Madikeri - the memoir of a glorious past

May 17, 2014

Madikeri - the memoir of a glorious past

If you are looking for a place that can help you to forget everything and be yourself for some time, Madikeri is the right place to go. I am saying this from one of the most beautiful riding experiences of my life. We had been planning a trip to Madikeri for a very long time and finally we fixed the date and time well in advance. There were around 12 people and 7 or 8 bikes when we planned it and only 3 bikes and four of us actually went for the trip. However, whoever didn’t turn up for the ride just missed something so amazing.

Madikeri is at around 250 Kms from Bangalore and Mysore is about at the middle of route and gives you a flexibility of roaming around the historic city as well. However, we didn’t spend much time at Mysore except for the breakfast. This place called ‘Ramya hotel’ serves awesome dosas and we went there particularly to try it. The hotel is on Hunsur main road but it is a bit difficult to find them but the search is totally worth it.

We headed straight towards Madikeri and our next target was Kushalnagar, the Tibetan settlement in India. The Hunsur highway is a beautiful, well maintained two lane road and won’t disappoint you. If you carefully look out for the humps in between, trust me, the ride will be freaking awesome on this road. If you are riding in a group, you can try a safe racing also because the road is wide and has a great visibility range and is safe for fast rides.

There are numerous locations on the road that are perfect for photo sessions and memorable pictures are guaranteed while riding on this road.

Kushalnagar is a beautiful and peaceful place filled with Tibetan refugees. As Indians, we can feel little proud that our country has become the reason for survival of a few people at least. The settlement definitely showed the ray of hope to those people who were stuck in the middle of nowhere at some point of time. Let the blessings of such virtues fall over the coming generations of our country. The major attraction of Kushalnagar is the golden temple and the glorious temple stands high with all the elegance. There are so many beautiful handicraft products for you to buy as well.

We headed towards Madikeri after giving a short visit to the golden temple. I can credit the calmness of Kushalnagar to the Tibetan monasteries but I am really confused about the reason behind the soothing atmosphere of Madikeri. We didn’t feel the roughness, nuisance or frustration of a town in this place and the feeling was really soothing. To add more flavour to our visit, mild drizzling started and you shouldn’t miss drinking the Coorg coffee in such weather.

I really regret not knowing the name of an awesome hill that we went accidently. We were looking for a place that we saw on map and in between we lost our way. However we decided to explore further and we found an ascending road. We rode till the road ended and it was a great experience. The road was little rough and gave the feeling of riding in off road conditions. Despite the engines getting heated up, we revved till the top and the view was mesmerizing.

Places like Raja’s seat, abbey falls, and Madikeri fort are quite around Madikeri town and these places are most suitable for a quick tour. You have grand things to do in Madikeri if interested such as river rafting, quad biking, elephant safari etc. We went for a short trip and didn’t have time for everything. After all we went to have fun riding and for that purpose the ride was an incredible one.