Driving Holidays From Bangalore: Coorg Trip for Beginners

This is a driving trip to Scotland of India, Coorg. Coorg is a district in Karnataka with amazing people and fantastic places for making a great family trip.

What to see?

Coorg is a district. Since I was driving from Bangalore I could have taken the Mysore – Hunsur road or the Tumkur - Mangalore highway and a take a diversion. I took the former and covered the following places. Nevertheless, Coorg has more places to offer and one can easy make it a weeklong plan to cover all the places.

I primarily covered Madikeri, Kushalnagar, and places nearby Madikeri like Tala Cauvery etc.

This post covers Kushalnagar and nearby places as I was driving via Kushalnagar to Madikeri from Bangalore. The next post covers Madikeri and nearby places.

Route:

I took a Scorpio from zoomcar.in but you can easily do all the places in an hatchback as well.
Bangalore to Kushalnagar ( and then towards Madikeri as explained in next post)

I took the Bangalore -> Ramnagar-> Mandya -> Mysore-> Hunsur -> Periyapatna and then Kushalnagar. One can take a diversion near Srirangapattna but though this one saves some 10 odd kms the roads are in horrible shape in some places ( as of 2014 November), so went via Mysore.

More details in the attached map:

Driving directions

If you are coming from Marthahalli on the outer ring road, reach sick board and take hosur road. Before electronic city take the NICE road and continue till Mysore road exit. Then it’s one straight road till Mysore ring road junction from where you will take right and follow the road that will connect to Hunsur road. Again straight road till Kushalnagar. There are diversions but you just need to stick to the main (bigger) road and you will reach Kushalnagar. The road is good throughout.

Where to Eat?

There is a place just at the beginning of Hunsur bypass – Café County Coorg. They serve lunch as well as good coffee. There is also one more option Hallemane next to it. After this till Kushalnagar there aren’t any good restaurants. There are many in Kushalnagar thoughas it’s a big town. Also if you venture into Tibettan settlement, you get plenty of options to eat authentic Tibettan food.

Other points:

· The major attractions in Kushalnagar are:

o Tibettan settlement – Bylekuppe. They have the Monastery which is a must visit. Also if you are driving, take a drive into their settlement – you get the feel of living in a Tibettan town. No entry or camera charges.

o Kavery Nishargadhama – An island maintained by Forest department. Entry fees Rs 10. No charges for camera. This place is full of greenery and makes for a fantastic places to take walk with full family. They have some nice Machans to try out some adventure and also have a deer park full of some 20 odd deers. You also have a provision of 10 mins elephant ride (per head Rs 50). River Kaveri flows through this place and makes for a photographers delight. This time though I found the entrance towards the river closed - it was open when I had been few years back.

o Dubbare elephant forest – another scenic place. Here you have to cross the river to enter Jungle lodges camp. If you are there in early hours you can take a package to bathe the elephants. There is also a provision of fun rafting arranged by JLR folks. JLR also have a stay package you can refer www.junglelodges.com for details.

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