Easter weekend called for a special trip for us and the kids. We decided to head to an area west of Bangalore called Coorg. Coorg is known for wildlife, the Cauvery river, and coffee estates. We heard it is a relaxing, refreshing holiday that lets one see a different side of South Indian life. How could we pass on such an opportunity.

We head out on the Mysore road. Its the main drag out west of town, a popular direction to head especially on this holiday weekend. The drive to Coorg is a nice one. We have headed east and west out of Bangalore and west is definitely a mile ahead in terms of scenery and experience. The road is a nicely paved 4 lane ‘highway’. Its like highway ten out of Andover only with every manner of transportation using it for every manner of travel. All along the way we see sugar cane loaded trailers behind tractors and bullock carts. There are bicycles, walkers, huge lorry’s (big trucks ;-), and even cows meandering along and eating in the middle. Every town or village has gates set out on the road that slow down traffic as it passes through. The rickshaw exhaust and noise is overwhelming in these parts of the road. Other times the overloaded ricks and buses just precariously clamor down the highway. We constantly have to remain vigil for slow moving vehicles because Shanta likes to drive a fast when he’s out of the city. I think in his head he is definitely racing Imtiaz, the Thornes driver, to our first stop.

Along the way Stacy has planned that we need to stop for breakfast. We hit the spot and finally met back up with the Thornes. Imtiaz won the race to the restaurant. We dine outside at a covered table.

The busboy/waiter first slops water (at least its soapy) all over the table then squeegee’s it off and onto a tray. We place our order: 3 Masala dosa, one onion dosa, and 3 plain dosa for the kids. And 4 chai to wash that all down. A dosa is like a salty crispy pancake. Masala dosa contains a mixture of potato, onion, and chili in the middle. The others are just slight variations on that. The guy brings out our food on what looks to be the same tray he slopped the dirty water onto when he cleaned the table. Nice.

My suspicions are confirmed when I see one other waiter do the table cleaning bit then walk over to the open air kitchen and dump the slop on the ground.

He then proceeds to stack the next order on it. That’s the way things go here occasionally. The more gut wrenching thing was that when our waiter handed out our food water was constantly dripping on it from the tray. I just told myself it was fresh water from rinsing the tray. And hey, the dosa was out of this world. We followed up that order with Veda. When I ordered I had to repeat myself a few times. I kept saying ‘veda’ using a ‘V’ like Volkswagen. When the guys finally realized what I was saying they chuckled because its pronounced like ‘wata’ with short and quick sounds. Here’s a few pics from the dining spot:

Kids climb the tree

Larry walks past what I like call “Classic Indian Electrician Work” ie. Anything is fair game to hang electrical wiring from. P.S. Larry looks pissed but he really feels that he just had a most excellent breakfast.

We got going again and soon hit windy roads through mango fields, and coconut, banana, and coffee plantations. We were stopped a few times at road block inspection sites. At first I had no idea what these ‘officials’ and police were looking for. Then Shanta explained that they are searching for bribe money and liqueur. You see its election time here in India. And apparently politicians frequently travel to villages with large sums of counterfeit or real money and liquor to gain the popular opinion in that area. So these road blocks are supposedly set up to deter such activity. Then Shanta explains that they don’t really aim to deter the activity as much as to grab a larger piece of the pie so to speak. A payoff by the politician to the officials at the gates will allow passage. The officials don’t pay us much mind. They quickly ask a few questions and let us pass. The Thornes, however, must look like easy political targets because they get stopped and searched regularly and with more vigor and enthusiasm then ourselves. One other fun stop was made along the way. We hit a tender coconut stand for some tender coconut water. This is one of the regular drinks that is quite common around Southern India. Chai and tender coconut water are like daily rituals for a lot of people here.

Coconut vendor. This guy has a sickle shaped knife that he uses to lop off the top of the coconut

Stacy eats the tender coconut after drinking the water

We also got to see a bus stop being built while we had our water. Interesting construction techniques.

We finally get to Orange County Resort, Coorg. They greeted us with sweet iced coffee and a dot of kumkum on our foreheads. We checked in and went to a long, late lunch. Afterward, we went over to the Thornes spectacular private pool villa and hung out while the ladies planned the next days activities. We went for a short walk to the Cauvery River.

This guy was crossing the river on a coracle using a rope that was stretched the width of the river and talking on a cell phone. I was so impressed I had to get a picture.

The next morning I woke up early to some damn rooster crowing. On the bright side since we were in a coffee estate there was a french press in every room with great coffee to be made. When Stacy and the kids woke up we headed to breakfast. They had mango milkshakes and fresh sugar cane juice. Everywhere in Bangalore you can see green gas powered machines to press sugar cane. But we have been repeatedly warned about drinking the juice from those road side stands. If you know the potential water sources and cleaning procedures of the equipment you would know why. We have heeded those warnings but now was the time when we could safely sample the sweet juice. It was very good.

We took off to the Dubare elephant camp to see some elephant bathing and feeding.

The place seems to be an Indian tourist hotspot. It was crowded. We got in the line to hop on the boat that took us across the Cauvery river to see the elephants.

This area has wild elephants so I was told later that the tame elephants keep penned up so that they don’t wander off with wild ones and become unmanageable. The camp was exactly that. There were little tents all around belonging to the mahoots and their families. They really live right out there with their elephants.
This is how about 35% of the population of India lives whether its in town or in the hills with elepahants. Camps like this are everywhere here:

I also heard later that the oats and grains that are supposed to go to feeding the elephants get sold on the black market and the elephants end up getting fed a lot of elephant waste mixed in with crappy old food. If I would have known that earlier I may have suggested we skip the camp.

The trip back across the river was made on foot instead of by boat this time. We hadn’t noticed before but there were enough rocks and boulders that one could jump all the way back to shore. We weren’t the only ones with that idea. Preston and Jess thought it was great fun. When we got to the shore on the other side I noticed an interesting sign:

That’s right. It reads “Beware of Crocodiles”. I’m not sure if this is just for fun or if its really serious. I do know that when we were at Kabini river we saw croc’s. The Kabini and Cauvery rivers merge shortly east of Mysore so one can only guess that there is a possibility. I was actually more afraid of stepping on broken glass, a burning pile of garbage, or a camouflaged mound of feces.

That’s bad. My apologies but sometimes conditions of places here are a little disheartening.

We headed on to Namdroling Monastery. This monastery houses many monks and monks in training. The area is also home to the second largest Tibetan population out of Tibet itself. Many of the people here are refugees living in exile from their home country. Northern India in the Himalayas has a huge population of Tibetans as well. Here are some snaps of the temples and monks:

Back up power supply (generator) and notice where the wires are hanging and draped all over the building behind. Electricians must not be union

These kids were funny:

When we were done sight-seeing we headed back to Orange County and went swimming and had chaats. Chaats are normally served as a tea time snack. Chaats veries a little bit. I will describe it more some time in a “food and drink” blog. In short, chaats are awesome. One type of chaat is like Indian Nachos! After tea we took naps. The kids got together and were babysat by our capable drivers Shanta and Imtiaz. I think they feed the kids candy and pop but it allows for a quiet 6 course dinner.

The next morning was Easter Sunday! And, YES PRESTON, the Easter Bunny does come to India. The kids spent the morning tracking down eggs and digging into little surprises left by our furry friend.

Our Easter breakfast lacked the usual Ham and cheesy potatoes and family but was enjoyable non the less. We hit the road to Madikeri, the capital of Coorg. The road was windy and narrow but very scenic. Coorg is a beautiful place there’s no doubt.

We visited a hill top fort and Raj’s seat.

Here is a pic of some road side eatables that you can find at almost every tourist spot or…everywhere really..

Interestingly there was no chai stand. We took a ride on a little toy train:

These kids were waiting for th train and eating their snacks. The Paper cones are used by the food vendors. Its called newspaper recycling.

After the train ride we headed back through the holiday traffic to Bangalore. After a long day of driving we decided to plan the time in the car a little bit more carefully. We also found out that Mysore road is like highway 10 in one more regard; on the way home Sunday evening traffic on a holiday weekend sucks!