On one of the chilly evenings, scrolling through Instagram, seeing others posting pictures of their trips, activities has given me a sudden FOMO that’s when I instinctively decided to travel that weekend. Since I already know about BCF, their culture, I have decided to go with them. I had two options to choose between Pondy and Coorg, Since I already visited Pondy with my friends, I decided to go with Coorg.
On Friday evening, My Journey started from my home. The first adventure was reaching the station on time, then got to my seats, took some time till everyone reached. We got to introduce ourselves. I recognized the Facilitator as one of the old participant from Rajmachi Trek which I have participated. We played Uno, Dumb Charades.
On Saturday Morning we reached Mysore. Everyone liked the art and took some time to come out of the station.
We met few other participants from Chennai and Tirupati. By this time everyone started feeling hungry. We started to go towards the Irupu falls. We had our breakfast on the way. On our journey we have passed through Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, expecting to sight a tiger, we thought we could be the lucky group to spot a Tiger but instead we did spot an Elephant and a Deer.
We Reached Irupu falls in afternoon, we parked our vehicle and started walking towards the falls, we did come across a small stream of water, we took some pictures and spent some time one of us got some peace of mind as well 😛 . We got into the water it really took some time to get adjusted to the water which was really cold. We took a lot of pictures, had lunch and started to homestay.
Our journey from Irupu falls to homestay seemed long as we expected it to be 30 min but took 2 hrs to reach, we got diverted a bit but eventually found our home. They had a good space, there were many books to read places to relax, we had home cooked dinner here, after that we had a camp fire.
The house owner has coffee plantation, he explained us the process of making Coffee powder. We told horror stories, some real life stories, mostly stories. Few of us did not sleep and our laughter did not let few others sleep, we became good friends and talked a lot, played Uno, which can be considered as one of the cultural sports for travellers. Everyone got up at 2:00 am and we started around 2:45 am towards Mandalpatti.
People go to Mandalpatti for Sun Rise, but its Jeep Ride stays with their Mind and body much longer than the Sun Rise 😛 . It was all dark and most of us were sleepy, I remember getting down from bus and sitting in the jeep. I felt asleep and suddenly found myself like a coin in a shaking box, particle in a box. It was freezing cold and one of my travel mate has shared a shawl with me (Thanks JC). After the ride we reached the Spot for sun rise, we reached the point and waited for Sun to rise, we many pictures, it was windy and we could feel it, it’s like the wind is trying to show us the way and taking us with it. I experienced the same with waterfall, when I go towards the fall its as if the water is patting your back, telling you something or hitting you for the past mistakes 😛 but the air is soft and hugs you with cool arms. After this we returned back in same route and got to be a particle in the box again.
On our way back we had breakfast, as we were walking out of hotel we could smell the spices from spices store. We did some shopping of Spices, handmade chocolates and handmade wine (you will find a lot of these in Coorg).
After shopping, we headed towards Dubare Elephant Camp. We got into a big line and waited for some time to enter the camp. We entered through the boat. We saw many elephants which were rescued and given shelter.
We were calculating time, planning for next move, We had to reach Bangalore by 8:30 as one of us had a train at 8:45. So with all calculations we decided to go to bird park.
We all clicked pictures of birds and some birds came to our hands, we could feed them and click pictures with them.
So that was the last unplanned place we visited.
We thought of covering another waterfall but due to time constraints we did not do it.
Special Mentions to the BCF organizer and Participants who made the trip enjoyable. It did not feel like we were strangers we became friends quickly. Although, they can see the word “introvert” on my face 😛
Notes from BCF:
We organize this trip regularly. You can follow us on Instagram for regular updates. Insta ID –bcf.official. For more info on BCF upcoming events visit us here. About logo you can read here.
Visit our website – www.backpackersandcityfreaks.com
Article by Ganji Shashank. Thanks a lot to Shashank for penning down your experiences from the event. You can follow Shashank on Instagram @shashank_ganji
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