Weekend Getaway Part 1 (Palace Estates)

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We just had 2 consecutive days off from yoga (Friday moon-day, Saturday off-day). So together with 2 of my yoga colleagues, Rosie from Thailand, and Lillie from Traverse City, I set off for the country-side on Thursday morning after 4:45am yoga class, returning this (Saturday) evening. We went to Coorg, the mountainous region of Karnataka (the state where we live), in the Western Ghats, the range that runs along the whole west side of India from about Mumbai all the way south to Kerala, the southern-most state.

To keep blog entries of a length that is both write-able and also readable in one sitting, I am breaking this trip into sections: Palace Estates; hiking; dancing; elephant retirement camp; and Tibetan settlement.

We left Mysore around 11am by local bus. While I’ve been on lots of local busses in different parts of the world, this was my first bus in India. It was a combination of Guatemala (crowded, stopping every few minutes to let everyone who wanted on, no matter how crowded), and Mexico (an actual fixed-rate fare with even a printed-on-board ticket).

Our first ride was about 2-3 hours, from Mysore to Virajpet, where we had to transfer to a different bus to Kakkabe. So we got off and asked at the bus station about which of the several busses there go to Kakkabe:

Me: Sir, when is the next bus to Kakkabe?
Station master: blank stare
Me: Bus, Kakkabe?
SM: blank stare
Me (pointing to stationed busses, with inquisitive shrugging expression): Kakkabe?
SM: blank stare; conversation in Kanada with another woman
Woman: I speak English, can I help you?
Me: Which is the bus to Kakkabe?
Woman: In English please, what do you want?
Me: Bus to Kakkabe
Woman: I speak English, please speak English, so that can I help you.
Me: Kakkabe, bus?
Woman: ENGLISH!
Me: open Guidebook and point to word “Kakkabe”
Woman: Ooohhhh, you want a bus to KAKA-bay. (pronounced like a child’s word for poop, with short “bay”; I had pronounced it Kah-kah-bay, 3 equal syllables; apparently that made me entirely and completely incomprehensible.)

The bus to KAKA-be was crazy-crazy-crowded, hot, sweaty, dirty, drippy, loud, bumpy bumpy bumpy. I shared a 2-seat bench with 2 adult women and their 2 children eating ice-creams and my luggage and theirs, and the rump of a seemingly-nice Muslim woman, which was repeatedly and against her will shoved in the direction of my face - from the glimpses I caught of her face, she was quite apologetic.

From KAKA-be, we took an old-school jeep up the hill our destination, Palace Estates. The ride up was a fun, rocky, narrow, pot-holed, up up up up road, alongside banana trees, shade-growing coffee bushes, rice paddies, jungle, and small rural villages. Total travel cost (2 busses + jeep): R150 each ($3).

The Palace Estates is a “homestay” hotel, a simple resort-like hotel ("resort" in the sense of self-sufficient or all-inclusive, not in the sense of fancy), and also the family owners' home. There are maybe 10 very simple but clean guest rooms with private bathrooms. The family serves all meals in their home, and guests enjoy the family’s living room and dining room, and so on. The family is very “involved” with the guests - welcome us, show us our rooms, tell us about the showering times, show us hiking paths, bring us refreshments to our rooms, knock on the door when dinner’s ready, arrange dancing excursion, and so on. The owners were a lovely super-nice couple with a 3-4 year old young son. The property has been in husband Pradesh’s family for 5 generations.

The setting of the Palace Estates is truly world-class stunning. It is on a coffee-plantation (again, coffee is shade-grown, so the mountain is jungle- and tree- covered), nestled into a mountain/hill, with 180-degree view of the mountains all around. No neighbors, no pollution, no horn-honking, no dogs barking, just an outstanding amazing pristine quiet isolated view.

Before the most amazing delicious all-you-can-eat buffet style home-cooked traditional fresh vegetarian not-too-spicy dinner, we managed a quick hike to the nearby waterfall and a really hot shower (the first since I left NYC on October 31).

All this for $10/night (plus meals, $3). Unbelievable.

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