Palace Estate

We had been planning to go to Coorg, and after all the research and Outlook Weekender scanning, we finally decided to head to Palace Estate, thanks to Binu’s travelogue. As I am often lost in directions, I was quite relieved when I got the route map from Binu, untill the last mile.

We started from Bangalore early morning, which is 7:30am for us. We couldn’t start earlier than that, even though we planned for 6am. As it was a long weekend, and as our early morning was not so early, we got caught in quite some traffic along the highway. When we reached Kamath Lokaruchi (which is almost 70 kms from our place near Bangalore airport), it was already 9am and was so crowded that the car parking was being done on the opposite side of the road. We skipped this, and headed to Cafe Coffee day, which is just a couple of miles ahead. Luckily, it was not that crowded and we managed to grab a bite quickly. The highway was excellent untill the fork, where road towards left heads to Khushal nagar, eventually to Madikeri. The other road is the one which we took, and it heads towards Virajpet. This road is a bit narrow, and its only two lane. So, it slowed down our journey, thanks to a lot of slow moving vehicles blocking our way. It took us almost a couple of hours to get through this and we breaked at Virajpet town for lunch at around 1 pm. We reached Palace Estate around 3pm. The last stretch of the road was not so good, but, I guess, when we are so close to nature, we shouldn’t expect great roads. We could feel the cool breeze and the great atmosphere during the last one hour of the journey. It made us ignore the quality of roads for a while.

When we arrived at Palace Estate, we were received by the host, Prasad Povanna. He was surprised that we showed up without calling in for directions, thanks to Binu’s route map. We had booked an accomodation in the cottage for Rs.1200/- per day for two days. The cottage was really great, and we had a good estate briefing by Prakash Povanna. It was really interesting to know about how estate works and how coffee plantation is done. After 6pm, the weather became quite chilly and we got into the cottage. As our cottage was in the 1st floor, we has a great view of the surrounding greenery. Around 8pm, we headed for dinner with Prasad Povanna’s family. Thats one the of good parts of being on a homestay. We get to dine with the family, in their dinning room.

Day 2 started off with a typical coorgi breakfast, again with the family. Here, we got to meet other guests too. After breakfast, we started for our trek on to thadianamol peak, which is the highesh point in coorg. We were told that the trek will take almost 2 hours. So, we just carried a water bottle for the trek. But, as it turned out that, we almost took 3 hours for crossing over another hill, enroute to the bottom of the actual hill. Our water reserves were over by then and the heat was getting on to our system at 1pm in the afternoon. It looked like, two more hours to reach the actual peak. So, we dropped the idea and the started heading back to the Estate. We thought of getting back to the Estate quickly, but it took us almost an hour. We couldn’t rush, as there were very steep paths all along the way. After Lunch at the homestay, we headed on a drive around the estate roads, visiting Iguvathappa temple on the way. The atmosphere at the temple was great, and we stayed there was a while. The best part was our drive along the estate roads. We were driving slowly, enjoying the great atmosphere. It is one of the best experiences we ever had.

Day 3, we visited a waterfall, within the estate. We were quite surprised to see a waterfall within the estate. The water is supposed to be very fresh and even drinkable. After breakfast, we headed for our return journey around 9:30 am. We wanted to visit Madikere on our return journey. So, instead of going back on the virajpet route, we headed towards Madikere. Even though the road towards Madikere was OK, it took us almost two and half hours to reach Madikere, due to the ghat roads all along. We visited the Raja Seat, which is the highest point in Madikere. It was a great experience and we just couldn’t get away from it. After that, we visited the nearby Museum, which was OK. Then, we headed towards Khushalnagar. This is one of the worst part of our journey. The roads here were so bad that we got completely stressed. We breaked at the Buddhist Monastry around 3pm. As we were quite tired already, we just had a quick look and started back. It was almost 5pm, when we hit the Mysore-Bangalore highway. Due to the holiday traffic, even this highway was choked. Finally, we managed to reach home by 8:30pm. As an afterthought, we really repented taking the khushal nagar route. It took us almost 11 hours to reach Bangalore on our return journey, including the breaks. So, the next time when we go there, we will surely comeback from Virajpet route.