Indian Eye

Coorg is around 270 kms from the Bangalore airport - the most convenient assembling point for the bloggers coming in from Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai. Depending on how good your transportation is and more importantly how good the roads are on that particular day, it could take anywhere between 6-8 hours to reach Coorg.

As the organiser, I arrived on the 29th of November, a day earlier to ensure that there were no last moment hiccups.

On the 30th, I informed the driver to park near the airport his Tempo Traveler, capable of carrying 15 passengers comfortably (or not so comfortably we realised later).

I had synchronized the flight schedules for the bloggers so that they would converge by 9:30-10 AM at the Bangalore airport. But as was expected, the overcongested Indian skies failed the clock once again. So the flights from Mumbai and Delhi were delayed by more than an hour. Fortunately, the Chennai flight was on time and all passengers (Kiruba, Sudhir, Shrinidhi, Dhruva) reached as scheduled. Also, the Delhi flight that was delayed by an hour also managed to scrape through, bringing in Dev and Mridula.
I was a little concerned about the Mumbai flight that was delayed and arranged for a back-up incase it got delayed further. I didn’t want to inconvenience the other bloggers who were waiting. But those concerns were put to rest, when the Mumbai flight finally arrived, and just in the nick of time because the rest of us had boarded the van. The Mumbai flight bought in Anil and his wife, and Apurva.

Dev and Dhruva in conversation

The Bangalore bloggers (Anita and Amogha) were picked on the way.After nearly an hour into the journey, we were famished and wanted to stop for lunch. Anita and Dhruva, however, suggested that we stop by at Kamat’s for their famous meals. So we decided to rather let those hunger pangs bother us than skip the meals at Kamat.We finally reached Kamat Lokaruchi, about 70 kms from Bangalore on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, and sure enough our wait was worth it.

Kamat’s Lokaruchi

With generous helpings of rise, accompanied with an assortment of curries and subjies, and washed down with curd rice - aaah! the taste still lingers. The piece-de-resistance however, was the basundi (a taste variation of the Phirni) and soon enough, we were ordering for our second helpings!Satiated and content to our stomach, it was now all the way to Coorg - only halting briefly for an RTO inspection and coffee.

Halt for a RTO inspection
It is said that the journey is as important as the destination, and rightly so. The 6 hours of traveling in a van helped us break some ice, and got everybody talking and interacting. Particularly interesting was Dev’s insights on marketing, and the business dynamics of the Pizza food industry, and some of us were glued to his gyan like eager students.Our conversations moved from one topic to the other, from siestas to animated conversations …it was all happening in there. And soon enough we were nearing the end of the ride.As we approached Madikeri, towards Coorg the landscape changed, the wind was chilly and the weather smelt of the local fauna. Sadly, even the roads changed with it. The smooth highway and roads were now replaced with beaten down roads.But that was just a small blip of interruption, and soon enough we were there at the entrance of the Club Mahindra Kodagu valley resort, Coorg. As we alighted from the bus, and into what looked liked paradise in the middle of the desert, a general feeling of relief swept the crowd. But we would be in for a pleasant surprise :).

Watch out for the next post.