Madikeri, Coorg
Madikeri offers quite a bit of excitement to your passion of travelling. It is a beautiful hill station with green landscaping all over the places. The pleasure also comes with the drive, it runs through some well chipped hills and gives an amazing driving experience (caution: The drive is joyful only from Mysore to Madikeri). Madikeri is must visit if one is travel freak. Be less worried of stay and food, one will never be disappointed with it. Madikeri is a capital town of Coorg district. It has numerous coffee estates spread over the hills. There are quite a few places in and around madikeri to keep one occupied for 2 nights and 3 days.
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| Places around madikeri |
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| Attractions around Madikeri |
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| A view from the center of Mdikeri Town |
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| View from the top of a hill in Talacauvery |
Route:
Road Conditions are excellent.
This is a mixed experience of good and bad. Bad is from Bangalore to Mysore and good is from Mysore to Madikeri. Bangalore to Mysore is always a painful drive as the traffic is high, one is always either bumping into some traffic signals or into a slow moving traffic.
Madikeri is around 250kms from Bangalore. Bangalore to Mysore is around 130km and Mysore to madikeri is 120Km.
If one starts early in the morning, say at 6:30 or 7:00am, one can estimate to reach Madikeri by noon, 1:30pm with 30 to 40mins break for breakfast at kamat and for a coffee at cafe coffee day.
There are good amount of sign boards and milestones guiding you to madikeri.
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| Road from Mysore to Madikeri |
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| Road from Mysore to Madikeri |
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| Road from Mysore to Madikeri |
Main attractions:
Raja Seat - It is a beautiful location in Madikeri which gives a view of amazingly formed hills. It is a lush green place with an awesome view of the sunrise. There are small rides like "Puttani Train" for children and a park to move around and spend a beautiful morning or evening.
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| View from lower altitude at Raja Seat Park |
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| Park @ Raja Seat |
Abbi Falls
Another marvelous creation in the nature. It is a wide screen movie view that one will get of these water falls. Abbi in kodava language is a waterfall. It is once again into thicker forest with a bit of a trek, walking over steps while climbing is little tiring but it is worth a visit. There is a hanging bridge right at the falls and one must step on to it to feel the view as 70mm screen.
There are few eateries and refreshments, one could try these after a tiring trip back from the falls.
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| Trek to Falls. |
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| @ The Falls |
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| Hanging Bridge @Falls |
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| Hanging Bridge @the Falls. |
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| View from the Hanging Bridge @the Falls. |
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| Another view from the Bridge @ the falls |
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| Hanging bridge, the center is abandoned |
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| View from the entrance of the hanging bridge. |
Fort and Museum
The fort today is a government establishment, nevertheless the ruins are still visible it is a worth a walk around the fort once.
There is a museum of historical madikeri. A relatively small museum and it is a must visit with no miss to see all them.
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| Trail at the Fort |
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| Trail at the fort |
OmKareshwar Temple
This is one of the most well known and main temples in Madikeri. It depicts multi-religion architecture with a spire and tombs. One of the most auspicious and powerful temples in the region. It is right in the middle of the town. There is a large pushkarni right in front of the temple and good to take a walk across it
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| Main Entrance of Temple @7:30pm |
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| The Pushkarni @ the temple |
Scary Coffee Valley
It is very adventurous drive to this valley. It is not a very known and visited place. However worth it for a adventure. It is indeed scary if you are there in the dusk.The route to this place is a very very narrow one and it is meant for only one vehicle at a time and mostly used by the mahindra jeeps of the coffees estates there. The car one drives in should be a real capable one for a steep ups and downs (it was so scary, missed to capture pictures, hence no pictures are posted)
Thalacauvery
The most sought after and no miss place if one is in madikeri. This place has to be visited as early in the morning as possible. It is so very beautiful that one will end up spending hours in this place. It is the birth place of River Cauvery. The water is not that very clean however it is indeed auspicious to feel the river. There is a small temple location and devotees perform certain poojas. At the backyard of this temple is a hill top, there are large number of steps to climb and one can do it in 15 to 20mins to the top of the hill. It provides a picturesque view of the formation of the hills. It is worth spending sometime just sitting there, of course one can take a small walk around the hill too.
One can drive up to the lap of the mountain and park vehicle comfortably.
Breakfast can be had at KSTDC hotel which is little expensive but hygienic and spacious. It is right after the sangam at Bhagamandala.
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| Main Entrance to the Sanctum of River Cauvery |
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| Another view of main entrance |
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| View form the top of the hill |
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| View while down trekking (over steps) the hill |
Bhagamandala (Sangam and Temple)
This another awesome place which falls on the way to thalacauvery. First visit the thalacuavery and then come back to Bhagamandala. Bhagamandala offers two places to visit, one is a temple a wide spread one, Bhagandeshwara god with vinayaka are worshiped here. And the other attraction is the thriveni sangama. It is a conjunction of 3 rivers, cauvery, kannike and sujyothi rivers coming from different directions. One can get inside the waters and have a holy dip. The waters are not at all deep.
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| Center place of the sangam |
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| Side view of the Sangam |
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| The 3 river names that form Sangam here |
Nisargadama
Nisargadama is the nature, nature and nature kissed location and it cuts across the river cauvery. It offers multiple things to all age groups. A river rafting and a zip line for the young, a beautiful tree sit outs and a walk around the greens for the aged ones and a deer park and an elephant ride for the children. It costs 10Rs for the elder and Rs 5 for the children above 5 years and up to 10years.
There is a small shopping area before the entrance to the nisgargadama main place. There are many toy shops, spices shops, tattoes shops, refreshments shops etc. Also interestingly there is a quad biking lane(Rs 100) and a horse ride (Rs 100). There is a park for a children too.
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| Shopping area @nisargadama |
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| Shopping area and main entrance to the Nisargadama |
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| Some adventure sport - Quad Biking and Horse Riding |
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| Spices @ Madikeri |
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| The open space @shopping area |
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| The Deer Park in Nisargadama |
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| Crystal Clear Cauvery River |
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| Crystal Clear River Cauvery |
Golden Temple (Monastery)
Wow. This is a wow place. No words are sufficient to describe it. It is a private place established by the Buddhists monks - the guru is Dalai lama.The architecture is astounding, it just can't be captured with two eyes you need more. Everything you see there is a of gold colour. The very peaceful and pious location, the monks welcome you with their traditional attire. The temples are many inside the premises, it has many entrances, however the preferred one is the main entrance. The place is live with many prayers and practices day in and out. A Must and must visit place at least to see a different style of life with even young children practicing and dedicating their life of the same.
There is no worry of parking. It is on the way to Mysore from madikeri, in Khushalnagar. There are sign boards giving the directions very cleanly. It is around 40 kms from Madikeri but it is on the way to mysore and bangalore. From nisargadama it is around 15kms.
There are many accommodations possible, ranging from budget lodges, 3 start hotels to more peaceful home stays.
There is a home stay called JK which is most affordable one and gives a good view of the backyard of the town with good sunrise cutting across the mountains. The home stay is very comfortable to live, it can at the max accommodate 3 couples and is no crowd considering the size of the house. Breakfast is complementary. There is always a home caretaker who will be present to address any issue one faces with the rooms/bathrooms. Overall, the caretaker ensures you have a pleasant stay.
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| View from the Home Stay |
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| Inside view of home stay |
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| Another view of inside of home stay |
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| Another view. |
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| The Home Stay |
Food:
No worry at all. There are umpteen restaurants, there is one called Neel Sagar (near raja seat), and there is another one called Athithi (right across the fort and musuem).
On the way back to Bangalore, one can have sumptuous lunch at Hallimane. See then picuture below to find the location.
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| On Madiker to Mysore Road, around 40kms to Mysore |
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See the distances from the hotel
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