Trip members: Karthik and family
Trip date: 11 Apr 2024 - 14 Apr 2024
Trip Plan : Chennai - Srirangapatna - Melkote - Tholpetty - Mananthavady - Thirunelly - Mysuru - Chennai
This was primarily a road trip that we planned to experience our Skoda Kushaq on a long drive. Covering highways, expressways, ghat roads, crossing wildlife sanctuaries and more!
Day-1
We started our journey at 5:45am to Srirangapatna. We stopped for breakfast at Murugan Idli Kadai near Kaveripakkam - the food (idlies, podi idlies, dosais, vadai, coffee) was really good and resumed our journey. Our ride was getting smoother and cleaner than before when we hit the highway, then Nice road and got through the Express way.
Driving through the express way from Bengaluru to Mysuru was truly a very good experience. The infrastructure development is visible and being experienced!
Reaching Srirangapatna
We reached Srirangapatna around 1:30pm and stayed at Hotel Mayura Riverview. This hotel has been one of the favourite places for me to repeat. By the banks for rolling Cauvery, green cover, away from the glaring noise of urbans, and truly a very comfy room! What else do you need.
We had our lunch at the hotel with a beautiful view of river Kauvery; pretty good. We had roti, dhal, paneer gravy, fried rice, sambhar rice and curd rice. We took some rest and then started to Melkote Cheluvanarayana Swamy temple.
Melkote
Melkote is around 50+ kms from Srirangapatna - about 1 hour drive. Its a single road route and its important to drive with care as quarries are also present enroute and many heavy vehicles would be crossing.
The temple's architecture was beautiful. The temple is an ancient one and is said to be visited by Sri Ramanujar. This is a major pilgrimage attration in Karnataka. The temple also boasts beautiful mandapas around and couple of stepped ponds. Quite a scenic place definitely.
Puliyogare [Tamarind rice] is quite a famous prasadam in the temple. We bought Puliyogare thokku from outside the temple.
Next up, we went to Rayagopura, a famous shooting spot. The Raya Gopura has 4 artistic pillars. One has to climb few steps - around 40-50 and see this place. The place offers great views of the surrounding location. Famous films shot in this location are Thalapathi, Padayappa, Linga, Guru and many more. We spent around 45 minutes here.
Stopped enroute back to Srirangapatna for some local snacks and tea, and reached back around 7 PM.
Srirangapatna Temple
We drove back to Srirangapatna and visited the main temple - Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple. This temple is one of the popular tourist spots similar to Srirangam in Tamilnadu across the river of Cauvery. There are 3 such temples by river Cauvery on the river islands. This temple at Srirangapatna, one at Shivanasamudra and then the one at Srirangam. The temple is quite big hosting Lord Vishnu. The temple hosts beautiful Hoysala architecture based pillars in the main prakaram of the temple. There was no crowd almost as it was the fag end of the day.
It was a quite hot day and we had tender coconuts to cool us down.
We had dinner at a local place - Hotel Halli mane - they had only dosas and it was so pathetic. Please avoid this place!
Day-2
A lazy start for the day, trolling by the banks of the river and then a buffet breakfast at the Hotel itself. The breakfast spread was quite elaborate with multiple items and they were all good too.
The plan for the day was to drive through Nagarahole forest sanctuary area and reach Tholpetty by noon. We had booked our home stay at Tholpetty planning to do a safari at Tholpetty either the same day or next day morning.
Drive through Nagarahole
After going through the traffic filled route till Hunsuru, we took the left turn towards the forest route. Shortly, we crossed the JLR and reached the Nagarahole forest check post - no heavy vehicles are allowed on this route. This is a very narrow road through the core zone of the forest and safari route. There is small entry fee and you are given a ticket and told to pass through in not less than or more than 1 hour. The route is almost 30 kms and within 1 hour we need to cross and handover the ticket on the other side check post.
We started the active forest drive through with lot of excitement. The brown summer time forests only camouflaged even the deer! All across, the road was quite good apart from the first 2-3 kms. We cited only herds of deer and nothing more! The forest actually started turning green as we closed by towards Kerala! Hmmm ... this was exciting as the temperature also started dropping!
We crossed the check post other side with no sightings and reached Tholpetty.
Reaching Tholpetty
Tholpetty is a part of Wayanad district - Manathavadu, Vythiri and Sultanbathery. Tholpetty is the bordering place for Karnataka with Wayanad in Kerala. We had booked our home stay right in front of the Tholpetty sanctuary - Orange Villa.
Orange Villa is around 600m from the Tholpetty Sanctuary and it is a typical heritage Kerala property - managed as a homestay. The hosts were very polite and caring. We checked in exactly at lunch time and it was too late for them to prepared lunch for us. But, they offered to provide dinner based on our asks and it was wonderful - great food ! The property is off-road by 150m on a little steep route on the coffee estate.
The worst part was to know that the Tholpetty and Muthanga wildlife sanctuaries are closed for safaris because of some incident that happened. One can check this out at the website : https://www.wayanadwildlifesanctuary.com/
Disappointed that the safaris are not going to happen, we decided to do local sightseeing across Mananthavady and Thirunelly. Enroute, we decided to have lunch.
Manathavady
The super laid, curvy, traffic free roads amidst green surroundings was truly an experience. We stopped at a restaurant -Holiday Hill Hotel and Suites at Kattikulam - quite crowded. It took time for them to serve, but the food was very good! We were so hungry and thoroughly enjoyed the food. We then reached Manathavady and entered Pazhassi Raja Museum.
Pazhassi Raja Museum premises also hosts the Pazhassi Raja's tomb. Pazhassi Raja is a renowned king in the region in the 18th century. Pazhassi Raja had been part of various wars in resisting domestic and foreign invasions in the region. Details are made available in the museum which is built surrounding his tomb in the premises.
We spent around 30 minutes here and was informative to know the region better.
There is nothing much to do in Mananthavady, and we started our slow drive enjoying the nature towards Thirunelly. The route - beautiful roads and nature by itself was a great experience.
Thirunelly
This is a remote village and hosts a beautiful locally very popular Maha Vishnu temple on top of a hill. One can reach the temple very close, but to climb around 30 steps to reach it. While we went the temple was on restoration phase. Plus, Vishu (New year) celebrations were ongoing and we enjoyed the various instruments being played and special pooja for the main deity. The main deity was carried around the prakarams as the event happened.
We did our darshan from outside as part of the celebrations and returned back to our home stay by 7 PM. Super yummy dinner of rice, dhall, curd, papadams, cabbage poriyal and pickle!
Day-3
The heat of the summer in day time did disturb us in the night as well. Though outside temperature went down to 24 degrees, the room was not very ventilated and I faced dehydration.
We had a relaxed morning, walking around the facility. We had dosais for breakfast and checked out around 10 AM. Even Kuruvadweep was closed because of forest fire. So, almost nothing much to see on this side of Wayanand with family.
Forest route ride
Planned to drive down towards Mysuru through another very famous forest route via Kabini - Bavali check post. Again, a small fee to enter and a time limit ~25 kms in 45 mins!
The roads were pretty bad but, I realised these were the roads where Kabini safaris happen. Very cautiously drove through - sighted few deer and peacocks and then came the elephants. One adult and an elephant calf!
We spent few mins on the first (and only) good sighting for the trip and started towards Mysuru.
Reaching Mysuru
Post crossing the checkpost and connecting on the main roads, the roads were very busy given the long weekend and reached Mysuru by noon. We had booked our rooms at Hotel Mauve Orchid, near the Mysuru zoo. Super clean, old styled and massively big rooms invited us. The old structure with very high ceilings made sure we were well protected from the scorching sun and the rooms were very cool inside.
We checked in and went for lunch at Restaurant Ahara Vedha. Two of us ordered their special meals while other shared mixed rices. The meal was super special with so many dishes - coconut boli and akki roti being a stand out! We thoroughly enjoyed the feast and came back to the room for some rest.
I was totally exhausted because of dehydration and hit the bed for a rest of few hours. Got up around 6 PM and it was too late to go to the Chamundi temple.
Aquarium
We visited the aquarium near Mysuru Zoo. It was truly fantastic - very beautiful and colourful aquatics and most importantly displayed in very impressive manner - water tunnels and more!
The trip to the aquarium was truly refreshing and a very good experience! Post the visit, me and my wife visited our friend's home in Mysuru and joined them for dinner.
Day-4
The only plan was to return to Chennai. We had breakfast at the very popular local delicacy at Vinayaka Mylari. They serve only hot and fresh idlies and dosas. One chutney and a sagu to accompany. They were definitely very good, but since it was quite bland, was difficult to have more than one each!
We checked out and started to Chennai. Enroute, we halted for an hour at our friend's place at Electronic city. Had lunch at A2B, before Krishnagiri, filled petrol around 12:30 PM. We reached home by 5 PM.
A pure road trip with very less sight seeing; but a memorable one with a tripmeter of 1500+ kms.
Distances
- Tambaram – Srirangapatna – 450 kms – 8 hrs
- Srirangapatna – Melkote – 37 kms – 1 hr
- Srirangapatna – Tholpetty Wildlife sanctuary – 127 kms – 3 hrs
- Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary – Thirunelly – 19 kms – 30 mins
- Thirunelly – Mysuru – 136 kms – 3:15 hrs
- Thirunelly – Mananthavady – 25 kms – 45 mins
- Kuruvadweep – Mysuru (via Antharasanthe) – 100 kms – 3 hrs
