Wayanad Road Trip: Chapter 2
(Read the previous chapter: Chapter 1)
Chapter 2: Bangalore to Wayanad
With a distance of about 300 km, the stretch from Bangalore to Wayanad can be covered via three different routes as we found out through a very informative site.
We decided to follow the advice given in the site and decided to take two different routes to-n-fro so as to cover more
places (it was after all a road trip!). We decided to travel to Wayanad through Route ‘A’ and return to Bangalore via Route ‘C’. The site mentions Route ‘B’ to be pretty bad – so we decided to avoid that route altogether.
So early 10th morning, after a fitful night's sleep (well we were packing till 1AM), we woke up at around 6AM - an hour late. Anyway, the Santro was delivered to us by the Autoriders guy more or less on time. So after Sachin and Nisha arrived at our place, we were off on the trip. It was around 7:30AM by then, and we were about one and a half hours behind schedule - which was expected given we had four girls with us! So there we were - 5 per car - off to Wayanad!
This was my first trip to Kerala, the only state in South India I hadn't been to - yet. And I was pretty excited because everybody I knew had good things to say about Kerala's scenic beauty. So yes, I was pretty excited!
The drive upto Nagarhole was pretty much normal. We stopped on the way at Cafe Coffee Day, had our breakfast, and drove on. The roads upto Nagarhole are good - nice highways where you zip through (of course barring the few towns in between where you encounter traffic - but it's all good).
We had got some beer on the way - and the passengers were enjoying the drive as well as some cool, chilled beer on a warm day. Needless to say, the drivers - Ritu and I - were pretty envious of the beer guzzling folks as we couldn't drink - not while driving! It was at Nagarhole forest reserve that we encountered our first incident.
At the forest reserve checkpost, we stopped our cars for the formal registration of the vehicles. One shabby, depressed looking guard started checking our cars - the trunk, bags, etc. Don't know what he was looking for. Other cars passed by and they were not checked as thoroughly as we were - maybe because we didn't look like locals that is why we were checked more strictly? Anyways, Sachin who was sitting and sipping on a can of beer on the back seat of my car was asked (in Kannada) to throw the beer. Fine - Sachin did as he was told since rules did not permit alcohol in the forest area. We were totally unaware of that - nowhere in our research had we come across "Not allowed to booze in the forest" kind of warning. Anyways, for those of you reading this and planning on a trip to Wayanad, please note this - Don't take beer to Nagarhole forest reserve - you will only end up having to throw your beer cans out of the car. Anyways, throwing the beer can was fine. But the guards started shouting at us in Kannada - for apparently getting beer when it was not allowed. Now if we'd known that such a rule existed, we wouldn't have done it on purpose. None of us road trippers knew Kannada except Sachin who can understand/speak broken Kannada. So the guards it seems were mad at us for the beer, and then went on to shout at us because we didn't understand Kannada! WTF!!!
A small altercation broke out between Sachin (in his broken Kannada) and the guards. Anyways, we didn't want trouble - besides we had females with us - so we had to say sorry to those jerks and move on. The worst part was that even the head guard (can't call him an officer as he showed no signs of being one!) was jabbering away in the local language, and from his gestures it looked like he was threatening us that he would call someone - the way he was gesturing with his cheap mobile phone in hand as if to say "Should I make that call to so-n-so? Do you know who I am". And for what crime of ours? For us being ignorant about beer. I mean, was that kind of treatment justified?
That incident left a bitter taste on our mouths yet we trudged on our way through the dense Nagarhole forest reserve. The small road that goes through the forest reserve is fine - its not excellent, but its not something people would complain about. Not many potholes there, however the road is pretty small. We stopped a couple of times to take a few photographs. Now we were all pissed at the behavior of those desperate guards at the checkpost - but luckily for us they had forgotten to check the other car (Santro) in the heat of the moment. And that was how we could save two cans of beer - which instantly brought a smile on the guys' faces!
A word of caution when driving through forests: it is not uncommon for motorists to encounter animals (elephants especially) while driving through such national parks - Nagarhole is no exception. In case you do (luckily for us, we didn't), then please be calm and patient. It is not advisable to honk when inside a forest, and not advisable to take long stops in a forest. And for smokers - please be careful where you throw your cigarette butts inside a forest!
Another interesting thing to see was that after the guards making such a loud hue and cry over our beer cans, the last thing we expected was a bar selling beer anywhere near the forest's vicinity. Yet, there it was - one almost at the end of Nagarhole forest reserve! And we did stop there for sometime, getting several cans for the thirsty boys.
Post Nagarhole we were just a little further from Kerala, God's Own Country. The roads in the "no man's land" - the stretch after Karnataka and before Kerala - is a disaster! It's like none of the two states want to take care of that little stretch, and inadvertently, it is us motorists who suffer! What a shame!
Once inside Kerala, the roads got better (but some potholes remained!) and we started a slight uphill climb - welcome to the Western Ghats! I only wished that the roads had a bit less of potholes, because then I could've seen more of the surroundings! Because of the potholes I had my eyes fixed on the road and couldn't take them off it for even a moment! Well, the good part was that the weather was pleasant with the rains coming on and off ever so frequently. All in all, minus the potholes, not a bad drive.
Our destination was Kalpetta, the district headquarters of Wayanad district in Kerala. As we entered Kalpetta at around 4:30PM, it was a no-brainer as to why this was the headquarters. The roads were neat and with a slight drizzle coming down as we entered the town, it felt like coming home.
We checked into Chandragiri Inn where thanks to Sachin we had prior bookings. We were expecting modest rooms - but the rooms at Chandragiri took us by surprise. Literally! The rooms were huge, spacious, well furnishe
d, clean with all the amenities you can ask for. And at INR 900/- (plus change) per night was a steal! However, to park your car in their parking lot requires some serious skills! And hot water was a problem, but the manager was nice because on our request he supplied us with hot water for sometime because we really needed that!
We figured there'd not be much of sight-seeing that evening, so we retired into our rooms for a breather. As a driver, it definitely is tiring after driving for almost 300km at a stretch, and throw in some pathetic roads and some bad incidents and you've pretty much had a long day!
We thought that the major problem with Chandragiri was that they had no restaurant of their own. But then that is not such a big problem, as we soon found out. Because hardly 10-15 meters from the inn are a lot of eateries, most popular of them being Woodlands. And that is where we headed for our dinner.
The restaurant had self-service, and wasn't too bad. It wasn't shabby, was clean and not crowded. The food took a fair amount of time to arrive, and it wasn't bad. Besides, we were all too famished to complain about food. In fact, we packed 5 packets of biryani and got with us because we knew it'd be a long night - we'd planned to sip on some booze (especially me and Ritu, the drivers who hadn't taken even one sip the entire day!), play cards, just have some fun - we were on vacation! However, as luck would have it - it was a Dry Day! Because it was Good Friday...! Ritu and I were dejected on hearing that news - we thoroughly deserved the drink but alas!
The night progressed and we all sat down to play cards well into the night. A lot of potential talent was discovered in Meera in the game of cards! So after a good round of cards and some biryani, we all retired for the night to our respective rooms. It had been a long day, an eventful day, an interesting day. We snuggled inside our beds and although the weather was not exactly as it should be in a hill-station, yet we were thankful that it was more pleasant than Bangalore.
For more pictures, click here.
(Read the next chapter: Chapter 3)
Chapter 2: Bangalore to Wayanad
With a distance of about 300 km, the stretch from Bangalore to Wayanad can be covered via three different routes as we found out through a very informative site.
We decided to follow the advice given in the site and decided to take two different routes to-n-fro so as to cover more
places (it was after all a road trip!). We decided to travel to Wayanad through Route ‘A’ and return to Bangalore via Route ‘C’. The site mentions Route ‘B’ to be pretty bad – so we decided to avoid that route altogether.So early 10th morning, after a fitful night's sleep (well we were packing till 1AM), we woke up at around 6AM - an hour late. Anyway, the Santro was delivered to us by the Autoriders guy more or less on time. So after Sachin and Nisha arrived at our place, we were off on the trip. It was around 7:30AM by then, and we were about one and a half hours behind schedule - which was expected given we had four girls with us! So there we were - 5 per car - off to Wayanad!
This was my first trip to Kerala, the only state in South India I hadn't been to - yet. And I was pretty excited because everybody I knew had good things to say about Kerala's scenic beauty. So yes, I was pretty excited!
The drive upto Nagarhole was pretty much normal. We stopped on the way at Cafe Coffee Day, had our breakfast, and drove on. The roads upto Nagarhole are good - nice highways where you zip through (of course barring the few towns in between where you encounter traffic - but it's all good).
We had got some beer on the way - and the passengers were enjoying the drive as well as some cool, chilled beer on a warm day. Needless to say, the drivers - Ritu and I - were pretty envious of the beer guzzling folks as we couldn't drink - not while driving! It was at Nagarhole forest reserve that we encountered our first incident.
At the forest reserve checkpost, we stopped our cars for the formal registration of the vehicles. One shabby, depressed looking guard started checking our cars - the trunk, bags, etc. Don't know what he was looking for. Other cars passed by and they were not checked as thoroughly as we were - maybe because we didn't look like locals that is why we were checked more strictly? Anyways, Sachin who was sitting and sipping on a can of beer on the back seat of my car was asked (in Kannada) to throw the beer. Fine - Sachin did as he was told since rules did not permit alcohol in the forest area. We were totally unaware of that - nowhere in our research had we come across "Not allowed to booze in the forest" kind of warning. Anyways, for those of you reading this and planning on a trip to Wayanad, please note this - Don't take beer to Nagarhole forest reserve - you will only end up having to throw your beer cans out of the car. Anyways, throwing the beer can was fine. But the guards started shouting at us in Kannada - for apparently getting beer when it was not allowed. Now if we'd known that such a rule existed, we wouldn't have done it on purpose. None of us road trippers knew Kannada except Sachin who can understand/speak broken Kannada. So the guards it seems were mad at us for the beer, and then went on to shout at us because we didn't understand Kannada! WTF!!!
A small altercation broke out between Sachin (in his broken Kannada) and the guards. Anyways, we didn't want trouble - besides we had females with us - so we had to say sorry to those jerks and move on. The worst part was that even the head guard (can't call him an officer as he showed no signs of being one!) was jabbering away in the local language, and from his gestures it looked like he was threatening us that he would call someone - the way he was gesturing with his cheap mobile phone in hand as if to say "Should I make that call to so-n-so? Do you know who I am". And for what crime of ours? For us being ignorant about beer. I mean, was that kind of treatment justified?
That incident left a bitter taste on our mouths yet we trudged on our way through the dense Nagarhole forest reserve. The small road that goes through the forest reserve is fine - its not excellent, but its not something people would complain about. Not many potholes there, however the road is pretty small. We stopped a couple of times to take a few photographs. Now we were all pissed at the behavior of those desperate guards at the checkpost - but luckily for us they had forgotten to check the other car (Santro) in the heat of the moment. And that was how we could save two cans of beer - which instantly brought a smile on the guys' faces!
A word of caution when driving through forests: it is not uncommon for motorists to encounter animals (elephants especially) while driving through such national parks - Nagarhole is no exception. In case you do (luckily for us, we didn't), then please be calm and patient. It is not advisable to honk when inside a forest, and not advisable to take long stops in a forest. And for smokers - please be careful where you throw your cigarette butts inside a forest!
Another interesting thing to see was that after the guards making such a loud hue and cry over our beer cans, the last thing we expected was a bar selling beer anywhere near the forest's vicinity. Yet, there it was - one almost at the end of Nagarhole forest reserve! And we did stop there for sometime, getting several cans for the thirsty boys.
Post Nagarhole we were just a little further from Kerala, God's Own Country. The roads in the "no man's land" - the stretch after Karnataka and before Kerala - is a disaster! It's like none of the two states want to take care of that little stretch, and inadvertently, it is us motorists who suffer! What a shame!
Once inside Kerala, the roads got better (but some potholes remained!) and we started a slight uphill climb - welcome to the Western Ghats! I only wished that the roads had a bit less of potholes, because then I could've seen more of the surroundings! Because of the potholes I had my eyes fixed on the road and couldn't take them off it for even a moment! Well, the good part was that the weather was pleasant with the rains coming on and off ever so frequently. All in all, minus the potholes, not a bad drive.
Our destination was Kalpetta, the district headquarters of Wayanad district in Kerala. As we entered Kalpetta at around 4:30PM, it was a no-brainer as to why this was the headquarters. The roads were neat and with a slight drizzle coming down as we entered the town, it felt like coming home.
We checked into Chandragiri Inn where thanks to Sachin we had prior bookings. We were expecting modest rooms - but the rooms at Chandragiri took us by surprise. Literally! The rooms were huge, spacious, well furnishe
d, clean with all the amenities you can ask for. And at INR 900/- (plus change) per night was a steal! However, to park your car in their parking lot requires some serious skills! And hot water was a problem, but the manager was nice because on our request he supplied us with hot water for sometime because we really needed that!We figured there'd not be much of sight-seeing that evening, so we retired into our rooms for a breather. As a driver, it definitely is tiring after driving for almost 300km at a stretch, and throw in some pathetic roads and some bad incidents and you've pretty much had a long day!
We thought that the major problem with Chandragiri was that they had no restaurant of their own. But then that is not such a big problem, as we soon found out. Because hardly 10-15 meters from the inn are a lot of eateries, most popular of them being Woodlands. And that is where we headed for our dinner.
The restaurant had self-service, and wasn't too bad. It wasn't shabby, was clean and not crowded. The food took a fair amount of time to arrive, and it wasn't bad. Besides, we were all too famished to complain about food. In fact, we packed 5 packets of biryani and got with us because we knew it'd be a long night - we'd planned to sip on some booze (especially me and Ritu, the drivers who hadn't taken even one sip the entire day!), play cards, just have some fun - we were on vacation! However, as luck would have it - it was a Dry Day! Because it was Good Friday...! Ritu and I were dejected on hearing that news - we thoroughly deserved the drink but alas!
The night progressed and we all sat down to play cards well into the night. A lot of potential talent was discovered in Meera in the game of cards! So after a good round of cards and some biryani, we all retired for the night to our respective rooms. It had been a long day, an eventful day, an interesting day. We snuggled inside our beds and although the weather was not exactly as it should be in a hill-station, yet we were thankful that it was more pleasant than Bangalore.
For more pictures, click here.
(Read the next chapter: Chapter 3)
The link showing "very informative site" is not working. I think you've added an extra dot at the end of the URL. Once that dot is removed from the URL, it links to the right page
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hampi.in/bangalore-to-wayanad-by-road.shtml
Thanks Anonymous - have fixed that now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your trip experience. Wonderful trip. Wayanad, meaning 'land of paddy fields', makes for a dreamy escapade. This picturesque hill station in Kerala spans out over the devilishly delightful landscape of the Western Ghats. Check out all best Wayanad tourist places also.
ReplyDelete