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| Geeta and I at the entrance of the bungalow |
When Geeta and I
decided to take a short weekend break, I didn’t fret even for one minute about
where to go. Like the Surf ad, Joydeep hai na!:) He’s the quintessential
oddroader (which incidentally is the name of his company too, check it out,
www.oddroad.com) He’s our ‘go to’ man for
destinations and places to stay in. By the way Joydeep, one more avenue for
monetization for
oddroad could be as ‘locale’ hunter for film shoots no, given
your penchant for the road less traveled???
Ok, this blog is
not about Joydeep so I don’t understand why he’s grabbing so much paperballs (
as opposed to eyeballs, since this is in print, if you didn’t get it!)
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| Kabini |
Joydeep
suggested Kabini and Waterwoods. My faith in him is such that I blindly booked
online.
Kabini from home
is 275 kms. We left at seven in the morning, stopped as usual at Kadumane for
breakfast (by the way it is on the Bangalore- Mysore route). The Waterwoods
executive, Rajeshwari, who had taken my booking (more about her later had
clearly told me to turn right at Columbia Asia on the outskirts of Mysore and
go on the H D Kote road ( Heggadevana Kote) on the outer ring road. The road is dug
up in places but by and large it is a smooth drive.
Rajeshwari had
also told us that we have to turn right again at Chitravan resorts (which is
where you leave the ring road behind)
and drive straight for the next 50 odd kms till we reach a junction named rather
strangely as Hangpost (I’m going back to
Waterwoods next week, I will find out the significance of this name).
From Hangpost it
it some 30 odd kms to Waterwoods. Since the drive up until now was peaceful, we
kind of started to doze off, it was almost noon and the sun was merciless (do
you know Mysore is a neat 2 degrees hotter always).
As soon as we
entered the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, we saw sign posts on the left which
said Water Woods, Jungle Lodges and Resorts and probably Bison Camp, 12 kms. Alongside
the signposts, there should also be a statutory warning, All ye enter, take
care of your bones!
There is no road
at all. You literally bump from one deep hole to another deeper hole, if that is possible.
Years ago I had driven from Puri to Jamshedpur and had been amazed at the
roadlessnessness of it all which had tested my mettle as a driver (I lost my
shirt several times but my axle was in tact !) So I’m back to the same roadless
driving (this time as a passenger and I think this is harder than being a
driver!)to Waterwoods. To add tadka to all of this, suddenly our driver says,
hope Waterwoods is close because there is no petrol in the car! So we switched
off the AC and the sweltering heat combined with the nerve wracking drive put
us in right bad humour and when we arrived at Waterwoods, all we wanted was to
laze in a cool place where the earth didn’t convulse.
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| The view of the cottage at Water Woods |
First impression
of Waterwoods was green quaint largeish bungalow, made for the somnolent. Even
the two dogs that lazily opened their eyes when I tried to talk to them kind of
looked at me as if to say, dude (or dudette, as my friend Pramod says!) , in
this neck of the woods, give your mouth some rest !
We got ourselves
Room No 1 after inspecting all the river facing rooms. This one did not have a
balcony like the others did, but had lovely French windows wrapped around a
love seat and you could see the river from any part of the room. The furnishing
was basic, no wardrobe, one double bed, a chintz covered armoire, some leopard
prints on the wall.
We had a buffet
lunch set in the common dining area, large windows opening out to so much green
your eyes actually hurt! Good food, very polite staff, delightful experience.
In the evening,
we walked up to the river. This is River Kabini which is a tributary of
Cauvery, and I’m told in the rainy season, meanders right up to the bungalow.
Right now, between the bungalow and the river all we saw was popping tadpoles.
My god, there were gazilions of them, we knew they belonged to the frog family but
they looked very different from the frogs we are used to, smaller in size,
friskier and in a contest of we- avoid- them- or- they- avoid- us, I think they
won, hands down!
Over the next
two days, all we did was chaise-longued around the river, had all our meals on
the river banks,
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| The Geese Talk |
Made friends with the geese (there was one particularly chatty cheerleader who insisted on engaging in monologues with us!), Went for runs
alongside the river, boat safaried (the best sightings were of two crocs, one
which had gone into hibernation with its mouth open!) and a whole school of
otters. For more pictures check out my FB
page!
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| Boat Safari |
One last word.
The staff here are polite, helpful without being intrusive, cheerful andinterested. Rajeshwari who was really my first contact with Waterwoods kind of
set standards for designing a delightful customer experience. I bugged her
several times on our way to Waterwoods for directions but she held her
cool. It is very rare that you have a
holiday without adding conditional clauses to it, but here was one.
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