This is a small village in South Kodagu that is closer to Kerala borders than it is to Madikeri. This is where my maternal cousins originally hail from, and they went to school with me at some point while staying together at our maternal grandparents’ house. So, it was natural that I too would accompany them to their native village on several occasions when they went to their parent’s house at Theralu.
Apart from the expansive Tata tea estates and the Kerala borders some of the other popular landmarks that I enjoyed day tripping here were Irupu waterfalls, Mrithyunjaya temple and the Nagarhole National Park.
For all that I can remember from those visits were that there were people speaking and following different culture than I was familiar with. All the workers that worked in both my maternal and paternal hometowns were from the local tribal communities who spoke and ate quite same as what I did at home. But those working at my Uncle’s estate in Theralu spoke so many different languages. The larger group had almost created a mini-Assam in the site of their labourers quarters. They had built so many structures, equipment, tools out of bamboo (the most common site in all over Assam) and ate food that was made with ingredients that we in Kodagu didn’t know were edible until we saw them.
The Glenlorna tea estate Coorg
This is also where I was introduced to Tamil language and their movies. A large group of workers came to work in the farm at Theralu during the peak coffee harvest season and returned back to Tamil Nadu after the season ended. During evenings or on weekends, these workers often came to my cousins house to watch TV. Although I didn’t know their language and didn’t comprehend with most things they communicated, I picked up names of the stars whom they clapped hands in enjoyment or sounded a “Shhhhhh” to express disappointment while watching their favorite stars on the screen. In spite of not understanding a word of what the movie or tele-serial was about, it was an inevitable situation for me to sit and watch through whatever was being played đ Looking back at the days, those stars from the early 2000s are the only few whom I can associate with while talking about movies with a Tamilian!
Assamese kids enjoying their shower in a small stream in the estate
With limited means of communication, the major exposure we had in this small hill-district was just limited to living in estates or serving the army. Here, I saw migrant workers coming from faraway places in search of ANY doable jobs, saved a portion of their limited income and sent it to their families back in their hometowns and still lived a life of modesty. I learnt that life was not all easy for people living in other parts of the earth. It always made me think and reflect how unequal and different life was for everyone. Theralu taught me lessons of gratitude for the life I am living!
In the rapidly expanding Bengaluru city, Malleswaram and Chamarajpet are like two lungs that breathe out air of cultural relevance and nostalgia of Old Bengaluru. Malleswaram in the North and Chamarajpet in the South have always stood equal in their heritage of what the real Bangalore once represented. Although one might disagree with my personal viewpoint, Malleswaram represents the face of Bengaluru that boasts of intellects in the science and academics fields whereas Chamarajpet represents a city that is filled with scholars from the creatives like literature, art and commerce. In the proximity to premium research institutes like IISC, ISRO, C.V. Raman institute, the Wood institute and organizations like BEL, HMT, Mysore lamps, Sandal Soap factory etc. Malleswaram was the closest residential area. Meanwhile, Chamarajpet was an extension of the Pete area and is also the home to the Karnataka Sahitya Parishad. So, those in trade, literary luminaries and Pandits naturally moved in here. Anyway, my intention is not to explain those details and get into a debate, but to come to the point on how and why I believe that I belong to Malleswaram. (More on Chamarajpet in the next post)
Kaadu Malleshwara temple at Malleswaram
Talking about Malleswaram, where do I start from? 18th cross, maybe? I often entered into the premises of Sankey tank from Sadashivanagar and I exited from the other end to Malleswaram. For the first two years of living in Sadashivanagar, I played Basketball. I was trained at the ‘Beagles Basketball Club’ and envisioned to make it big in this sport over the coming years (Destiny had different plans and that’s for another story). Mind you, I had been an ardent follower of Kobe Bryant and the Lakers since school!
Finishing the day’s training usually meant savoring a honey cake for Rs.7 and a biscuit sandwich ice-cream for Rs.5 at the lyengar’s bakery at 16th cross. The aroma of filter coffee in the darshini hotels and a walk in the old Malleswaram market are sensory experiences that cannot be taken away from me. The CTR dosey is an inseparable part for my taste buds (I take the metro train from my current residence in South Bengaluru to Malleswaram even to date, just to eat CTR dosa).
Villa Pottipatti- a heritage hotel in Malleswaram, Bangalore
The atmosphere of festivities brought in by scores of vendors on the 8th cross road were the days that were much awaited by me to see what each festival was about and what the key items associated with a specific festival were (decorations, food and other knick-knacks). I had even made up an entire itinerary on my own and applied for a part time job of a tour guide who wanted to walk the interested people through the lanes of this heritage area.
Malleswaram market
Since I had only then moved into Bangalore after finishing my schooling in Madikeri, for me Malleswaram served as an open school to open my mind to cultures that I was totally unaware until then. The cuisine, the festivals, the spoken Kannada, the traditions and the mindset of people in general, everything seemed new to me in Bangalore from what I had been exposed to until then. I was quick to adopt and adapt and this is where I became a true blue Bangalorean.
With the premium research institutes of India being around, Malleswaram sort of sparked my urge to keep learning/exploring something constantly and inclined me towards pursuing research in general.
Abbi falls is one of the most popular landmarks in Kodagu, located in ‘Kalakeri Nidugane village’ on the outskirts of Madikeri. This is where the Lostlander was stung by the travel bug, much before she was born! History speaks about Columbus and Vasco-da-Gama, but the lostlander grew up listening to the stories of her grandfather’s adventures of discovering Abbi falls. Those are the very stories that sowed the seeds of seeking adventure and finding her own life path for the Lostlander.
The memories associated with Abbi falls is an endless list, so this post is going to be a photo tour with some old photos of the Lostlander with her grandfather at Abbi falls estate.
Abbi falls, Madikeri
This is a brook built by my grandfather to provide accessibility to the surrounding villagers to get across the river, on the upstream of Abbi waterfalls during the monsoons. It has been replaced by a concrete bridge only in yr.2021, several decades after it was originally requested for. (Click here to read further)
The wooden bridge, upstream at Abbi falls
Only memories remain of a house that once served as the heart of the family’s life. (Click here to read further)
The Abbi Villa- Now
In this photo, the lost lander is lost in the vegetable garden, set in the middle of the coffee plantations, overlooked by the beautiful hills of the Pushpagiri ranges. Gravity fed sprinkler jets sprayed water from the stream that was fed by the larger waterfall. (Click here to read further about the LostLander’s love for honeybees).
The author with her grandfather (center) and cousin in the vegetable garden at Abbi falls
I wish to compile a book someday, comprising of all these stories from the life of “My grandfather”. Do share in all your thoughts and any personal stories associated with this place that I will be glad to add them in my book with due credits.
‘Ontiangadi’ literally translates to The Only Shop’ in Kannada, and it is the name of a village in South Kodagu, where my paternal lineage hails from. Now, this village has grown beyond just one shop, into a tiny township.
As a child, I would come here on those weekends, when my parents came down from Bangalore. But whenever I came here, there has always been a calm of a different kind. There are two ancestral houses located within the large premises: one nearly 200 years old which is now used as a warehouse and the other, around 50+ years old that is currently being resided at by our family. The latter is surrounded with coffee plants, paddy fields, overflowing ponds and streams, an open well at a walkable distance to fetch potable water. This place has always seemed magical to me, then and now!
View of the farm from our ancestral home in Kodagu
While the green paddy fields have been a treat to the eyes, the offseason is when I have lived some of my best holidays. The paddy field would turn into a playground when my cousins, other kids from the village and their cousins, would all congregate here for a game or two of football. Not with a foot-BALL, but with hollow balls of pomelo skin (grapefruit).
And then, came the first monsoons: we ran to the large wild-mango tree and fought a mango war. Who won or lost the battle would be decided by how much mango juice we were soaked in and who got the maximum scolding from our elders!
The farm and the mango tree, on the drier days in Ontiangadi
Wait for a few more days to pass by and the monsoon will peak. Then, the streams would overflow and bring that time of the year for our prized catches: Laying bamboo traps to collect fresh water eels and Koile meen (a local fish in Kodagu), fishing out mud-crabs from crevices along the downstream were normal. On (un)Lucky days, one or two smushy crabs would turn out to be snakes after being grabbed out đ
Once, the workers had brought home several soft shelled turtles which they had found while working in the paddy field. It was timed well with my then recent experience of volunteering for a sea turtle conservation project in Chennai. With all excitement and inspiration, I had written to so many organizations about my new discovery in the western Ghats đ Aaah, what memories!
Clockwise from top left: 1. Koile meen, 2. Freshwater shrimp, 3. Cattle, 4. A soft shelled turtle
Apart from this, the ‘Subramanya temple’ at Byrambada and the ‘Palli Swamy Dargah’ (Pulkimaad dargah) have been important landmarks in and closer to Ontiangadi. A nice warm day even now, is often concluded with a hot plate of palam pori and a cup of kattan chai from ‘Ganesh hotel’ at Ontiangadi.
‘Ganesh hotel’ at Ontiangadi, Kodagu
I borrow my surname from this village and so, definitely a part of me belongs here đ
If you liked this story, you might also want to give a read to: “OMG! Life has changed!” for some more nostalgic content.
Vasanthanagar is an old locality in North Bengaluru, adjoining some of the prominent English areas like the Cantonment, Miller’s road, Cunningham road, Palace road etc. I had been visiting and staying in this locality for all the years that my aunt’s family lived here. Right from the time I was an infant to the time I started to go to college, I have been a regular around this locality. Or to say, this has been my second home whenever I have been in Bangalore. (First home in Bangalore is of course where my parents lived, I will talk about it in another post đ )
When you live in an area, your boundary extends beyond. Hence, high grounds, racecourse, golf course, Windsor Manor, Indian Express building, Basava Bhavan, Vidhana Soudha were all just a walk away. If you let my aunt or mom take over this page, then probably they would tell you that even Shivajinagar or Commercial street were also walkable from Vasanthanagar (at least considered so, back in the 80’s and 90’s). So, let me take you through some of the landmarks in Vasanthanagar that bring back nostalgia.
The Sampangi Ramaswamy temple: My aunt’s house was located right opposite to this temple and it was every day, that I woke up to the melody of M.S. Subbalakshmi’s suprabhatam played at this temple. But what best remains with me are the days that my cousin and I were made to believe that a small depression on the boulder in the temple premises were footprints of Lord Rama. So as kids, we would go there every day (whenever I was there) and offer our prayers with vermillion to this rock (and NOT to the temple!)
The premises of Sri Sampangi Ramaswamy temple in Vasanthanagar
Loafers’ lane: Palace road is where a majority of my female cousins have attended school. This is also where I got my pre-university education before graduation. Being an all-women’s college, needless to say that the road running perpendicular to the college gate has always been a haunt of all the men of Bengaluru. Apart from the ‘Dove nuts’ from Chechi’s canteen on campus, the chaats from Raj’s on loafer’s lane has always been synonymous with the crowd.
Kodava Samaja: Then, there is this convention hall where almost all community gatherings like festival celebrations, weddings etc., happen. Even if my aunt’s family and I moved out of the area, Vasanthanagar wouldn’t leave us đ
The Mount Carmel College junction of Palace road and Loafers’ lane
Adding to the list, the delicious sizzlers of ‘Miller’s 46’, Mughlai Biriyani from ‘hotel Chandrika’, honey cake from lyengar’s bakery and home-needs supermarket were our family’s go-to places for quick bites. Catching a local gig at ‘Alliance Francaise’, a movie or a Mc.D burger at ‘Sigma mall’, Infinitea and several other cafes and restaurants that sprung up and shut down along the way were other newer additions (during the early 2000s).
Talking about the role of this area on my personality: This place has influenced me in more than one way.
If you have ever conversed with me and have spotted a certain peculiar vocabulary sneaking out during a formal discussion, I owe that part of me to Vasanthanagar. That “English” has brushed onto me from my almamater here! For all you should know is that I studied in a gender-neutral women’s college, where we addressed peers as ‘hey, Man!’, ‘hey, Bro!’, ‘hey, dude!’.
This is also where I was introduced to ‘fusion rock’ music. The college fest hosted by my almamater is one of the most popular stages in the country for aspiring college bands who seek a launchpad and get recognition. This small-town girl had grown up listening to the voices of Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh, Rafi, Kishore da, Yesudas, P.B.Srinivas and the likes, until she moved into the city. ‘Fusion’ was a new form of music she was listening to for the first time, here. She had an instant connection.
Although tending to animals is in the genes and the blood of this girl who belongs to forests of the western Ghats, I owe my understanding and awareness for conservations of wildlife and nature to Vasanthanagar. My bond with a classmate whose dad worked in the forest department was so deeply rooted about the holistic topic of environmental conservation, that we would spend several sleepless nights discussing about births, deaths and general health of individual animals from the zoos that we both had seen together, met and knew by names (Click here for a detailed read)
This HAS to be the beginning đ Madikeri (earlier called as Mercara) is the district headquarters of Kodagu (earlier called as Coorg). In this post, I talk about Karavalebadaga village in Madikeri Taluk, where my house and my school were both located in proximity. Although the village retains its name in the government documents, the newer names of these fragmented localities have now taken over people’s memories.
This is where I was born and have spent most of my life, so far! I was raised by my maternal grandparents who lived in Madikeri. A large compound with a shed full of cows, a kennel full of dogs, a sty full of pigs, a lair full of cats and an attic full of sparrows in their nests; a house surrounded by a colourful garden, fruiting trees and coffee estate; A short walk down, took us to a paddy field in which flowed a pretty little stream. This is where I grew up, in the heart of Madikeri town.
The attic at my maternal grandparents’ house
Throwback to 90’s: As young kids, my cousin and I often sneaked out of the house on weekends for our usual stints. We would steal empty jars of Horlicks and cotton towels from granny’s stash and head towards the stream. We would catch fishes from the stream, get them to fill the tank that had purple lilies in our house’s front yard. We then hid the jar and the towel back near the stream for the next weekend. Come next weekend, the jar would have gone missing and the drill repeated!
Forward to present day: The sheds are empty, the dog is lonely, the sty is erased, the trees are gone and the stream has become part of a concreted sewage.
Watching the rains batter and the lily tank in the frontyard
Throwback to 90’s: My friends and I walked to school, braving the heavy monsoon downpour. Our heavy armours comprising of thick raincoats, high ankle gumboots and wide black umbrellas weren’t enough to keep us dry. Along with this, we made sure we did not return home empty handed in the evening. We filled our lunch boxes with wild mushrooms or mud-crabs that we would pick up from the paddy field for a sumptuous monsoon dinner.
Forward to present day: There exists no trace of a paddy field that has now been transformed to a full fledged housing layout, the present day ‘Cauvery layout’.
The road connecting Ranipet and Cauvery layout in Madikeri is now laid over a sewage stream
Throwback to 90’s: My SCHOOL, the oldest educational institution in the hills is a landmark in itself. Named after it, an entire locality is simply referred to as ‘Convent junction’ that is accessible via a narrow lane (locally called as Oni). This was our alternate route on monsoon days when the paddy fields were flooded. The joy of relishing the masala vadas from ‘Kunyali’s canteen’ or a bite into a pastry from ‘hotel Coorg International’ (probably the only star hotel from our times) gave us a high of a different level.
Forward to present day: The oni is partially gone, but the of joy of taking a ride around the Convent junction and visiting school can never be replaced!
A tour of Convent Junction
They say home is where schooling starts, and then the formal schooling: My personality is probably a reflection of Karavalebadaga because this is where it all started!
So, that’s all folks! Next week, I will share a post about another place where I belong to. I hope you all will enjoy and share your thoughts with me.
But before that, I hope you all have read my earlier throwback post about Madikeri as well. If you haven’t, here’s the link: ‘My growing up days at Madikeri’.
With the Pandemic, it needs no explanation to admit that my weekend travels have significantly come down. Meanwhile, ‘Armchair Travelling’ is a concept that seems to have caught up with most millennials to have themselves virtually travelling. This ideology doesn’t work for me because all my posts have been based only on my personal and real experiences. It seems hard for me to sit on a chair and imagine being at a destination just so that I can generate content.
In my contemplation of creating authentic content, I have passed several months without any posts of any value on my website. Meanwhile, this time also gave me space to explore my own backyard, drive over to familiar places and revisit old memories. But old memories for me are scattered. These memories are primarily divided between Bengaluru (my current place of residence) and Kodagu (my hometown, where I have spent most of my childhood and teenage). But they are also scattered across places because I have a large family, both on my paternal and maternal sides who live across these places and outside.
For me, the person I have evolved into and perceptions I derive have largely been based on the influences I have picked up while growing up across all these places. So, a little bit of me comes from all these places and a little bit of me stays everywhere. So, neither do I belong to rural or urban Bengaluru nor do I belong to North or South Kodagu, I belong to everywhere!
A young member from the Yerava tribe in Coorg
So, I thought I can take you all on a virtual tour of some of these places that are close to my heart and share some stories from the good days that have gone by… Through this series, I will give you small peeks into my hangout places, hideouts, local history, trivia, restaurants and everything else as I take you through these places and tell you how these places have influenced my personality….
But before that, I hope you all have read my earlier throwback post as well. If you haven’t, here’s the link to: ‘My growing up days at Madikeri‘
Each week, I will try to share a new post about a place / locality that I share a bond with and has influenced my personality, in no specific order of chronology with an attempt to bring back nostalgia. I hope you all will enjoy and share your thoughts with me đ
Arenât honeybees good inspirers to travel? In a lifespan thatâs as short as just a few days, they find a new place every day, explore a new flower every minute and taste new nectars on every flight! All this while still performing their assigned duties without having any complaints. Living a sweet life while being as busy as a bee!
It was curiosity that led me to learning about bee-keeping. This curiosity was a summation of multiple experiences accumulated through the years of childhood. I have been raised by my grandparents where honey has been an essential part of my life. We used it as a dip for breakfast and as a rice-mix for lunch, as an energy drink with hot water or even as a medicine with brandy or pepper corn. And yeah, stashes of several bottles went packed as souvenirs to guests who visited home and to friends who lived far away. You can call this honey with adjectives like pure, organic, handpicked, homemade, etc. âCoorg honeyâ it was, after all!
Grandpa was personally enthusiastic about this particular hobby of his. I was often smitten with curiosity when he returned home with either a swollen face or with swollen hands. When I went nearer to him to check for his condition, he would only greet me with a warm smile and a piece of honeycomb dripping with fresh nectar. While at home, he would be busy with his bees in 75+ boxes that were kept around the house. It used to be a festival day for the family when drums of honey used to be extracted from his boxes all by himself. While at his favourite place- the Abbi estate, it was customary for him to have a daily look at this massive âHoney Treeâ as we called it, the single large tree where bee hives were formed annually. It was the family night out, an annual event that we all looked forward for. Honey tappers from a specific tribe called âJenu Kurubasâ used to be called in, to climb the tree in pitch darkness on a no-moon night. The family camped in the darkness at midnight on the damp ground of the coffee estate with the rustling sound of the waterfalls in the background. While as a kid, I was amused with the spectacle of blue lights falling down from that tree, only as a grown up adult I realize the lights were indeed bees that were falling down after being smoked up in the process of honey tapping. And not to forget some odd days when he would pick out snakes from mud crevices that he had put his hands to collect honey from. And then there were days, when we made friends over a bottle of honey. These were customers who came to grandpaâs makeshift shop at Abbi falls with their unique ways of testing the quality of the honey sold there! Each customer, a unique character and every conversation, a story in itself.
For me, adding this new dimension to my travel stories was more of an emotional journey.. With the passing away of Granpa, the charm and life that his favourite place held too passed. The âHoney Treeâ eventually saw the ground leaving our family to buy honey from the market. Having relished the finest nectars from high tree trunks, deep mud crevices and those handpicked from the several bee boxes kept around the house, our family like all others are really not sure of the quality of those available in the market. Thatâs when this thought of setting up my own bee box struck me along with traveling in pursuit of knowledge sharing. These things led to me developing an interest about learning about honey bees and eventually respecting these tiny creatures more and more. I think being born in a community of nature worshippers gives me an instant connect with things that are natural and essential for our existence. Home is where primary and the most essential education starts and for me, Grandpa has been the main reason for one of the finest childhood lessons and home education I have picked up.
Albert Einstein said, “The Earth will come to an end in just 4 days if there be NO honeybees on this planet.” Honeybees are such an important part of our very own existence on this planet, Save them! Get in touch with an expert before you get that beehive removed from your concrete dwelling. Alternatively, get in touch with me for I would be more than willing to give a talk for awareness in your community. I signed up for a workshop to learn this art of bee-farming, and a certification came as a bonus. I did my course with âHoneyDay Bee farmsâ who are thorough professionals and extremely knowledgeable in the field. They work with farmers right from the installation to extraction to marketing thus assuring you a 100% purity in their products. Go try them out!
Thereâs a proverb in Kannada, âHitlu gida maddallaâ meaning âWe donât recognize the medicinal value of plant thatâs lying in our backyardâ. True to this, I have been traveling and writing about beautiful places from across the country.. And suddenly I felt that I had left out to explore places in my home state itself..!! We just wanted to have a rough theme before we hit the road. What was fitting well in the time available was the coffee tour!
Karnataka produces about 51% of Indiaâs coffee and it is all on the southern stretch of the Malnad region. The coffee grown here is highly priced in the international market owing to its better flavor as it is grown under the shade. Thatâs it, my brother and I pulled out dadâs bike from our cellar and decided to hit the road for a long weekend covering the entire stretch of coffee belt in Karnataka. Unlike cars, we wonât have the luxury of having a spare wheel in a 2-wheeler. Inorder to get our 125CC, 4-stoke, single cylinder, 10 year old boy running smoothly, it was necessary to give him a fine pair of CEAT tyres that could sustain our long ride on different terrain. So finally, here we go.. Our road trip along the coffee belt on the western ghats.
On a January weekend, we rode through the finely maintained NH- through Nelmangala and Kunigal. Our first coffee stop was to sip on some caffeine from the Hassan plantations. A simple hot cuppa at a petty shop before a deviation to Shettyhalli was all that we wanted. At a distance of about 20kms from Hassan, the Rosary church at Shettyhalli stood testimony to time and silently narrated a story of a painful past. This church emerges out when the water levels in river Hemavathi recede as if playing a game of hide and seek. We spent some time admiring this architectural beauty and trying to reconstruct itâs glorious past through our imagination. We left Hassan after a sumptuous lunch at a friendâs house located in the middle of a coffee estate.
The Rosary church at Shettyhalli. Clicking credits: Samson Joseph
Next day, we set out to explore the pilgrim town of Sringeri. The Sharadamba temple is one among the 4 main Mutts established by Sri.Adi Shankaracharya. The Vidhyashankara temple on the same premises is a beautiful structure built in a combination of Hoysala and Vijayanagara style of architecture. After a small ride, we stopped by at Sri Rushyashrungeshwara swamy temple in Kigga, locally called as the God of rains. The route to our next destination- Sirimane waterfalls was a pleasant one passing through thick jungle on either sides, once notoriously famous as a haven of dacoits. Narasimha Parvata and Meghebaile waterfalls are other places of interest for the forest bums. However, we decided to spend the remaining time whiling away on the banks of river Thunga feeding the school of fishes with puffed rice.
The Vidhyashankara temple at Sringeri
We started early the following day as we had a long route to cover and the BEST stretch of our roadtrip. We arrived early at the Kalaseshwara temple and enjoyed the serenity and oneness with nature that Kalasa town had to offer. The Breakfast served at the Annapurna temple happens to be one of the best prasadams and there was no way we were going to miss it. So we had to speed our way towards Horanadu, before the food counter closed. We then had to do a small off-roading which took us to a place of Ultra Calm- Javali in Mudigere Taluk, the birthplace of river Hemavathi.
After a refreshing break, we headed towards the next coffee hotspot. It had been an awesome ride so far and time to get our caffeine fix. We parked our bike at one of the stalls put up with a bare table and a stove serving banana fritters and our dose of Sakleshpur coffee. We then climbed up the stairs to reach the beautifully located and strategically built Armory of Tipu Sultan- Manjarabad fort. It is a multi-walled star shaped fortress and worth photographing for an aerial view. Having Shiradi ghat and Bisle ghat in the vicinity, the view from the fort is amazing!
The Manjarabad fort
The ride has been brilliant so far and we stopped by for a picture of this solo tree standing in a serene place.
As we continued to enjoy our ride further, god decided to add in a tinge of adventure. We lost our way and we missed a deviation.. So thatâs when our CEAT tyres were put into real test. We were scared of having lost our way and running on low battery on our mobile phones during our off-roading tryst. However, we were fortunate to reach the main road that ran parallel to our wrong road. Astonishingly, we later got to know that the official name of that road was âKundu-Rastheâ which literally means âPot-hole roadâ in Kannada.
The sun was already setting and we were the last and the only people in the middle of no-where, walking down the stairs towards Mallalli waterfalls. The place was drop-dead deserted by the time we reached there. We hurriedly clicked some photographs and rode for a short coffee break at the last part of our coffee trip, entrance to Coorg or Kodagu district. Interestingly, we passed through several small towns named after the days of the week when the weekly shandy is held. Shukravarapete, ShanivaraSanthe and Somwarpet were among them.
The Mallalli falls
So it was past 07.00.p.m. when we finally reached our ancestral home at Madikeri town. And there was no better way to be greeted at home and end the long trip than having a sinful brew of Bella kaapi of Coorg. That said, our ride on the coffee belt had come to an end.. We rode on excellent national highways, state highways and stretches with no roads.. I must mention that coffee kept us awake and the tyres kept us on track and it was a wonderful experience.
Summary:
It is not an expensive car / bike you need for a wonderful trip. An efficient engine and a pair of reliable tyres is all that is required if you have a zeal to conquer the roads.. Bring it on and enjoy the ride!
Request to all riding & driving enthusiasts:
I myself work for an automobile manufacturer and my roles include attending to quality issues of seats & airbags. I have seen tests performed on dummys for evaluation. Trust me, it is insane to imagine the impact of not wearing seat belts.
Seat belts alone can reduces the risk by 60% in case of a collision. In most cars, the airbags donât deploy unless the seatbelts are worn as they are inter-connected for the electrical system to identify the seat occupancy. So buckle up and ensure all your co-passengers too have!
Helmets on the other hand reduce fatal accidents by up to 60% avoiding severe head injuries. So, please invest on a quality assured helmet and strap it properly for your own safety and DO NOT look out for any cash savings by picking the oneâs sold on roadside.
You may be a safe rider/driver. But you donât know that stranger on the road.. Remember, someone is waiting back at home for your return. Please follow safety rules for their happiness. This is the least you can do!
The Lost Lander 