Mar 30, 2009 04:03 PM
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I visited Palace estate on 10th March 2009 along with my wife and parents. I think it was one of the best outings that I have had. My parents enjoyed their stay at Palace Estate as much as we did.
I will write down all the things and places that we covered to reach Palace Estate:We were a group of 4 people and my budget was around 15K for 3 nights stay. There are lot of home stay options in Coorg. I had to do lot of research work before I finalized Palace Estate. I read some very good reviews about Palace
Estate and Gowri Niwas but the rates at Palace Estate were almost half of Gowri Niwas. So I decided to go for Palace Estate. After I finalized Palace Estate, I called up Vincy and Prasad a lot of times; just to know the accessibility of the places around Palace Estate.
They were very helpful and polite. I made a note of all the places they mentioned and also read a lot from the internet so that I could cover everything around the region. I booked two rooms. I booked one corner and another adjacent one.
Rs.1800 for the corner room and Rs.1500 for the other one.2)We had initially planned to start from Bangalore at around 5:30 AM. But could only start by 9:30. Such a slip of plan :)But then towards the end of journey we thought it was after all not such a bad time to start.Palace Estate website is very helpful.
It is very well designed and the map on the site is very helpful. If you are starting from Bangalore, the map will be very handy.Since we were traveling by our car, we made sure to keep lot of snacks and drinks for the journey.3)As per the map there are two ways to reach Palace Estate.
One from Virajpet and the other one is via Madikeri. We took Madikeri route, but later found that we could have saved some time if we had came via Virajpet.The road till Mysore is very good. After you take the Mysore bypass, it does get a bit bumpy but it was manageable.
We were able to reach Madikeri without much hassles. Whenever we saw a detour our junction we would make sure about the right direction by asking local people. They did not understand English or Hindi but just asking the name of places helped us.
Again thanks to the map.4)After reaching Madikeri we started looking for Kakkabe which is about 35 kms from Madikeri. The distance from Madikeri to Kakkabe was a bit tiring since there were lots twists and turns. There are very little directions that you will find during the complete way and whatever directions that you see are mostly written in Kannada.
Also as you reach close to Palace Estate there are no directions for the place. Its only when you are about 200 meters from the place that you see a board. We were surrounded by thick vegetation and it was getting late in the evening.
Finally, we saw the sign board; it was such a relief!!5)The last stretch of 50 meters was mud road and I am sure each one of us thought what a bad choice (at least I was thinking this).We entered the compound and when I looked on my left, I saw amazing scenery. We got off from our car and looked around. The setting was perfect!! Prasad and Vincy greeted us.
We spent about 1 hour sitting in the garden and just could not help falling for the beauty of the place. We did a lot of talking with Vincy and Prasad. It got a bit dark and we decided to move to our rooms. Corner room had a private balcony with a beautiful view. There were not many people staying there at that time. We changed clothes our and came down for dinner.6)The dining area is in the house of Appranda(owners) family.
The Apparandas stay next to the home stay. The food was very tantalizing and looked very different from anything that I have ever had. The taste was even more amazing. Prasad and Vincy made us feel very comfortable. While we were having the delicious food, Prasad handed us one map for the places to be covered next day and we discussed about the local culture and food. 7)Day two: We got up very early in the morning to see the sun rise.
It was very cloudy and a bit cold too. The scenery was breathtaking. Palace Estate has about 25 acres of plantation. We strolled in the estate and after five minutes reached a small fall. We clicked a few snaps here. Came back to our room. Had morning tea and breakfast. We could not see the sunrise. We went to Thalacauvery, which is the origination point of river Cauvery. It is a good place to visit with some really amazing view.
If interested you can buy some local spices and honey from here. They are cheap and authentic. Very close to palace estate is an adventure camp. We did canoeing here. The charges are Rs.200/person, which I found a bit high. There is also a small palace, Nalnad palace which you can visit. This is not a very magnificent place but since it is very close to Palace Estate, you can visit the place.
We came back before sunset and relaxed in our balcony.8)Day three: We left at around 11:00 AM for Madikeri. We relaxed till that time in our place. There is a small collection of books and novels. If you want you can take one of those and laze around.Madikeri has a few places that we saw:1. Abbey falls.(this is a nice place. you can relax here for some time and look around the vegetation.)2. Raja's seat.(you can get an awesome view from here.
You can also do train ride here.)3. King'a Palace.(this is now changed to some office so nothing much to see here.)4. Omkareshwara temple. (this is a hindu temple with muslim architecture)We came back to Palace Estate at around 4 PM. Prasad took us around the estate and showed us the different coffee plants, black pepper, cardamom and lots of other places.
He took great interest in telling us all the details. Interestingly, there is a power generation mechanism that is installed in the estate. So when the government supply is not available, Prasad turns on the home supply :)Prasad gifted us a few figs which were planted in the estate.9)Day four: This was our final day of stay at Palace Estate. We left at 7:30AM for Palace Estate to catch the Dubare Elephant camp. We took leave of the Apparanda family and headed for the camp.
On our way back we went to1. Dubare Elephant camp.(Nice place to visit.)2.Cauvery Nisaragadhama.(Did Elephant ride and dear park)3.Tibeten monestry.(This place is not to be missed)We had a great trip and enjoyed our stay at Palace Estate. Apparanda family is very courteous. We all enjoyed our stay very much.If I think back to find any flaws with the setting, I can only say that the lights in all the rooms were very dim. Overall a very good place to stay for a reasonable budget.
