Ok, so when the Lonely Planet call's a place "beautiful", one generally tends to assume that one won't be stepping off the bus into mayhem and dirt. Ah, but then one would be assuming wrong. After a five hour, bone jarring, terrifying, wish-I-could-teleport-myself bus ride to Kottayam, twelve hours on a train (the only humane way to travel) to Managalore, overnight, where we had to beg our way into the AC compartment for a bed, and then another five hour body-rattling and bruising bus ride up to Madikkeri, we stepped off the bus glad to be on solid ground, and took our first look at the "beautiful" Madikkeri. Hmmmm. It was noisy, yes, dirty, yes, there was litter everywhere, yes, but "beautiful seemed a bit of a stretch. We started calling hotels only to find
... read more
