forest and walking around, which is dangerous. We did try to maintain the time, still could manage to stop for few mins and take some pics from the car. We saw hundreds of Deers and lots of other animals on our way.

This is the home stay that we stayed in Chembarane. In Coorg district, home stays are very popular and it is a different experience all together staying with the locals and sharing their home. A click with me, mycar, and my friends…

Once we reached they had arranged for nice snacks. Then we took rest for some time and walked around that place. This place was in the center of an estate. Though there were 2 more rooms, nobody stayed there except for us and the owners, whose house was 50 meters away. 

So that night it was only we five ladies in the whole area. It was pitch dark, and for all my friends this was the first time they were staying in such place. They commented their husbands would never ever allow them, if they knew if they are staying in such a place.

But they did thoroughly enjoyed. We had nice dinner prepared by the host and after we had a party with music, dance etc…  

 

This is the home stay we stayed 2nd day. This time it was in their own house, they shared two of their rooms. The hosts were very friendly. My friend tried tying Coorg style sari and the host helped in tying the sari.

We all went for a 2 hrs walk in the morning. The fresh air and the greenery was unforgettable. After early morning walk in the fields, we came and had nice breakfast prepared by the host. Then we relaxed in the home stay and taking pictures around the place.

These are the fields around the home stay. This is a shot while we went for a morning walk in the lush green fields…

My friend Jaya relaxing in the veranda and playing with the cat…

That night they arranged for a bon fire with nice music and fire grilled kebabs…It was quiet cold in the night, good we all carried a light jackets which helped us in the 11 pm night cold.

Next day we drove arround 5 hrs and reached thalakaveri, which was mythologicaly believed as the starting point of Cauveri. This place was on top of a mountain with amazing view of western ghats. It was fully surrounded by mountains. We enjoyed the peaceful evening there. But few of my friends were worried since it was isolated area and we were suppose to drive another 1.5 hrs for our next destination in the dark, all being women.

Next day we decided to leave little early so that we can stop in Bylakuppe for few hours and then reach home by at least 10 pm. So we started around 1 pm and by the time we reached Bylakuppe it was 5 pm. We grabbed a quick lunch there and visited the temple.

This is Bylakuppe Golden monastery. Not lot many people know about this place. This is a Tibet settlement. Once you enter this area you will feel like you are in Tibet itself.  Bylakuppe is the second largest Tibetan settlement in the world outside Tibet after Dharmashala. In 1960 Government of Mysore allotted 3000 sqkm in this area for Tibet exile settlement.

By 6 pm left Bylakuppe to Bangalore. By 6 pm we receive a call from one of my friends husband, saying try to reach home before it gets dark. We all felt like laughing, its already 7 pm and we had another 5 hrs of drive. With loud music, and fight amongst us to play each ones favourite song we reached mysore by 9 pm and stopped there for dinner. Finally reached home by 12.30 am and people were so tiered and crashed on bed. 

Next day morning all left for their home town with sweet memories and already asking to plan for the next trip…