The Perfect Winter Holiday: India 2012 Part I

My family and I visited India for a month in Oct-Nov 2012. I have never had such a long vacation, I think since I left high school or so. I had negotiated with my new employer, whom I joined in July 2012 so that I could take 4 weeks off in the winter. It was an amazing vacation. Of course, we were with family in India, which was part of the awesomeness, but also, we traveled throughout the trip to various places in India. In fact we traveled so much that there were times when my feet would hurt real bad. But my heart got what it desired, which is all that mattered.

We arrived in Bangalore in the last week of October. It was very exciting to land in my home and see my parents. We usually land at our in-laws' first. We relaxed there for a couple of days, eating amazing mommy-made food and sleeping off our jet lag. Then we set off on a trip to Coorg, a most beautiful destination I'd been to with friends back in 2000 and had been wanting to go back to all these years. We went via Mangalore, where we stopped for a night and half a day as my parents had to attend a family friend's wedding there.

A large part of the drive from Bangalore to Mangalore, and also the day in Mangalore, was rainy. But somehow it didn't feel as depressing and gray as the Seattle rains in the winters. Moreover we were in vacation mood and excited about the travels that lay ahead.

We started off early morning after having a nice breakfast of idlis and packing a bunch of snacks. I had decided to be super careful with my son throughout the trip. I minimized giving him outside food to the full extent possible. We traveled a lot in that one month. I had taken canned garbanzo beans and some other things from here (U.S). In situations where we were not  in a completely safe eating place, I would buy tomatoes and make him a salad with tomatoes and chick peas, or give him bread, milk, fruit, etc.  It worked out pretty well.

So... we'd set off, with all our bags, lots of food, and our camera! Our driver was a really nice Kannadiga guy with a chubby face and a hearty smile. One of the first things he did when we were just about to hit the highway was, while we were stopped at a traffic light, he rolled down his window and hollered "aye!" and a little boy who was selling stringed jasmine flowers stopped by and sold him a yard. I was wondering why he was buying flowers! Ah, the authentic 'India' experience had set in! Nice. He put the flowers around the little idol of Ganesha he had on the dash. Sure enough, bows to the remover of obstacles before we head out!


We stopped a couple of times for coffee and lunch breaks. Thank god for the Cafe Coffee Days on many of the highways in Karnataka. Rather thank Mallya! They have good quality food and drink, and most importantly, trusty clean restrooms! Oh and by the way, throughout the trip, I was able to get black (milkless) tea in all parts of India, even little towns and semi-rural places. In big cities, you get soymilk everywhere these days. The quality might be questionable but for a short-term stay it works out. The only issue now is, I don't do soymilk any more, but only almond milk. Anyway we'll see when the time comes for the next India visit.

 Getting back to the drive, after a couple of these breaks, we hit the lovely, though sickness-inducing Ghats and passed through little towns now and then. Here are some pictures taken on the way.

Sometimes when I am in some parts of India I get the feeling of time having frozen. This picture could easily pass for something taken at the time I was in middle school-

We reached Mangalore at night, so couldn't do much. We had dinner at the hotel we were staying at and went to bed. The air outside felt the same as it had almost 20 years back when I had been to Mangalore- humid and salty. That with the coolness of the night and the occasional smell of flowers from here and there was quite comforting.

The next morning, we woke up and got ready quite relaxedly as the wedding was not until afternoon. After breakfast we had some time to kill, so we went to the watch tower, Sultan Battery, and took a boat ride in the lake there.

The boat ride was quite pleasant, but it was impossible not to notice the amount of litter thrown on the sides of the lake, at the banks- paper, empty plastic bags, soda cans, plastic bottles- what can be a really beautiful place is unfortunately very unsightly in parts.

Here's a picture of Sultan Battery:

An interesting bit of information about this place , courtesy Wikipedia:

"Built in black stones, the tower gives the impression of a miniature fortress with its arrangements for mounting cannons all-round. It was built to prevent English warships from entering the Gurupura river^[1] It was constructed from stones of churches destroyed by Tipu Sultan, during his 15-year imprisonment of the Mangalorean Catholics and the other Christians.^[2]"

Sultan Battery: inside, at the top:

From here, we headed to the wedding, where we had some out-of-the-world Mangalore food: the raw jackfruit and cashew palya, the gojju... mmmm! What a treat!

We then set off on the long drive to Coorg. The weather was mostly rainy everywhere. Coorg is a pretty wet place, but at this time, it was pretty rainy everywhere, including Bangalore and Mangalore.

In the middle of the drive, towards the evening, I really needed a stretch break, a tea break and a biological break. So, much to the frustration of the driver who just wanted to get to the destination as early as possible, we took a break while we were passing through a small town.

Once we ordered tea, I had to find a restroom but of course it was almost like a village, and there was nothing there. So I ventured behind the row of shops into a shady area full of trees. It was twilight, and I took my husband there for support and to stand guard. There were a few houses there, but somehow I managed to do my job, and then stood guard for my husband. As I stood there I noticed the snake hills barely a few feet away. I almost trembled. Once we were done, I thought it would be nice to dip our hands in the stream that ran close by, and as I turned around, about to propose that to my husband, I saw a black snake swimming in the stream! After this, I really had the instinct to run as fast as I could, but of course we had to be a little careful as the whole place was swampy and marshy.

We got to the car, had our tea and continued the drive.

The drive was much longer than expected as I had insisted on staying in or close to a town called Kushalnagar, which, although Google Maps told me was just an hour from Coorg central, ended up being much farther due to diversions, bad roads and the mad rain. In fact they were all related- the usual route had been closed because the road had gotten really bad with heavy rains. That was one factor that significantly altered our experience of the Coorg trip- the bad roads I mean. It was unimaginably bumpy, full of mounds, potholes and scattered gravel. Apparently the roads get this way due to the rains. Sometimes I could've sworn my guts were about to spill out! I was worried for my mother's back. Anyway, we drove on.

The drive besides being long,  was in parts actually quite scary, if you know the way they drive in India. We were driving for a very long time as it got dark and we couldn't take any breaks.

My poor baby got very tired by the time we reached the resort.

When we reached the resort, we had our hosts waiting for us.We were the only ones at the restaurant. It was past midnight. We had some hot soups and other food and felt much better. The resort is very beautiful. It's owned by a friend of my dad's and it's called Kadkani River Resort. I recommend it to anyone traveling to that area. The rooms were beautiful too., though we were not in a state to stay up to relish it all that night. The resort is right by the Kadkani River where you can go rafting, and there's a really nice estate that's part of the resort where you can take a tour through coffee and black pepper plantations.

After dinner, we walked to our rooms. It was pitch dark and we could now see the stars quite clearly. We walked on. The only sounds we could hear were those of our footsteps and what seemed like an army of frogs croaking.

The vacation in Coorg deserves a post in itself. So I'll write about it next time! :-) My main agenda item for the Coorg trip was to go to the Tibetan Settlement and Buddhist Monastery at Bylakuppe. This place which I'd visited 12 years back had blown me away. It was the inspiration for this write-up of mine which I originally wrote in 2001 when I'd just arrived in the U.S, and was dwelling in various memories of India.

I'll write about the Coorg experience soon, including the visit to the monastery. Stay tuned!