Karnataka · 4 days, 3 nights
Coffee country, and a Tibetan town in it
Kodagu, and the monastery an hour from the coffee.
The journey
Kodagu grows more coffee than any other district in India, on estates under shade trees with pepper vines running up them. An hour away at Bylakuppe is something nobody expects: Tibetan settlements begun in 1961, and Namdroling, founded in 1963 by Penor Rinpoche and now the largest teaching centre of the Nyingma school anywhere, with several thousand monks and nuns. The two things are half a morning apart and neither prepares you for the other.
Route
- Madikeri
- Coffee estates
- Talakaveri
- Abbey Falls
- Bylakuppe
- Namdroling
What stays with you
- 01A working coffee estate, at whatever stage of the year you arrive
- 02Pepper grown up the shade trees, which is why Kodagu smells the way it does
- 03Talakaveri, where the Kaveri rises
- 04Namdroling at Bylakuppe, and the prayer hall at the hour it is being used
- 05Kodava food, which is not like anything else in the south
- 06Nights on an estate rather than in a town
Day by day
A shape rather than a timetable. Days move, and most people move one or two of them.
1
Into Kodagu and up to Madikeri. The afternoon settling in on the estate; a walk through the coffee before dark.
2
The estate properly — picking, drying, grading, depending on the month. Abbey Falls, and Raja's Seat for the evening.
3
East to Bylakuppe. Namdroling, the settlements around it, and the long way back through Kushalnagar.
4
Talakaveri in the morning if the weather is with us, then down out of the hills.
Shall we plan it?
Tell us roughly when, and how many of you, and we will come back with dates, a price and anything we would change about the route.
Or write to us at info@scenicescapesindia.com
Karnataka & Goa