On A Shoestring To Coorg - Adventures In Goa & Beyond

As the bus began its ascent through the Western Ghats, the humidity which had lain heavily on our skin like a blanket since we boarded in Mangalore hours earlier vanished and the air felt cool and refreshing. If it wasn't for the monkeys squatting by the roadside & the heady aromas of coffee blossom and cardamom permeating the breeze, our surroundings were so green and lush that we could have been in rural Wales.

In the cardamom forest

This is Coorg, India's smallest state, a remote mountain paradise home to a warrior race widely believed to have descended from Alexander The Great and immortalised in Dervla Murphy's classic, On a Shoestring to Coorg. After reading the book over a decade ago, Murphy's tales of travelling through Southern India with her five year old daughter, staying at no-star hotels and in fisherman's huts, taking peasant buses and boats along the way captivated me, in particular her adventures amongst the coffee plantations of Coorg, where they stayed for months.

It was a bit of a risk, I suppose. A seven-hour journey on a packed passenger train followed by a bumpy four-hour bus ride five thousand feet above sea level just to visit somewhere I'd read about in a forty year-old book. Even the usually helpful Rough Guide only considered Coorg worthy of a single page. 

Wild orchids, coffee beans, pineapples....a tropical paradise

Still, the worst case scenario was a night in a grotty hotel and the next bus out of there.

Raja's Seat - the place to be at sunset.

We needn't have worried. Whilst Coorg isn't on the radar of many Westerners, its a favourite destination for Indian honeymooners who stay in swanky home stays on coffee plantations and in boutique hotels, attracted by the slogan, The Scotland of India. After picking up a map from the tourist information kiosk at the bus station we jumped in an auto rickshaw and, after visiting numerous establishments, finally secured a room in a 1930s hotel in the centre of Madikeri.

Our £5 a night hotel 

For a state capital, Madikeri is tiny and transport is super cheap. We hopped in and out of auto rickshaws all day long and visited most of the highlights on the city map.

The Rough Guide are clearly mad, there's so much to see in Coorg we could easily have spent a fortnight doing something different every day.

We loved exploring the splendidly imposing tombs of the Rajas, built in 1815.

This is Vira Rajendra Wodeyar and his wife who escaped imprisonment in 1788, joining forces with the British and successfully managing to drive out the tyrannical conqueror, Tipu Sultan, from Coorg.

Their daughter, Victoria, was sent to England for an education. She became Queen Victoria's god-daughter, married a British officer and was buried in London after her death at the tender age of 23.

Other than an Indian pop group taking promo shots in gangsta-style poses, we had the grounds to ourselves, there wasn't an admission fee or even a lock on the main entrance.

Just look at the gold-domed roof and the intricate carvings.

After a chance meeting in a bar with a couple of British eco-volunteers, we wangled ourselves lunch and a guided tour around an organic coffee plantation.

Pomelos, cinnamon bark, vanilla pods and a goose employed as a security guard to stop any prospective vanilla thieves!

We trekked through a cardamom forest.

I knew it was a good idea to travel with a pair of boots.

We visited the Omkareshwara Temple, built by in the Indo-Saracenic style by Lingararejendra II in 1820. Legend has it that the king put to death a Brahmin in order to fulfil his political ambitions. After being haunted by guilt he built the temple to appease the gods.

We drank plenty of the local brew, Coorg coffee.

Saw some beautiful people.

And found interesting things on every corner.

This posh planters' club is still going strong but sadly was strictly members only.

We were rendered speechless by the sunset.

We caught the late night showing of the latest Tamil blockbuster "i" (no subtitles!) at the tiny cinema next door to our hotel. We took rum and coke in with us and there was even an interval halfway through the three and a quarter hour show.

And possibly my most favourite thing. Every night, just after sunset, for a mere 5 rupees (5p) the public are treated to a fantastically kitsch water and light show set to Bollywood music.

Coorg was everything we wanted and more, fascinating, diverse and incredibly beautiful but, on a shoestring? Most definitely. We averaged a total spend of £20 a day which included all transport, accommodation in a city centre hotel, admission & entry fees, cinema tickets, breakfast, lunches, coffee stops, beers and dinner in some seriously fancy restaurants.

All too soon it was again time to pack and make the epic 13.5 hour journey to Goa for the final instalment of our month away.

See you soon!

PS For the full set of photos click right HERE.