Coorg(Madikeri) - A Pilgrimage (Part 3)

A small tale - before reaching Madikeri...

        I reached Madikeri around 3:10pm. Before that, as I was approaching my destination, I started thinking of accommodation. I started seeing the home-stays almost ten kilometres before reaching Madikeri. So I wanted to check for vacancy in one of such home-stays, and took a right turn after seeing a sign-board. I didn't find anything even after travelling for a kilometre. However, I saw a small waterfall... Hurray..!! That moment I felt like...WoooW!! I spent 5-10 mins just by seeing it and listening to it. The only sounds I heard were the chirps of birds and the song of that brook.. I don't remember the distance I travelled interior. However, I found some, not more than 2 if I remember, houses in the entire distance I travelled. After some time, I found two school kids walking along the road. I inquired them about the place. My interaction, once again, was difficult. I can't blame them for not knowing the languages I know. Rather, I blame myself for not knowing the language of the place I want to explore. I used some words I knew in Kannada and they were great enough to understand the rubbish I was speaking. They told the place, I was in, was 'Hattiri/Hatteri', if I clearly remember. After that I rode almost one kilometre to find the traces of humans once again. This time I raped Hindi for gathering some info regarding accommodation. The guy I spoke to, Hussain, told that nobody would be ready to give accommodation in a home-stay for a single person. Rather I should consider staying in a lodge. I don't like the name itself...'The Loadge'..wooahk(puking sound)..!! He told that he knew some hotel owner and asked me to follow him. After travelling some more distance we took a right turn into 'THE' Madikeri, I was dreaming about.
        Madikeri(aka Mercara) is the head quarters of the Kodagu(aka Coorg) district. Coorg has history of its own. It was ruled by so many kings... Gangas, Cholas, Hoysalas, Vijayanagara rulers, Tippu, Haleri kings and finally by The British. Madikeri - the name was derived from its actual name 'Maddu Raja Keri' which means 'Maddu Raja's Town'. He was the 3rd Haleri king ruled this place in the 17th century.

 Now in Madikeri... 

        I was introduced to the hotel owner, Abdhul, and finally checked in at the hotel, Green Stay,situated in the heart of the town. I booked the room for two days - Rs 650/day. I thought it was a little expensive as I thought of getting a room for Rs 500 at most. However, I didn't want to waste time in searching another room. Without even entering, I threw my luggage into the room, took a list of visiting places from the desk of Mr Abdhul and went out. I was so lucky that the three places I visited were within 2km range.

The tiled roof houses, the style I'd fallen in love with...On the way to Raja's Seat(Sunset point)

        The places I visited today were...'Raja's Seat - sunset point', 'Fort'(...lucky no typo..) and Omkareswara Temple..

At Raja's Seat...

        What kind of name they have given to this place... Think in this way.. "Raja's Seat is the best place to see sunset..; Raja's Seat is a must watch; Raja's Seat is one of the visiting places; The people enjoyed the Raja's Seat.". Ha Ha. I can't stop laughing.

        This is a neatly maintained park and was, once, the sunset point for the kings of Kodagu. Now for all. I took the entrance ticket at 4:20pm and started roaming around. That was a pretty ordinary place unless the valley on the other side exists. There I met a guy came with his (beautiful :))wife and a TV reporter. The guy,with his family, was very much worried about the meter reading of the vehicle they hired. He told that his driver was cunning and calculating the readings wrongly - The driver showed them the distance from Banglore to Madikeri as 380kms. :) Where as it was just 250+kms for me. I was very lucky. I didn't have any such problems. The TV reporter 'Vamsi', if I remember correctly, was recording footage about some flower show for his channel.

        There were a few more view points at that place. Perhaps they were abandoned or under construction. I spent some good time in one of those places as density people was very less - in fact I was alone for some time. I was able to see the ghat road that I might have covered to Madikeri. I took some snaps from there. After that I had a ride on the toy train and left that place around 5:20pm.

Raja's Seat - Sunset point

A View from Raja's Seat - This is the valley I was talking about

The Route I might have travelled - Awesome Curves

3 stages of a flower - My Sony mobile camera is no less than a DSLR - Isn't it?? :)

At Fort...

       I reached the fort around 5:30pm. A Church which is converted to a museum, a library and a prison were there in the premises of the fort. The palace itself is converted in to 'Deputy Commissioners Office'. The fort has walls.. of width almost enough to drive a car. I walked on the walls and found some places that I assumed to be the places to accommodate the Canons and rifles/arrows. At first, Madduraja, Haleri king, built it in the 17th century with mud and bricks which later was rebuilt in granite by Tippu - this fellow was a cultural intolerant idiot and named this place 'Jaffarabad'. Some Wodeyar(does he belong to Mysore kingdom??) king renovated the same in 19th century.

      One more attraction in the premises of the fort was the masonry elephants - looks alive. I talked to some people while I was walking on the wall. They told that the prison was converted into a school - what a coincidence - I couldn't stop laughing. While I was walking past some, two, persons, I heard they were greeting me.."Namaskara". They were from the west. One, Ben, from Germany and another(don't remember name) was from Netherlands. They came here from Ooty. They asked if I was travelling alone & by motorbike( at that point of time I had helmet in my hand) and told that they were also fond of doing so if possible. I moved on after a ten minutes of chit chat with them. Later I met a man, a father of a cute little baby of age less than one year. She was adorable.

       Though I missed the sunset at the Raja's seat, I saw it from the wall of the fort. I liked it. I took some snaps on the wall of the fort. I found that the palace and the Deputy Commissioner's office was getting ready for the republic day celebrations.

The Masonry Elephants

THE Wall I walked on

The Prison and School

The Palace and DC Office

       The below picture has some story. I wanted to take pic of the one standing in the middle. However I could not avoid the other flowers on the left and the stem on the right from the frame. I wanted to remove them but for a while I thought that it was unfair to torture them for just a stupid photograph. Finally I apologized them and took it as it is - may the flowers bless me.. :). I left the fort around 6:15pm.

 Some random click - I liked it very much

At the Omkareswara Temple...

      This was one place I wanted to avoid as I thought it was just another temple. However, I have a lot of time left in the day. So I inquired a person and went there. The temple was amazing. I mean it is not THE temple we generally find. There was a pool in front of the temple and the temple has a dome in the centre and four turrets surrounding this dome. This temple was built by Lingarajendra II in nineteenth century. He brought a linga from Kashi and installed it in the temple to appease the spirit of a Brahmin he killed for the political reasons.

       After seeing the dome and turrets, I made my assumptions and came to a conclusion that this guy, Lingarajendra II, might have converted a mosque into the temple of lord Shiva. Because he ruled this place after the age of Tippu. I desperately wanted to know the reason behind the temple being so.. Then I asked a middle aged lady. She suggested me to check it with her husband who was just coming towards us. His name is 'Sunil'. He is a superb guy. He told that the temple's architecture was an amalgamation of Islamic and Gothic style. Later we spoke for a while before they left the temple. I was really amazed by Sunil sir's spontaneous explanation. And, this was one of very few places where I found a Shiva Linga was adorned so much with flowers, probably the other one being 'Sundareswarar' in 'Meenakshi Amman' temple.

Omkareswara Temple

     

       This was the end of day - 1. After visiting these places, I had dinner and went back to my hotel room.