My journey started with many twist and turns as I usually travel with my brother or some of my close friends, but this one was a planned group trip by one of the Instagram page and I was quite excited about the same. I have never traveled with unknown poeple and this was going to add some new experiences into my life. Me and my partner thought of giving it a try and why not when it's the Scotland of India. So we boarded our train from Thane at night, not knowing exactly where other people from the group will meet us. I came across the tour leader and boarded the train with her. Our train journey was unexpectedly hilarious as most of the seats were cancelled and some of them were RAC. But this was fortunate enough as I got to know the other people from this group and started having conversations with them as we all were sitting on the same seats like sharing a seat with 3-4 people. We reached Mangalore station on the next afternoon where I came across all of the poeple from different corners of the state. From Mangalore station, we boarded a booked bus to reach our resort in Coorg which was 3-4 hours away from the station. The first day did not went as it was planned due to delay in the train timings and the disruption of whole planned itenarary. We reached our resort at around 7 pm in the evening and were supposed to have proper rest for the next day morning.
On next day we had a tasty breakfast and headed towards our first destination.
1) Dubare Elephant Camp :- Being an amazing wildlife preservation on the river banks of Kaveri, the Dubare Elephant Camp is home for a lot of elephants. These elephants are taken care of by bathing them in river, involving in activities with the fellow tourists and feeding them.
Next we headed towards The Golden Temple in Bylakuppe.
2) Namdrolling Monastery or The Tibetan Golden Temple:-
This temple is a home for around 5000 monks and nuns and encloses a spiritual vibe which can be felt just as we enter the temple. The chants by monks soothes the mind and relaxes your soul. We sat here for some time and observed the beautiful tibetan architecture which takes you to a small Bhutan tour. The temple has 3 statues residing on one side.
After spending some valuable time here, we were supposed to head towards next destination. Coorg is famous for its coffee plantation and that's what was added next onto the list.
3) Coffee Plantations in Coorg:-
Coorg is one of the largest producers of coffee in India and a lot of tourists visit the privately owned coffee plantation to have a tour of coffee beans processing. We had a guide of one of the private properties who explained how the berries grow from its flowers, how they are harvested and then processed through a coffee processing unit. He introduced us to two main types of coffee i.e the Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is more demanding than Robusta due to its taste.
After exploring the coffee plantations, we headed towards Raja's Seat.
4) Raja' Seat:-
It has a garden filled with various variety of flowers and a musicals fountain. It offers a serene view from the top of hill and was a place for old kings of Coorg to observe the beauty of sunrise and sunset. They used to sit here to experience the nature's beauty and henceforth the name of place is 'Raja's Seat'.
As the day ended, we reached back to our resort. A bonfire night was planned and here's when all of the group members had a chance to introduce themselves to everyone. Even though some of them were friends by then as we already spent some time wandering through Coorg. We had some fun time, antakshari and then went for sleeping to charge our batteries for the next day.
The next day we checked out of the resort after having a breakfast and took our bags so that we can directly reach station to catch our train in the evening.
We were going to visit the famous Abbey Falls in Coorg on our last day.
5) Abbey Falls:-
They are situated in the middle of coffee plantations with spices and other trees. The waterfall can be observed from a stage like structure built at a distance. The way towards the falls from the entrance gate is exciting as it passes within the fence built in midst of wild forest. The water from these falls makes its way into the river Kaveri.
After this, we left for Raja's Tomb.
6) Raja's Tomb:-
The tombs of old kings of Coorg are built here along with a small tomb at the leftmost side which is of their preceptor. The architecture of the tombs are well structured with the lotus shaped square block and a kalash on its top. These are Indo-Islamic styled tombs which are one of the tourist attractions in Coorg.
So this was all about my first group trip to Coorg. After exploring all the gems we left for the Mangalore station to catch our train. Until then I had made a lot of new friends, met new families and created beautiful memories for a lifetime.
