Have you heard of Yedamaki? It’s a place, a village to be precise, in Virajpet, Coorg. One of the most beautiful ever. My mobile doesn’t even get a signal there! Which is awesome! You need to get rid of technology sometimes, to ponder, think, and do nothing. Feels good. All I did was take a lot of photos; that’s technology too, but it is the kind of technology that is an instrument which has always kept me at peace 🙂
Now, the trip. So, being the always last-minute planners which we are, we actually didn’t plan anything about this trip. Not even the accommodation. Some other friends were supposed to join us, who dropped out in the last-minute, so we just said, okay let’s go there. Booked the tickets like two days before, and it started.
When we got into the bus, I told KAKA that remember one thing, whenever we go on a trip, “Nothing happens the way we want it to happen”. It is kind of unique to us, and I just reiterated the fact to him, which made it even more exciting.
So, we took a night bus to Bangalore, got down at Anand Rao circle, and then I tell my friends, I’ll book a cab. While I was doing that, all the autowalas came running towards us. And humans being humans, we wanted to uh, REFRESH, that’s a subtle way of putting it out :P. KAKA asks an auto guy, where can we refresh, and believe me or not, the auto guy starts rubbing the patch on his BARCA jersey’s sleeve, and says “200”. And I slowly lift my head up, and I am like WTF. LMAO! Richard was coughing and laughing at the same time, and I guess Akram wanted CHAI. Finally after 10 minutes of waiting, the cab guy shows up, takes us to the Satellite bus station on Mysore Road. We enquire, and then hop onto the first bus that was going to VIRAJPET.
This trip from Bangalore to Virajpet was probably one of the best trips we ever took in a long while. The thing about happiness is, that it always doesn’t lie in the luxuries. We got into a simple RTC bus, which made like a 100 stops before we got to Virajpet. It was almost an 8 hour trip, and still the best.
Wherever we go, wherever we are, we talk loud, we laugh hard. Richard laughs like a maniac. At this particular bus stop, where we wanted to have breakfast, but couldn’t, the conductor came to us and told, zor se mat baat karo, and all we could do was smile more!
Virajpet was raining at the time we got there, and it was such a pleasant thing to breathe that air! Such clean air! It was about 2.30 PM then, and we were like super hungry, since we skipped breakfast, and lunch was far away! The four of us tried to get into one auto, but the auto guy was like “Police case liktha”. So we took two autos, and we exactly dint know where our cottages were. The auto guy kept driving, and we were following the landmark instructions which were given on their website.
All through our auto ride, I dint care where we were going. I was just gazing at the beautiful thing that Coorg is. Like breathtaking. And the rain! And the view! I wasn’t hungry anymore. The auto drivers kind of drove past our cottages, and we got to see an even more beautiful view, until we realised that we missed the route. We went back, found our cottages, and, well, see for yourself.
Our cottages were surrounded by acres of a coffee plantation estate. Yedamaki cottages. Theesa; that’s who owns these beautiful beautiful beautiful cottages. Thank you so much Theesa!
After a while, we started to feel the hunger. And we were treated to ofcourse, HOT COFFEE!! and Onion rings, and alu fritters.
The cheapest and easiest way of getting around Virajpet is the auto. There were some people living beside our cottage, and one of them had an auto, and made our getting around the town even easier. The distance between our cottages and the town is 10km. But 10 km of never ending pure bliss and nature. And also most of the roads were awesome! Very well maintained!
We got into Virajpet town, and we were still hungry. So you know what we ate? KFC, Kodagu Fried Chicken!
We then enquired about the ahem, where we would find 100 pipers, went to the shop, told him we’ll come back and take it 😛
Meanwhile while were asking the locals where would be the best place to visit at that time of the hour, it was 5.00 PM, and it was already getting very dark, Theesa asked us to goto the top of the Virajpet hill. We walked for about 1.5 km and then we discovered that there huge steps to climb. And then climb, we did. Richard and I took turns carrying the huge camera backpack, and tripod. And we were all panting by the end of the climb, and realised our fitness levels are horrible!
But the view made everything go away. I just forgot about everything for sometime, and was just enjoying the view. In fact I made one of the best panorama pictures!
The same night, we got drunk, and had a crazy jam session, and we ended up making a small impromptu music video. You can check it out here –Â https://vimeo.com/142065577
The next morning, we just lazed around, and had a little fun exploring our estate till about 11 AM.
Our caretaker called for an auto for us, and then we met the awesomest Auto driver ever. BAIJU. Language isn’t a barrier if you really know how to communicate. Oh man, he showed us around, he did! We travelled about close to 65 km in that auto! We made like 10 stops to just enjoy the views!
We then headed to Chelavara falls. I will let the photographs speak for themselves.
We wanted to trek even further up to the top of the waterfalls, and it started pouring like crazy. We waited for like 20 minutes, and it looked like this is never going to step, and we started going back to our auto. We went to chill, but it became more like an adventure. Getting down wasn’t that easy where the mud was slushy, and the rocks were slippery. Finally, we got out and we got into the auto, and headed back. We kept making stops even on our way back! The views are just to die for!
Finally we came back to the town at about 4 PM, and then we went to eat at the reputed Hotel Hill Palace. The lemon tea was one of the best I have ever tasted anywhere!
We roamed around in the rain for a bit, again to buy another bottle of 100 pipers, ahem! Got back into the room, kept our clothes for drying, and caught Akram in the SaiBaba moment.
Due to the moisture, my lens became fuzzy for a while, and hence I could make this portrait. One of my most favourite ever.
The next morning, I somehow woke up by 6.30, and I had to wait till 7,30 for hot water. Got ready by 8, and I went out alone for a walk, while these guys continued sleeping.
Best walk I had in a long time.
We then had breakfast, packed a few of our things. Akram and I shot a music video together which will be out soon.
Took some photos before we left to Bangalore.
Since we did all this, we missed our 1.30 PM bus at Virajpet. By then, we din’t even book tickets to Hyderabad. We did some chugli and got to Hyderabad, but we all slept hungry.
Trips, short or long, should be taken once in a while.
A view to see. 