Western Ghats Monsoon 2022

Описание: Ravi and I decided to drive through the Western Ghats before the rains stop. Idea was to catch the last spell of rains over the Western Ghats. We decided to drive to Kuppalli and follow the rainfall from there onwards.

Day 1
Mysore - Tirthalli : Stopped at Sri for the famous Masala Dosa. Continued towards Hassan, Chikkamagalur. Took a Coffee break @Siri Nature Roost at Chikkamagalur. Superb filter Coffee. Then continued the journey and reached Muthodi that boasts a beautiful lush dense forest that is an abode of Tigers and Leeches in abundance. Many things have changed since I visited Muthodi last time that was about 20 years ago! More buildings have come up :( No place to stay here anymore, unless you can book the Shigekhan guest house from Chikkamagalur, with the influence of a VIP, Of course. Then proceeded further towards Kuppalli. Plan was to stay at the dormitory near the ‘Kavi Mane’. But the Dormitory is not being rented out anymore until the rainy season is over. So visited ‘Tejaswi’ and headed back to Tirthalli for the stay.


Day 2
Tirthalli - Jog - Kundapura - Byndoor : We wanted to cover good area of Western Ghats so went to Jog Falls first. Stopped at Anandapura for a Coffee break that we regretted as the Coffee was horrible. Jog Falls is under heavy construction due to development, if you know what I mean. Left the place as soon as possible. Ravi’s friend Prathap called and invited us to Kundapura. So we drove towards the West Coast and reached Kundapura. This was an amazing drive climbing down the Ghats, with rain pouring throughout. Got to see the developed Maravanthe beach on the way to Kundapura. I still remember the Maravanthe from 30 years ago and it is gone without a trace. Prathap is an avid biker and traveller. An amazing lunch at Shetty’s and a beautiful walk along the river coast. Prathap explained the process of Fish Breeding that was happening there. When he came to know we wanted to drive in rain, he said that in July it rained for a Month without break. We went back to Byndoor for the night stay.


Day 3
Byndoor - Kundapura - Agumbe - Hethur - Mysore : Byndoor view point is such an amazing place that it directly opens up to the view of an Estuary. Days innumerable can be spent just sitting and looking at the view transforming itself upon the advent of Sun, Rain and Wind throughout the Day. Sunrise and Sunset are sights to behold. We drove to Kundapura again to meet Prathap for breakfast. A Special thanks to Prathap for inviting us and suggesting the view point. This view point itself was worth the whole trip! Next drive was to climb the Agumbe Ghats via Someshwara. A small Tea break at Someshwara before starting to ascend the Agumbe Ghat. We were very fortunate that by the time we left Kundapura it started to Rain and it rained cats and dogs throughout until we reached the Agumbe peak. From there onwards it was raining intermittently. We drove towards Balehonnur, finished lunch and continued towards Sakaleshapura. Then we moved towards Hethur. The last 10kms to Hethur was more of an off roading with the track covered in Fog. So driving in off-road Fog at night was a bonus along with Rain. This is Ravi’s native. This route also enabled us to cover some parts of Coorg. We had to drive through Shanivarasanthe, Somwarpet, Periyapatna, Kushalanagar and Hunsur to reach Mysore. We had rains almost till Kushalanagar. We stopped at a Coffee Day outlet near the Bilikere junction to celebrate our Monsoon Circuit. Concluding with a Hot Latte, we finally reached Mysore overjoyed and contented with 3 days, 1200+ kms behind us.

Most amazing thing was we both were very fresh and ready to continue the driving for another 1000+ kms, when we reached Mysore. The roads throughout the journey was good, except for a small stretch near Hethur. Weather was cloudy and rainy most of the times, as desired. Interestingly though it was a weekend, we did not come across much traffic anywhere, maybe due to the route we had chosen. We also ventured into unmapped routes on our way back and lost our way which was quite an adventurous route, before we joined back to the main road. We had no plans of documenting this trip, but since the route turned out to be fantastic, we decided to post whatever we had shot casually on our mobile. Hence, this video.