Exploring Mysore-BLog World Meets Real World.

18th April 2010: Mysore, Karnataka, India
My father is an active blogger and one of his friends from bloggerspace is Mr Swaroop Kagli. We made plans to meet him and take him out to lunch. After exploring the Lalita Mahal, we met him somewhere near his place and he took us to a restaurant called Olive Garden. There was a private party going on there so we had to go from another way. I wished we could sit in the private party after all we were dressed for it(=coz everyone in the party was wearing a sari n i and mum had worn some nice indian dresses). We got a nice seat and ordered some tasty starters and some yummy food. For dessert we had fried ice cream. I was not feeling well, a little drained out but the ice cream made me feel good. We ordered another one.

After lunch, we clicked photos. There were monkeys hopping here and there and creeping to see if they could get any food. There was one naughty monkey who was drinking water from the water pump on top of the kitchen. Inquiries yielded that the tank was used to supply water to the toilets and for washing utensils which was alright. Atleast it did not make it to the food.

After that we dropped Swaroop outside his building which looked swank, and then we made our way to the hotel. From Swaroop we learnt a lot about Mysore and about what he does. Swaroop has a photo blog you see so we were very interested.
Also a fact is that we take whichever place we live in for granted, because whenever anyone comes and asks us what we have to see, we usually can’t think of anything. But for visitors its a whole new experience. Through visitors eyes you see your locality or city in an entirely different view.We also visited Swaroop’s House which was a very cosy home in this fastly expanding city. There we met his mother and sister and one of his relatives who had come over. His mother had made excellent juice for us. It was nice meeting them and we enjoyed there. Sachi learnt that monkeys used to visit Swaroop’s veranda and made a request to keep one for her. She loves monkeys and wanted to keep one as a pet.
It was really nice to see that a friendship which sprung up in bloggerspace translated into a meeting and a friendship that is bound to last for years to come. Through blogs a lot of people get to know each other and its a great way to project your ideas and have discussions. Now that i have my own blog i can really relate. I’d want to travel to some place and meet up a friend from the Blog world too 😀 😀

Coming Up Next: They Mysore Palace,Goodbye Mysore

Fried Ice Cream.My dad and Swaroop.

Coorgi Tales- Madikeri and beyond!

15th April 2010: Karnataka Hinterland, India

Continuation to the Dubare note. After Dubare, we were plenty exhausted and not to mention dirty!! After reaching the resort, we freshened up and had lunch. We decided to spend the remainder of the day in the town of Madikeri. We had lunch at ‘Arabica’ and then went to the room (i must mention that one of the days we had a mint and melon mousse for dessert and it was amazing. One day it was strawberry and white chocolate mousse which was lip-smacking!! No wonder they say Club Mahindra pampers you)
We spent the afternoon resting and then drove down to Madikeri. By now, i knew the route to the market and back so it was no problem. Once you take a turn to go to Club Mahindra, there is a school, 2 parks and a temple. we decided to explore the park and the temple. .
One of the parks had a mini train. it was amazingly cute!! It reminded me of the time we used to go to a park in Santacruz where there used to be a similar train and we used to ride it till the park closed. So it was a trip down the memory lane for me!!

The ride itself was only for 3-4 minutes but it was fun. We grabbed seats in the extreme front just after the engine. And a guy first came and checked our tickets (you have to buy tickets for the ride, different tickets for kids and adults!!)
There were even boards for stations and a small tunnel. And this ride attracted a lot of the crowd. I guess in a small town you would find this very much fun, people in smaller towns have more fun than city dwellers anyway!!
After that we made our way to the other park which was more like a ‘Joggers Park’. It was so well maintained with broad lanes, lot of dustbins in the shape of cute animals and pretty flowers. There were many people walking and many playing.

Coorg is called ‘Scotland of the East’ and it was not difficult to see why. The view from the park bench was stunning!! Even though it was summer, there was a slight fog in the distance and there was a nice breeze which made it quite pleasant.
After a walk and a lot of photos, we decided to leave and snack on something. We had some ‘Joy’ Ice cream(=chocobar!!) and then to our surprise, the lights came on at the centre of the park and the people were standing around the circle which we later discovered turned out to be a musical fountain. And we slowly made our way towards the gate coz we knew we’d just come out and we couldn’t go in again but the lady sitting at the entrance told us to go right ahead. We went in and were totally awestruck.

They played some song with lyrics we couldn’t understand (=either kannada/tamil/malu) and the fountains danced to the tunes. It was so well done. The colours also changed. I was totally engrossed. We took videos and many pictures. I hear there is a musical fountain at the Vrindavan Gardens at Mysore but this was amazing. And there were very few ppl so that made it better.
The fountains were amazing. They jumped, they danced, we gasped!!! They played 4 songs and for that time, held the audience totally spellbound. They ended with ‘Saare jahan se Accha’ and the people slowly started making their way out.

Thats when i realised how pretty the flowers at the edges of the park looked. They were nice and purple. So got in some pictures of those as well. Then we went to the temple nearby and guess, we were just in time for the evening ‘Aarti’. The co-incidence was amazing!! After the Aarti, we made our way back to the hotel

Oh i forgot to mention that while coming back from Dubare, we stopped at a place and purchased lots of spice. Coorg is known for its spices. We also got some Vanilla to be had with milk. It smells so sweet and delicious. One really wonders why people go in for artificial substitutes when the real one is so much fragrant and better!!For dinner this time, we decided to try the a-la-carte restaurant at Club Mahindra called ‘Coffee Blossoms’ We had some thai curry(red and yellow), steamed rice, kheema paratha and some starter. The red thai curry was so delicious, we really enjoyed and literally licked our plates off. We did have some light dessert and made our way to the room.

This restaurant had another way which led to the swimming pool near our room so but we decided to take the longer route to enjoy the smell of the coffee blossoms. It was a super night and i really kept going back to the stunning Musical Fountains that we found in the small town of Madikeri.

cOMING uP next: Adventure Valley Part2, The town again,Coorg cuisine,Goodbye Coorg
Some of the pretty flowers

Chronicles of Manki-The last leg

Whew, finally we arrive at the last part of our stay at the beautiful village of Manki

Saturday, 9th April, Karnataka Hinterland, India
Today, we were invited to lunch at Hemant bhatmam’s place. It’s slightly on the hill in the temple complex of the Chikarmane family deity. It’s not usual for a bhatmam to invite tourists over at his place and the gesture was touching.
We had ‘khotte’ for breakfast (immensely tasty i feel bad for those who havent had it as yet) and tasted jackfruit from the home garden.
We made our way to the bhatmam’s place and we were warmly welcomed by his younger daughter, Purvi
The menu was filled with jackfruit items, a new thing for us as we had never known that one could make so many different dishes using the same vegetable. There was pickle, cashewnut bajji(=puree types),some ambat(=dal+spices),white curry(=dhave randayi),some phodis(=bhajis)!! Wow long list. But it was so simple and yet so delicious. The simplest dishes are the tastiest. And served on the banana leaf so the added taste!!
There was a small calf in another room and we had a great time playing with it.

Ponderings Cows eat the banana leaf you eat in so no waste problems.

Wow!! We were going to have a dish called ‘phanas-ache patoli’  the next day (=a sweet dish usually made with coconut and jaggery, this time we used jackfruit). This dish is made in the leaves of the Saag tree or better known as the Teak Tree. So we plucked some leaves off the Teak tree in the bhatmam’s garden. Those leaves are huge!! really huge.

A surprise
The bhatmam who stayed in the village, the one who took care of the janardhan temple in Manki village had expired a while back and his son now took care of the temple and said the evening prayers. Hemant bhatmam was training the young priest in making. So today was his birthday!!
We decided to hold a surprise party for him and so we ordered for a cake and got some ice cream. We also invited some kids who were there at hemant bhatmam’s place.

The party was fun!! The candles that we had were re-lightable and so the surprise was even better!! I can’t forget the expression on Sriram’s face when he had to cut the cake.
After that we all had a nice dance session with Hemant bhatmam joining us!! We concluded the party by saying the ‘deep namaskaram’ which is a prayer for the gods to keep our lives enlightened.
We also went to the janardhan temple and prayed with gratitude for the wonderful time we had at Manki and for the stunning sights that we saw.

Dinner at Murudeshwar
Murudeshwar is the most well-known tourist spot in Uttar Kanara, with the famous huge idol of Lord Shiva. Our previous stay here was fun, we actually have photos with me and sachi picking up fish straight from the boat!!
Apart from that there are also lot of water sport activities in Murudeshwar.
We went there for dinner. I learnt that if random people wave at you like complete idiots then they want to draw your attention to the hotel nearby and you should simply ignore them!!
The food was amazing!! The fish and other dishes were delicious. The baked vegetable that we had was simply awesome. To top it off, we had some amazing ice cream and an amazing drive through the night!!

The next morning, we had an amazing time relishing the patolis which had become nice and pink, yes pink and were incredibly tasty!!!!
Hemant Bhatmam had come along to say good-bye to us and we had made some cards for sanjay mam and suma pachi which we gave them. There were a lot of photos and goodbyes and we departed for our next destination
So this way our chapter at Manki came to a beautiful close!!

Stay tuned for the next episode- Welcome Udupi, Hello Manipal,Mangalore Tales

a calf at the bhatmam’s i.e priest’s place.the surprise party!!!The Janardhan Temple