so there we were… driving along in the Ash-blue Maruti Van along the picturisque roads of Coorg…
first stop : Chiklihole Dam (pronounced Chiklyholay Dam)
Frankly not the best showcase piece of Coorg… atleast not at the time we went there… first of all, mid summer and hardly any water meant that there was no water in the dam… and so all we saw was the bare rocky land upon which water was supposed to be there… just clicked a lot of photographs there (the best one being one where we sat on the big letters making up “CHIKLIHOLE DAM”)… then we had our host, showing us to “THE CIRCLE”… really adamant that we had to look at “THE CIRCLE”… walking about 300 mts or so Muthu was like “Look at the circle da” and was staring down from a barricade… i went up and looked down and well… it was just half a circle… eh… whats special?? we walked so much to see this concrete semicircle?!? anyways.. turns out that it looks really beautiful when its full of water… hard to imagine that looking at our surroundings…
Anyways… after the first stop at Chiklihole, we proceeded to our next destination…
Dubare (Pronounced : Dubaray)… stopped midway at Madikeri to look at Muthu’s school from 4 different views… and then pick up some food and drinks… after some hundred arguments about what drinks to pick up and finally compromising on some warm beer, we went to Dubare, a beatiful place where the River Kaveri was flowing along some rocky surface… really beautiful place i must say… we were just walking into the riverside… when suddenly we heard someone calling out to Dickson… a lady at that… eh!! that was a surprise… it came as more of a panic when we realised it was Rakesh’s Mom considering that we were carrying booze… anyways, Muthu had taken the bag to store all the booze in… well, the only prob now was… we had to find a place somwehere on the other side of the river to escape Rakesh’s mom… wading along the water, on mossy rocks, hard pieces of gravel that we could hardly even see through the water… we finally reached the other side… starving but in one piece… biryani packets were opened the bottles were popped (and one was broken, courtesy Paapu)… its amazing how fast someone can food when hungry… the biryanis were eaten up before a blink of an eye and there we were… wading in clear beautiful flowing water… RC and Muthu trying to go as far into the river and try to swim, paapu scared to wade deep into the water cuz he couldnt swim and George and Glee lying lazily in a cozy place among the rocks and Dicky trying to outdo everybody in holding his breath underwater… it was all happening… a beautiful setting for a lazy day… cool flowing water and rocks to sit upon… what else could we ask for… the beauty of Coorg revealed in all its glory… we were just living it up there…
time to hit another place… so we decided to get out of the comfort of the river and head back to the banks… started the trek back to the banks along the river… slipping, sliding, got back to the bank… weather suddenly got chilly… and rain just started pelting down… man, this was really unexpected… one moment, sun blazing down on us and the next, its raining cats and dogs… anyways, all scrambled into the van and headed to the next destination… Nisargadhama.
Nisargadhama : sort of a nature park… with deer enclosures, elephant rides, bamboo tree houses and boating… first stop, Elephant ride… something that we did as kids, reivisited… really good fun… u dont realise how big the animal is until u sit on top of it… man its really big… one scary moment was when one of them sort of didnt listen to its mahout and started walking in some other direction!!! when u look at the mahout steering the animal, u really feel sorry for the animal… hitting the animal with a spiked stick and kicking it behind the ears to make it turn… was it all worth putting the animal through this just to have 10 mins fun??? i wonder………….. anyways, Nisargadhama turned out to be a beautiful place with all the tree houses, benches among the bamboos, etc… just beautiful….. into the souveneir store for some…. well souveneirs… and we were ready to head back home the way back which had a small adventure in store for us…. well thats reserved for the next part… watch this space…………
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