Mysore - Wayanad - Mysore in a day

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We were planning from a long time to go to Wayanad, as we had exhausted all locations in and around Mysore. The time came when my brother came here (works in Mathura, U.P), he had a strict schedule, but we managed to squeeze out a day for the trip.

There were four of us, myself, my brother, mom and dad. We packed all the needs in my Esteem VXi (which is 4 months old) and headed off. I put around 20 litres of fuel and we were on our way. We left Mysore around 7:30 AM. Our first stop was Gundelpet the last major town in Karnataka which is about 60 KM from Mysore. The road was good to Gundulpet and we reached there in less than a hour. Since this was a election day in Karnataka most of the hotels were closed. We found a decent hotel and had breakfast there.

After breakfast we left Gundelpet and started towards Sultan Batheri in Kerala. This is around 55 KM from Gundelpet. The road passes through the Bandipur forest range (Karnataka) and Mathunga Wildlife Sanctuary (Kerala). Upto the Kerala border the road is bit narrow. The road was being widened in this part. We drove slowly through the forest area expecting to see few animals. We are able to see few peacocks and deer nothing more. We stopped in between and took a few snaps.

After entering Kerala the road was good and we sped off. Soon we came to Mathunga(Wayanad) Wildlife sanctuary entrance. We thought of going for a safari and made some enquiries. Safari here costs around 250 rupees for four persons in a jeep. It is about a hour and half. None of us were interested in the safari and so we carried on.

Next we entered Sultan Batheri around 10 AM. In Kerala the roads are real smooth and well marked. Driving here is a pleasure but need to watch out for buses who assume that they are the owners of the roads. We stopped for tea and then carried on towards Kalpetta which is 25 KM from Sultan Batheri. Our destination was Pookot lake which is 15 KM after Kalpetta. We reached the lake at 12 noon. We went boating and spent time there till 1 PM.

We left Pookot lake at 1:15 and arrived in Kalpetta at 1:30 PM. Kalpetta is a taluk HQ and has decent hotels. Some of them are Haritagiri, Green gates ... We had lunch Kerala style with Fish curry and rice. Then we moved on towards Sultan Batheri. In between we thought of visiting couple of waterfalls, but we came to know that the water falls are deep and we had to descend which would be difficult for my parents. So we skipped them and for the same reason had to skip Edkal Caves also.

On the way back from Sultan Batheri we thought of visiting a snake park but we were not able to find it. So we headed back to Mysore. We stopped again in the forest area and took few snaps. By the time we reached Gundelpet it was around 4:30 PM. Had tea and left Gundulpet. We arrived in Mysore at 5:30 PM pretty early for a one day trip...

The journey was a pleasure and roads were good especially in Kerala. We did not have any car troubles, as for fuel even after reaching Mysore we still had 4-5 litres of fuel left.

In the next few months i am planning to visit Wayanad again. I want to stay there for a couple of days and do some trekking.

Let's see when the time comes...

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