Road Trip - Day 1: Flag Off!

The day had finally come. We'd been talking and planning about a road trip for months and here finally the day had arrived! 1st May 2008! There were five of us making the trip - Alvin, Anant, Ashok, Khagen and me (in alphabetical order, or otherwise!) and we'd all taken leaves for Friday, 2nd May, making this a 4day weekend - perfect for a getaway; a road trip! It was my friend Ms Preksha Rai who suggested Coorg - many thanks to her! :-)

The trip was supposed to be simple: Drive all the way to Madikeri, District headquaters of Coorg in Karnataka, India from Bangalore in my car (which is a Maruti Alto LXi - pretty new too!). Enjoy the view, enjoy the drive, see new places and just get away from the maddening city crowd which primarily consists of honks n beeps n screams n yells... it was a journey, a temporary escape to peace and tranquility. We were to stay in Madikeri for two days, see places in-n-around Coorg, and drive back to Bangalore from Madikeri on Saturday, leaving Sunday as a rest day. Distance to Madikeri was estimated at about 240 km from Bangalore - a 5 hour drive excluding the breaks. We had our luggages packed and our maps ready for the journey - we were set to go!

Day 1 began early. Woke up at about 6 am, freshened up and all that, and hit the road at 8 am as scheduled. We took the Mysore Road and off we went! The Bangalore-Mysore highway is a driving pleasure we all know that. Barring a few small towns in between where we had to stop for the occasional stops and traffic signals, it was a zipper of a drive (no puns intended). We were famished by the time we stopped at Cafe Coffee Day on the highway for breakfast. This is where a lot of people hang out - a lot of people from Bangalore come to these faraway coffee shops just because of the drive. Drive from city (actually zip on the highway), stop for a cup of coffee and something to bite, smoke a few cigarettes, and zip back to Bangalore. Perfect.

It was a really pleasant morning with a lovely highway to drive on. I was on the wheel and after driving in the maddening Bangalore traffic, this was a piece of cake! We reached Srirangapatnam and there we kinda got confused - lack of signboards indicating the road to Madikeri led us to stop for sometime and ask for directions. The picture here is a testament to that stoppage! Out came the map and after consultation with the locals, we set off again.

We stopped for frequent breaks. There was this one place which was smack in the middle of nowhere. We stopped for a leak actually - then on seeing the empty farmland (and on Ashok's insistence) got the car inside the farm from the road. We listened to some booming music while Ashok merrily sipped on his KF cans of beer and we even danced for sometime. It was just beautiful to be out there somewhere and you really don't know where and to be able to be so free!

As the day progressed, we got hungry. It was decided to have food directly at Madikeri since it was not too far off now. However, we stopped at someplace (don't even remember the name now), hogged a plate each of rice and chicken and set off again for our destination.

The drive again was lovely. Overall,in the journey to Madikeri, 80% of the road is simply brilliant. However, there were some really bad roads due to construction en route to KaushalNagar, and the drive from Kaushalnagar to Madikeri was just horrible. It's an uphill climb - the incline wasn't too much - but there were so many potholes in the road that it'd make the moon with all its craters look like a piece of the finest silk! Anyway, after about an hour of huffing and puffing and cursing the road authorities, we reached Madikeri at about 4:30pm.

The homestay we had booked turned out to be a nice place and really good people. It was a three bedroom house (with double beds in each room), TV, DVD player and home theater system, 24hours running hot/cold water, attached bath and all that. And the best part was the price: Rs. 2000/- per night. We were more than happy to get such a fantastic deal!

After freshening up, we went to the town to take a stroll, and also to stock up beer and cigarettes for the night. We went to Raja's Seat a popular viewpoint in the heart of Madikeri. For people like us who've spent a lot of time in the hills of Sikkim and Darjeeling, it was a very ordinary view - but then it'd been a long time since we'd seen the hills in the evening, and this breath surely left us admiring it for a good 15 mins.

One word of caution for those of you who smoke Classic Milds/Ultra Milds: Madikeri is a place where you'll get Gold Flake Kings in abundance but the other King Size cigarettes are hard to find. So it is advisable to carry your stock with you in case you go visiting there. Anyways, its a small, beautiful place. Peaceful and tranquil. Just what the doctor ordered.

After dousing our fill of beer and cigarettes by way of candlelight booze, we hogged on some really delicious and spicy Coorgi Moorgi :-) After some more beer and all, we went off to sleep - lapping in the warmth of the blanket, and the sweet silence that was so soothing after coming so far away from the maddening crowd. We slept with smiles on our faces, with lots of things to do tomorrow - which would be Day 2 of the road trip.

For more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/rahul.pradhn/RoadTripDay1 

(Read about the next day - Day 2)