This weekend we went to Doddamakali with some friends. We stayed in the Doddamakali nature camp owned by Jungles Lodges & Resorts (JLR) . We had great fun there. We stayed there closest to the nature, on the banks of the Cauvery river surrounded by hills.
We started at 6:30AM from our home at Hoodi Circle near ITPL on Sunday morning. Soon we reached Mysore road. Since it was Sunday morning, the road was not crowded. At 8AM we reached Kamath Loka Ruchi which was the meeting point with our friends. Kamath Loka Ruchi was 70km from our home. Some of our friends had already reached there. We had a good (and heavy) breakfast at Kamath. It was buffet breakfast that costs Rs 70/- per person. You need to buy the coupon first. It was not very crowded when we reached. But by the time we finished breakfast, that place started getting crowded. There was a growing queue to buy the coupon for breakfast.
After breakfast, we started for Maddur town towards Mysore. This was my first drive in Mysore road after a long time. Last time I went in Mysore road was six years back. The Mysore road is quite good now. There are different eating point all along the way. Cafe-Coffe-Day (CCD) set-up many shops all throughout the road. I saw one Barista and McDonald also. One thing I didn't like about the road (compared to the expressway to Chennai) is that the road passes through many small towns and villages on the way. So you can't really drive that fast compared to the way you'll be driving along the road towards Chennai. I have a Santro and the maximum speed that I could drive was 100kmph; but that was only for a small stretch of the road. Most of the time I was driving at 80kmph.
In about 30km from Kamath Loka Ruchi, we reached the diversion from Mysore road that would take us towards Malavalli. (It was exactly 100km from our home). The road from Maddur to Malavalli was not that good compared to Mysore road. There were yellow coloured sign-boards along the way that told us the distance to Doddamakali and some other tourist destinations in that route. We crossed a village named New York on that road! We then found a big lake full of lotuses on our right. Soon we reached Malavalli. We continued straight and saw the junction where Kanakpura road meets this road. In 31km from Maddur in Mysore road, we reached Pantharhalli. Here is a board indicating left to Doddamakali and a huge gate displaying ‘Welcome to Shimsa Hydro Electric Project’. This was a small tarred road. We kept going on that road straight for 10 km when we reached a forest check-post. There we had to enter details about our car, number of people traveling, our names and phone numbers. From that check-post, we took right turn. This road was through the jungles. It was a narrow road. We drove for about 7km and then reached the Jungle Resort camp. The last one km was a downhill road with several hair-pin bends. I drove my Santro comfortably. G was enjoying all the scenery outside. But one of our friends got scared in the last one km. He stopped his car on the road and walked with his family till the camp. Then somebody from the camp brought his car till the camp. There were seven cars in our group: 3 Santo (including mine), one Alto, one Opel Corsa and one Pajero.
Before starting the journey, we heard from several online reviews that there was no electricity at the camp. We have an electric rice cooker that we carry whenever we go out so that we can cook some food for our our one and half year old son Krishu. But then some of our friends who went to Doddamakali earlier told us that there is electricity. On reaching the place at around 11:30AM, I came to know that there is a generator for electricity; but they will start that at around 2:30PM. So the rice cooker was useless. We carried a little quantity of rice, dal (lentils), some vegetables and ghee. We also carried corn-flakes, Cerelac, Nestum, Lactogen, some fruits etc for Krishu. I asked the JLR staffs there if they could prepare some plain dal with some potatoes without any chilly. They instantly agreed to do so. That helped us a lot as we didn't have to use our rice cooker.
The camp site was very beautiful. The air was very fresh. The Cauvery was flowing through the hills. After having a cup of tea, I went to the river-side with Krishu. This is the first time he saw a river. He loves water. He plays a lot in the bath-room in his bath-tub. Whenever we open any tape in our bath-rooms, he just runs to play the water. Now he was amazed to see a river full of water. He kept saying something to me while pointing his small fingers to the river. Soon we were there at the river. Krishu played a lot.
At about 1PM, it was time for lunch. There were many south-Indian style vegetables, sambar, rasam, roti, and chicken. I like sambar and rasam; but I don't like the sabjis (cooked with coconut). But the chicken was very good. I had rotis with chicken and then rice with rasam. Then we went for a siesta. The tents were very good. There were total 10 tents. All of these were booked for our team. Tent number 10 was given to my family. It was a very neat one, with three cots, attached toilets. There was fan and lantern-style light inside it. We slept for sometime. Some of us played volleyballs. Then we had tea and it was time for some coracle ride. G and I didn't go for the coracle ride. We went for a walk and then sat at the river bank.
It was slowly getting dark. Then one JLR staff came and told us that it's time for snacks. There was a barbeque. We had grilled chicken, peanuts, pakoras and some drinks. There was a good truth-and-dare game there. It was great fun. But I can't write much about that here - censored staffs :-) . After a really long time in life, I was laughing loudly. But I couldn't participate in the game for long as it was time for Krishu's dinner. So I excused myself. It is always a tough task to feed Krishu. I must admit the enormous patience of G. He eats very less. G keeps feeding him in frequent intervals.
Next morning Krishu woke up early at around 6AM (and he does that every day!). I wanted to sleep more (and I do that every day). But Krishu won't let us sleep anymore. We finally got up at 6:30AM. Some of our friends were getting ready for a guided-trek. I wanted to go with them; but it was difficult to leave Krishu before his breakfast. (He loves fruits and water. He resists all other foods). I had a cup of tea. The JLR breakfast starts at 9AM. It was 7AM and I was already hungry. We carried some breads. So I had tea with breads. Then Krishu and I went to the river bank. He started playing with the sand. He played a lot for about half-an-hour. Then G came to the river bank with Krishu's breakfast. After his breakfast, three of us went for a walk. We took the winding road through which we came to the camp. We went for about half-a-kilometer up. The Cauvery looked so beautiful. We took some pics. We came back to the camp at 9AM for breakfast. It was a good breakfast, with idli, vada, sambar, poha, chutney, bread, butter, omelet and tea/coffee.
After our breakfast, we went to the river. Many of us started swimming. G knows swimming. Her native village is on a river bank and learned swimming in her childhood days. She was initially reluctant to swim. But I told her to swim. I brought life-jackets for G, Krishu and me. Soon she was in full swing in water. I too wore the life-jacket and tried to float in the water. But I was very scared. Krishu enjoyed a lot. Unlike me, he was not scared. He was in water which was deep enough till his stomach. After all the fun, we came back to our tents and had bath. Krishu went to sleep. At 1:30PM, it was time for lunch. There was grilled fish and mutton and many other items.
The JLR staffs told us that their drivers would drive the difficult portion of the road for the first 1 km. I wanted to drive my car. But when I saw everyone giving their car keys to the JLR drivers, I also decided to give them my car key. Before that, I put our luggage in the car. Then we woke up Krishu and fed him his lunch. The JLR staffs took us in their jeep to our cars. At about 3:30PM, we started our journey for Bangalore. On our way back, we stopped at New York and took a photo in front of the pillar that claims the name of the place as New York.
I didn't stop on our return journey. That was the only negative side of our whole trip. By the time we reached home at 8PM, Krishu was hungry and tired. I thought that we'd reach home early if we don't stop. But there was lot of traffic jams on Monday evening as we entered the city. It took us almost two hours to reach our home from the outskirts.
We enjoyed our stay very much at the JLR resort. I was specially very thankful for them for cooking the special food for our baby. They were very courteous too. I'd definitely love to come back to the Doddamakali camp once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment