Though we started moring from Bangalore, it was close to four in the evening by the time we reached the homestay. Cool breeze welcomed us as we drove up the small hill to the portico. The beautiful view of the mountains and forests made us forget our tiredness. Palace Estate, a 50 acre farm, is run by Aparanda family where they grow coffee, orange, banana, cardamom, pepper and many other crops. The next two and half days were spent in the home stay with lazy walk in the farm and short visits around Coorg.

Location:
Palace Estate homestay is located in such a way that its so near but seems so far from the noices of civilization. A quiet, remote place which is perfect for a quiet holiday. Situated on top of a hill, standing in the balcony gives almost 270 degree view of the rolling hills & the forests. And you get to listen to only chirping of the birds all around. The places is approximately 25KMs from Virajpet and 35KMs from Madikeri (Coorg).

Activities:
If you are someone who want to leave the blaring city life behind for a day or two and enjoy the peaceful moments, this is the place for you. If you wish to explore the vicinity, you can hike Thadiyandamol which just 6 KMs from the homestay. Or go on walk within the farm, visit Nalnad Palace, Padi Igguthappa. Or browse through the books available in the small library.

Rooms & Food:
Rooms are spacious with attached toilets. Most of the rooms are on the first floor which are wooden constructions. Open varandah on the first floor gives a beautiful view of the forest range. The kitchen offers home cooked vegetarian & non vegetarian food, clean spring water & coffee.

How to get there:
Located a bit far off from the Virajapete and Madijkeri main road, it is advised to go on your own vehicle or taxi to reach this place. Here is the route -

Bangalore – Srirangapattana – Mysore – Hunsur – Thithimathi – Gonikoppa – Virajpet – Kadnoor – Cheyandane – Palace Estate

Near by places of interests:
Dubare Elephant camp, Bailukuppe, Nisargadhama, Abbi falls, Irpu falls, Nagarahole national park.

When you visit the place, switch off your cell phones, leave behind the noise back in the cities, just sit and linger with the nature and hills.

NH48, taken on a winter morning in 2006.

Those beautiful good old trees started going down one by one when the work started in 2007. With the road widening and countless number of diversion all along, I resorted to a alternate to traffic jams and delays. A quite less crowded route via Magadi. I forgot about that good old NH48 for almost 4 years since the alternate route via Magadi helped me avoid most of the city traffic as I used to exit out of Bangalore near Kengeri and then join Magadi. Quite recently while we are about to start our journey back to Bangalore, my cousin suggested that we take the NH48 as the work was completed. A new 4 lane road all the way to Nelamangala, with legal speed limit increased to 80 kmph from 50 kmph. It was a pleasure driving back to Bangalore. But that pleaseure was just interms of driving with newly laid, barren road.

All we got was – journey got reduced by 15 mins (only to get stuck for 30 mins in the long queue to pay the toll) for the cost of those old trees along a stretch of 48KMs. All for none.

Top most step has ‘pattada gombe’ (ಪಟ್ಟದ ಗೊಂಬೆ) – depicting the royal family of Mysore. Next two steps goes for the Gods and Goddesses. Fourth and fifth has miniature crockery which my mom has collected over 40-45 years. Sixth step is a grocery shop (ಶೆಟ್ಟಿ ಅಂಗಡಿ/ನ್ಯಾಯಬೆಲೆ ಅಂಗಡಿ) – most of the groceries in the shop (especially cashew and Raisin) used to get emptied by me. And now my little nice has taken over that task from me. :)

This video was taken on ‘Saraswati pooje’ – right side of the arrangements has an idol of Goddess Saraswati, books. Left side of the arrangement has three different sets – first one is a wedding ceremony, left side of this set is of ‘Dasara Ambari’ (ದಸರಾ ಅಂಬಾರಿ). Behind the amabari is a 2 ft tall wooden doll which is dressed as Chamundi/Durga. My mom got this doll as wedding gift from her mother 35 years ago.

To the far left has a mini zoo and a small park which has toy train ride, food court, a fountain, a temple at the far corner atop a small hill.

PS: As there was no commentary during the video, my little nice offered to lend her voice with her humming and singing for the whole five minutes :)

Now I have three books in the stable. First one is – “Cycling Home from Siberia” by Rob Lilwall, a journey of 30,000 miles (48000 KMs) on cycle travelling through 28 countries over a period of 3 years. I am already half through the book. After riding in cold temperatures going as low as -40 degree C in Siberia, to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, now we have just escaped from the rascals of Papua New Guinea. And as I write this we are waiting for the rain and floods to reduce so that we can take the Kokoda trail to reach Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea.

Second one is “The Bonsai Grower“, collection of short stories by Sheena Blackhall and third one is again related to cycling – “The Flying Scotsman“, autobiography of Graeme Obree, a Scottish racing cyclist who built his cycle “Old Faithful” which included parts from a washing machine.

Time to get off the internet and bury myself between the pages… :)

It has been five years since I started sharing my travel tales on PAYANIGA. The journey which stated as an one day bike ride to Shivanasamudra has been an enjoyable one. In the last five years it has taken me to some memorable places – most of them being in Karnataka. Over these days I’ve made few good friends who are as crazy as me when it comes to travel and managed to go on quite a trips with them. I also got to meet/know people much more crazier than me and some more wonderful people. To mark this milestone, I’ve been publishing guest posts form fellow travelers/travel writers. Head over here to read about their stories. (Links to the guest posts are at the bottom of the post).

And on the other news, I have started writing my travel tales in Kannada. Though I wrote the first post long ago, the post count didn’t increase for more than 15 months. Finally I managed to overcome my procrastination and here I’ve three posts as I write this. Head over there and critique me. And don’t forget to visit now and then for more stories.

ಯುಗ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಕಳೆದರೂ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಮರಳಿ ಬರುತಿದೆ
ಹೊಸ ವರುಷಕೆ ಹೊಸ ಹರುಷವ ಹೊಸತು ಹೊಸತು ತರುತಿದೆ

ಬೇಂದ್ರೆಯವರ ಈ ಸಾಲುಗಳು ಕಿವಿಗೆ ಬೀಳದೆ ಬೆಳಗಾಗದ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ದಿನವೇ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಪರೀಕ್ಷೆಗೂ ಸಹ ಬೆಳಗ್ಗೆ ಬೇಗ ಏಳದವನು, ಈ ದಿನದಂದು ಎದ್ದು ಕುಳಿತು ಬಕಪಕ್ಷಿಯಂತೆ ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ರೇಡಿಯೋದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರುವ ತನಕ ಅಲ್ಲಾಡದಂತೆ ಕೂರಲಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದರೆ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಶುರುವಾಗುತ್ತಲೇ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಹಾಡು ಕೇಳಿ, ಮುಗಿಯುವ ತನಕ ಕೊನೆಸಾಲಿನವರೆಗೂ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಹಾಡಿದ ನಂತರವೇ ಎಣ್ಣೆ ಸ್ನಾನದ ತಯಾರಿ.

ಕುಲವಧು ಚಿತ್ರದ ಹಾಡು, ಮಾವಿನ ತೋರಣ, ಅಭ್ಯಂಜನ, ಬೇವು-ಬೆಲ್ಲ, ಬೇಳೆ ಒಬ್ಬಟ್ಟು – ಇಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾವುದೂ ತಪ್ಪುವಂತಿಲ್ಲ. ಪ್ರತಿ ವರ್ಷ ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ತಯಾರಿ ಮತ್ತು ತಿನ್ನುವಾಗ ’ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ಮಾಮ’ನ ಪ್ರಸಂಗವನ್ನು ನೆನೆಯಲೇ ಬೇಕು, ಅದೂ ಕೂಡ ತಪ್ಪುವಂತಿಲ್ಲ. ’ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ಮಾಮ’, ಅವರ ನಿಜವಾದ ಹೆಸರಲ್ಲ. ಅವರ ಹೆಸರೂ ನನಗೆ ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ನನ್ನ ತಂದೆಯ ಬಳಗದವರು (ಸರಿಯಾದ ಸಂಬಂಧ ನೆನಪಿಲ್ಲ). ಸುಮಾರು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದಿನ ಮಾತು (೩೦-೩೫ ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದಿನದು), ಪ್ರತಿ ವರ್ಷದಂತೆ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಬಂತು. ’ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ಮಾಮ’ ಆಗ ಮೆಟ್ರಿಕ್ಸ್ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ. ತುಮಕೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಹಾಸ್ಟೆಲ್‍ನಲ್ಲಿದ್ದುಕೊಂಡು ಓದುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಪರೀಕ್ಷೆ ಹಿಂದಿನ ದಿನವೇ ಯುಗಾದಿ. ಛೇ! ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ತಿನ್ನದೆ ಪರೀಕ್ಷೆ ಬರೆಯುವುದಾದರೂ ಹೇಗೆ? ಸರಿ, ಹತ್ತಿರದಲ್ಲೇ ಇದ್ದ ಊರಿನ ದಾರಿ ಹಿಡಿದರು. ಹಬ್ಬದ ದಿನ ಒಬ್ಬಟ್ಟು ಸೊಗಸಾಗಿತ್ತು, ಹೊಟ್ಟೆ ಬಿರಿಯೆ ತಿಂದರು. ಮಾರನೆ ದಿನ ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಯ ತಕರಾರು ಶುರು, ದಿನವಿಡೀ ಹಿತ್ತಲ ಕಡೆಯ ದಾರಿ ಸವೆಸಿದ್ದೇ ಆಯಿತು. ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಮೆಟ್ರಿಕ್ಸ್ ಗೆ ಕೈ ಮುಗಿದ್ದದ್ದೂ ಆಯಿತು. ಅಂದಿನಿಂದ ಅವರ ಹೆಸರು ’ಹೋಳಿಗೆ’ ಆಯಿತು. ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಅವರಿಗಿಂತ ಚಿಕ್ಕವರ ಬಾಯಲ್ಲಿ ’ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ಮಾಮ’.

ನಾಳೆ ಯುಗಾದಿ. ಈ ಬಾರಿ ಎಂದಿನ ಸಡಗರ-ಸಂಭ್ರಮಗಳಿಂದ ಸಾವಿರಾರು ಮೈಲಿ ದೂರದಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಳಿತು ಹಿಂದಿನ ದಿನಗಳ ಮೆಲುಕು ಹಾಕುತ್ತಲೆ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಅಚರಣೆ. ಹಾಡನ್ನು ಗುನುಗುನಿಸುತ್ತ, ಹೋಳಿಗೆ ನೆನದು ನೀರೂರಿಸುತ್ತಾ ದಿನ ದೂಡುವುದು…

ಬೇವಿನ ಕಹಿ ಬಾಳಿನಲ್ಲಿ
ಹೂವಿನ ನಸುಗಂಪು ಸೂಸಿ ಜೀವಕಳೆಯ ತರುತಿದೆ :)

ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಯುಗಾದಿಯ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು

ಕೊಸರು: ಹಾಡಿನ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದರೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಇಣುಕಿ. ಹಾಡು ಕೇಳಲಿಕ್ಕೆ/ನೋಡಲಿಕ್ಕೆ ಯುಟ್ಯೂಬ್‍ಗೆ ಧಾವಿಸಿ.

Few days ago, while cleaning the house I found a camera tripod which was left by the previous occupant. The uninterrupted rain kept me inside the house over the weekend. There I was with an idle mind and plenty of time to kill. And I decided to kill myself along with the time. Few clicks on the camera and few more on the computer resulted in these photos –

What I had –

Some of the key points which makes it easy/simple to get the final cloned photo (Or in other words my learnings/observations from this time-kill experiment) –

On all the three photos above, one can easily makeout the shoddy work that I’ve put in merging the images. Time to work on the processing skills and raise the bar. :)

There is a huge difference between, waking up from deep sleep because of a nightmare and you wake up from deep sleep & a nightmare awaits you.

PS: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to laugh at those anterograde amnesia jokes in the movies any more.