We were on a 4-day road trip in Karnataka. After an exhilarating Bangalore to Jog Falls road trip, we continued our journey on a spiritual and architectural trail through the Western Ghats – from Kollur to Sringeri and Halebeedu, before concluding in Mysuru. The falls were in their full glory and we really enjoyed the views. You can read about it in detail in the earlier blog.
This part of the trip was all about temples, ghats, and history – a perfect blend of serenity, devotion, and scenic drives.
Our day began at the homestay. Parth found another kid to play the ball with. While he enjoyed the yard, we packed our things, had piping hot idlis and poha for breakfast and started.
Morning play time!
Our first stop was within 10 minutes – the other side of the main viewpoint that we saw yesterday. A hidden Jog Falls viewpoint was near the Circuit House, which offered a unique side-angle view of the four cascades – Raja, Rani, Roarer, and Rocket. We were closer to the mist and got a side view of the waterfalls.
Side view of the falls
Here was the biggest catch. The previous day, it seemed like all 4 falls were in the same line when seen from the other side. This side showed that they were all at different depths – like when you discover a different perspective while seeing the front-view and side-view in 3D. We were quite early and there were hardly any other people.
It was Parth’s fourth birthday. My parents were coming over to celebrate with us. They wanted to go on a short road trip from Bangalore – the plan was to cover Jog Falls and Sringeri. I hadn’t been to either of them and I invited myself to the plan. Nam had a workshop to attend (which couldn’t be rescheduled) – so it was my parents, Parth and me. We started prepping for the first leg of our Bangalore to Jog Falls road trip.
I sent a message to a friend who I believed would have good recommendations for our route – and he came through! Using his inputs, we planned the Bangalore to Jog Falls road trip itinerary.
Day 1: Bengaluru – Tumakuru – Chitradurga – Shivamogga – Jog Falls (420 km)
Day 2: Jog Falls – Kollur – Sringeri (200 km)
Day 3: Sringeri – Chikkamagaluru – Halebeedu – Hassan – Mysuru (300 km)
Day 4: Mysuru – Bengaluru (160 km)
Our route map for the trip
A total of 1025 km in 4 days. We were going in my dad’s new car – a Honda Elevate. He wanted to test out the car as well – it was the first time he had got an automatic car. They would be going to Kochi via Coimbatore after Mysuru – a total of 1300 km in 5 days.
It was day 8 – the last day of our Georgia trip and we had to drive back to Tbilisi. Our hotel had been kind enough to pack breakfast for us and we started early at 6 am. We had to return our car before 9 am and take our next car to Armenia by 10 am.
We had to drive over the Gombori pass to get to Tbilisi – both our hotel and driver from the previous day had told us that the road was really bad due to renovation happening there. We hoped it would not be closed. We passed by some petrol pumps but decided to skip them for now. Our car’s fuel indicator showed that we were good for at least 100 km and our route was around 92 km long – it should make the cut. In any case, we would be over the mountain pass soon and we could refill petrol.
The roads were empty at this time of the day. We left behind the villages and entered the dense forests and mountain roads. Here also, we saw sections of the road which were completely washed away and had to drive with caution. We started wondering if the Georgian definition of a “bad road” meant a road with some potholes – in that case, we had nothing to worry about.
The road to Gombori
Soon enough, the road ended and became a dirt track. We couldn’t drive faster than 15-20 kmph as we rolled over the mud and negotiated the sharp turns along the cliffs. Gombori pass was brutal.
That’s when I noticed the fuel indicator – it was depleting fast. The original indicator showed the distance based on the speed at that time – we were cruising at 70-80 kmph without much use of the accelerator or brakes. But the current road was a mileage killer. And it continued for another 20 kms even past the town of Gombori!
All my hours of driving in Bangalore traffic came in handy now. I used to set the “live mileage” option on the dashboard and keep looking at how it changed when I hit the accelerator and brakes. The trick was to minimize acceleration to maximize mileage. It also meant I had to minimize braking – otherwise I would need to use the accelerator more. Bottomline – I had to drive at a steady speed using gravity as much as possible. Since we were on a downhill slope, it helped.
The mountains were almost done but there was no sign of a petrol pump. I continued my fuel-saving driving style for almost 40 kms more until we hit the main highway. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we got to a petrol pump! Thankfully, I hadn’t told anyone else about this predicament we were in – driving through that horrible road was bad enough. I didn’t want anyone worrying about getting stuck on the remote mountain pass with no help nearby.
It was smooth sailing from there till we reached Tbilisi. If you have been reading our earlier blogs, you would know that we were worried about the parking fine which the car owner had informed us about. We had tried checking the parking systems in Telavi and with some locals also but found that there were no fines outstanding on our car. He only charged us the cleaning fee and didn’t mention anything about the fine – happily taking back the car and asking us to leave him a good rating. All’s well that ends well, I guess!
Our next journey was a road trip to cross the border into Armenia. We had found out the previous day that Armenia was witnessing its worst floods in over a decade and the northern part was most affected. The highway that we were supposed to take to enter the country had been entirely washed away in the landslides and floods. Our driver had told us that he knew an alternate route through the mountains and we kept our fingers crossed that we would reach our next destination safely.
An Exciting End – Dirt road, petrol scare and upcoming floods
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Towards the north of Georgia lie the Caucasus mountains and on their other side is Russia. Georgia and Russia have an open border – which means, Georgians don’t need a visa to cross over and the same is true for the Russians. While we didn’t have any plans to cross over, our next leg was a Georgian road trip to beautiful mountainous border district of Kazbegi.
If you haven’t yet read the previous part, you can find the links at the bottom of this blog. Let’s get started!
Welcome to Part 3 of our series, “Three Small Countries”. We continue our trip in Europe exploring the smallest countries in the world. We’ve already covered the smallest two countries – Vatican City and Monaco. We skip ahead a few spots on the list – number 3 and 4 are the Pacific Islands of Nauru and Tuvalu – hopefully, we will get to visit them in the future. This time, we explore the 6th smallest country in the world – Liechtenstein!
To continue the comparison trend of these countries to other popular places in India, let us pick the city of Mysuru (Mysore) in Karnataka. The beautiful city covers an area of roughly 160 square kilometres and can entirely swallow up the country we are visiting today – Liechtenstein. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you how to pronounce this!
Nestled in between Switzerland and Austria is the double-landlocked country of Liechtenstein (pronounced Lick-tahn-stine). The only other double-landlocked country in the world is Uzbekistan – hope you’ve already read those blogs!
Liechtenstein is a German-speaking country and is considered a “principality” headed by a Prince. The Holy Roman Emperor decreed this as a principality in the year 1719 and named it after the family that owned these lands – the Liechtensteins. After that, is a long and messy power struggle as Europe witnessed two World Wars and multiple changes of power. Liechtenstein was smart to take the route of its neighbour, Switzerland and adopt neutrality – a large reason why it is still an independent nation.
That much history is good enough to get us started. Let’s dive right into the travelogue:
How large does a place need to be to be called a country? Well, apparently, size doesn’t matter when it comes to that decision. It is a far more complicated affair to define what a country is – we’ll probably not get into that in this blog. But what we will explore are 3 of the smallest countries in the world. We will try to understand a bit about how they came into existence and what life is like there. This is part 1 of my travels to these countries.
Do you know about Bengaluru’s Ulsoor Lake? It has an area of about 50 hectares and lies right in the middle of the city. At any point on the banks of it, you can clearly see every other part of the lake – so, it’s not too big. Can an entire country fit into Ulsoor lake?
Contrary to what many think, Cappadocia (Kapadokya in Turkish) is not a city or town. In fact, it is the name given to a region in central Turkey spanning across five major provinces. If you are planning to visits, some of the towns where you will visit and probably end up staying are Mustafapaşa, Ürgüp and Uçhisar. Larger cities in the region are Aksaray, Kayseri and Nevşehir. As you might already know, Cappadocia brings to mind the images of “Fairy chimneys” and hot air balloons. What are these chimneys exactly? Read on to find out!
The erstwhile capital of Bhutan, Punakha is one of the most beautiful regions of the Himalayan kingdom. Two of the main rivers of Bhutan – the Mo Chhu and Pho Chhu (Chhu means river in Dzongkha – the language of Bhutan) converge here. There are more plains here and the temperatures moderate to warm – making it ideal for farming.
After our stop at Dochu La, we made our way to Punakha. The road snaked its way down the thick forests and opened up into paddy fields. We stopped at the side of the road and Karma asked us to join him as he walked onto a narrow path in between the fields. We were close to Chimi Lhakhang – the temple of the Divine Madman. Yup! The same one who created the national animal. We made our way through the village of Sopsokha and then the rice fields till we reached the old temple.
Thimphu is the capital and the largest city in Bhutan. It is home to the Royal family and is the commercial centre of the country – it is a place where you can experience a blend of Bhutanese culture, tradition and modern lifestyle.
We arrived at Thimphu on Day 2 of our trip (check out the complete itinerary here). Our first stop was the Simtokha Dzong – the oldest dzong in Bhutan built in 1629.
We took the morning ferry to Mahe (details on the boat and bookings here). We had booked a car with one of the rental agencies here and our Hyundai i10 was waiting for us at the parking.
To get you started, here is a map of Mahe and the routes we took.
Day 1: Explore the Beau Vallon area
Our homestay was close to the Beau Vallon beach. It was up a steep slope and we were glad we got a car. This also meant that we got a beautiful sunset view from our room!
The view from our room in Mahe
After checking in, we headed straight to the beach. There are quite a few street food stalls here serving Creole food, coconuts, grilled seafood, banana fritters and cakes and many more. It was a beautiful beach, and we spent a lot of time in the water enjoying the waves. In fact, we spent the whole afternoon and evening here!
Beau Vallon beachSunset at Beau Vallon
We picked up some pizza from Baobab pizzeria on the way back and called it a day.
Day 2: Visit Victoria, Hike to the peak of Morne Blanc, Have some amazing Creole food
Our first stop for the day was the capital city of Victoria. We parked our car in the parking area, collected a parking coupon from a nearby store (Sinnasamy Snack Shop) and put it on the dashboard. We visited the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market, walked around the Little Ben clock tower and covered most of the city by foot in under an hour.
Little Ben in VictoriaSir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke market
We grabbed some snacks and headed straight to the Morne Blanc trail. You need to take the Sans Soucis Road to the starting point of the trail – there are boards and maps along the way, so you won’t miss it. We wanted to make it to the top before noon – island weather can be very unpredictable especially with mountain-top viewpoints. The signboard at the beginning classified it as a hard trek which would take about an hour (Nam decided to skip this and went for the Tea Tavern Nature Trail instead). They weren’t kidding – the forest was dense and in some parts the trail went missing between fallen trees. Luckily, I could see a couple of people about 200 m ahead – all I had to do was ensure that I don’t lose sight of them!
The trail starts from the Sans Soucis RoadAt some places, the trail disappears into fallen trees and you need to improvise
In the end, it was worth it – the view was stunning!
Stunning views from atop Morne BlancThe weather was perfect to enjoy the viewpoint
We then drove down to the west coast, upto Port Launey and back down to Grand Anse beach. The beach was beautiful, and we spent some time here.
Grand Anse Mahe
We drove back to Victoria along the La Misere road. Our lunch stop was Marie Antoinette, arguably the most popular place in Mahe for Creole cuisine. In fact, a sign on the wall claims that it was declared a national monument of Seychelles in 2011. They had a wide variety of dishes – fish, chicken and vegetarian.
Creole cuisine at Marie Antoinette
Some of them we loved, a few did not appeal to our taste buds.
Maps told us that the road back to Beau Vallon had a lot of traffic. So, we decided to take the long path along the North Coast Road – it was a long drive but a very beautiful one!
Driving along the North Coast Road
We grabbed some food from one of the supermarkets on the way and headed back to our room.
Day 3: Drive along the coastal roads covering the south of the island
Our last day in Seychelles – we checked out of our room and drove straight up La Misere Road to the viewpoint of the east coast. This point is perfect to check out the city of Victoria, the port and the small islands on the sides.
View of Victoria from the La Misere viewpoint
Our drive then took us along the West Coast Road all the way down to Anse Intendance. Yet another stunning beach – we spent a good hour here!
Anse Intendance
We were lucky that most of the beaches we visited in Mahe did not have any annoying seaweed strewn all over the sand. For lunch, we stopped at Maison Marengo and had the most amazing seafood pizza and calamari!
Delicious seafood pizza!One of the good food-finds during the trip!
Our last beach in the trip was Anse Royale – it was a beautiful one for snorkelling with many different types of fish swimming around.
Anse Royale
Having covered the entire South and East Coast Roads, we headed up the Providence highway to Eden Island – the poshest area here.
Eden Island
It was too posh for our liking and we drove right out. We went back to Victoria to complete our loop all around the Mahe island! Our last stop – the airport for our flight back home!
Rent a car to really enjoy Seychelles at your own pace!
Though we didn’t know at the time, Seychelles ended up being our only trip of 2020. Considering that, it was definitely worth it – it was relaxing, exciting and had some of the most beautiful scenery we had ever seen.
For more details on how you can plan your trip to Seychelles, check out all the blogs here:
Scenic Seychelles – Our itinerary and tips to plan your perfect 5-day vacation in paradise – on a budget!
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