Located in the eastern slopes of the famous Western ghats in India, Coorg is one of the ideal holiday destinations for people residing in and around the city of Bangalore. Coorg is also famous for being the point of origin of the river “Cauvery”, which is the lifeline for many people residing in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Coorg is blessed with good weather all through out the year (apart from the monsoon season when it rains cats and dogs) and temperatures are in the range of 11 to 28 degree celsius.

 

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If you have a long weekend to plan for, Coorg would be one of the better options that you can explore from Bangalore. It could be done over a weekend, but I personally feel that it would be bit of a stretch. We finalized a trip to Coorg during a long weekend in the month of April. The plan was to drive down on a Saturday, explore Coorg on Saturday afternoon & Sunday and head back to Bangalore on Monday.

Since it was a last minute plan, most of the resorts in and around Coorg were fully booked and our next best chance to find an accommodation was a homestay. Thankfully, there are many quality homestay options at Coorg and we booked our room at Gowri Nivas – which was highly recommended in TripAdvisor. The stay was exceptional and the host took great care of us during the entire trip – will review the stay in detail in another post.

We completed our packing on Friday night and the plan was to leave as early as 5:00 Am on Saturday to beat the traffic on the Mysore highway. We got a bit delayed but were able to start at around 5:30 AM. We did not find any traffic in the city and were cruising  on the NICE road within 15 minutes. By 6:00 AM we reached Mysore road and started our journey towards Mysore. I would be elaborating the drive from Mysore to Coorg in this post as I have a detailed post on drive from Bangalore to Mysore.

Route taken: Bangalore -> Bidabi -> Ramanagara -> Channapatna -> Maddura -> Mandya -> Srirangapatna -> Mysore -> Hunsur -> Kushalnagar -> Madikeri

 

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The route suggested by Google maps

The route suggested by Google will take you through the KRS road which is very scenic but not in a great condition. The route would be the shortest route to Coorg, but would not cut the overall drive time significantly. The alternate route that you can explore is to continue driving towards Mysore from Srirangapatna and reach the Outer ring road. At the ring road junction take a right turn and continue on the outer ring road towards Hunsur.

You should be able to reach this junction by around 9:30 AM – I am considering a 3o minutes pit-stop for breakfast. There are many good eating joints on the Bangalore – Mysore highway, the prominent one’s being : Cafe Coffee Day, Right O and Adayar Ananda Bhavan (A2B). 

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The outer ring road junction at the outskirts of Mysore. A good landmark for this junction would be the “Columbia Asia” hospital at this junction. If your resort is located in the outskirts of the city, use the ring road and avoid the city traffic.
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Continue driving on the outer ring road and take a right at the Mangalore – Mysore highway which would take you to Hunsur.

The road from Mysore to Hunsur is in good condition and you should be able to reach Hunsur in around 45 minutes. One of the key attractions near Coorg is the famous Buddhist monastery at Bylakuppe. It would be a good idea to visit these monasteries (a slight detour from the highway leading to Coorg) before heading towards Coorg. We reached the monastery by around noon and spent a good couple of hours exploring the serene environment.

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The road leading to the monastery at Bylakuppe

 

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Bylakuppe monastery is one of the key tourist attractions in and around Coorg. You will find traffic on the road leading to the monastery.

 

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Another shot of the roads leading to the Monastery

 

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The meditation room in the Monastery

 

We left the monastery at around 2:00 PM and headed towards Madikeri. There are many eating joints available at Bylakuppe where you can have your lunch – do not expect any fancy or high end hotels though :). After crossing Bylakuppe the gradual climb towards Coorg starts. The roads are very well maintained and the climb is also very gentle and gradual – unlike hill stations like Ooty and Kodaikanal where one has to drive through ghat roads. 

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The 2 lane highway heading towards Coorg. The landscape is very picturesque and the climb is very gradual.

 

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Another shot of the ghat section. You can see that it is an easy climb towards Coorg

 

It took us an hour from Bylakuppe to reach our homestay at Coorg. The drive was very pleasant and we reached our homestay at around 3:00 PM, just in time for the wonderful traditional lunch that was freshly prepared for us 🙂

 

 

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