Onwards to Coorg

We scrambled around in the morning to buy a last few things from Mysore. I was tempted to buy a wooden picture, which seemed to have Jesus clothed in tiger skins officiating  at the last supper. But despite the unique kitsch attraction of this object I couldnt quite face lugging it around India. 

For the next step of the adventure we are heading out to Coorg (Kodagu). This is a coffee growing hillstation close to Mysore, with the western gnats running up the middle like a spine. The area is famous for its homestays on platations, which are set amongst the hills of the region. 

We were off to stay at Turtlepond, which is a coffe plantation near Kutta in the south, only a handful of kilometres from the Kerala border.  The region is famous for its homestays, and Turtlepond is one of these.  We were about to embark on a epic local bus journey when Meena who runs the estate offered to give us a lift from Mysore. We met Meena and her husband Ravi in Hotel Metropole, a beautiful old heritage hotel, for  coffee before we headed out on the journey to coorg.

Mysore is a couple of hours from Coorg, and very excitingly we had to drive through the Nagarhole national park to get there. All eyes were peeled as we headed through in the hope of seeing a tiger or a wild elephant. One thing is for certain the tigers round here are well fed, we saw so many deer! The deer look a little bit like Bambi, with plenty of spots, and are surprisingly well camouflaged.

Just as we were about to leave the national park we rounded the corner to find a line of elephants marching along the side of the road. The presence of the mahouts soon confirmed these were not wild. In fact the elephants were carrying bundles of branches in their trunks (apparently this was their evening meal.)

We arrived at the estate to find we were being upgraded from the wonderful little Estonian huts to a beautiful room overlooking the plantation. Meena and Ravi took us on a tour around the estate, and we saw lemongrass, pepper trees, jack fruit, bettal trees, and plenty of coffee. The evening finished off with a delicious dinner on the veranda, with the fireflies intermittently dancing outside.