GugaBaba… My Travellogues…

We had visited Wayanad almost 5-6 years back. This time when I was searching for hotels in locations between 200- 300kms from Bangalore, Wayanad showed the most number of results after I put my usual filters – Per room price of max. 6k, Pet friendly, traveller rating of 8+. And hence Wayanad got chosen as our Summer getaway choice of May 2023!

My sister with family (my brother in law and niece) was here in Bangalore. She is a teacher and hence along with my niece, she too gets a nice long summer vacation! How I wish I could get a summer vacation!

Anyways, as I mentioned, there were too many nice options to choose from in Wayanad. So I decided to book stays at 2 places – 1st was Vintage garden resort (near Sultan Bathery booked through booking.com) where we stayed for 2 nights & 2nd was The Blue Door Villa in Thavinhal (booked through airbnb), where we stayed for 1 night!

We started from Bangalore around 7am (on a Monday). We took a small exit from the Mysore highway and finished breakfast on the way.

We passed through Bandipur and then entered Wayanad. The entire road from Bandipur onwards is very scenic, and was a pleasure to drive through! The road was also very nice! We also saw a few elephants and deers as we crossed the forest.

We reached our destination (Vintage garden resort) around 2:30pm. As they do not prepare lunch, we went searching for lunch after dropping the luggage in our rooms.

We had our lunch at La Sapphire, which was the nearest decent restaurant from our stay. It had become a bit late in the afternoon and they had only Biriyani. You should taste the Royal Faluda, which was actually quite royal in its looks.

We chose not go anywhere that afternoon/evening. We stayed back to walk through the resort, checking out the facilities and relaxing in general. They had a badminton court, an archery area, a kids play zone, a swimming pool, and hammocks to generally laze around (which after the long drive, became my favourite choice).

The resort was literally inside the forest area. In fact the next day, we found a flock of deer right outside the resort off the main road!

Next day, we had breakfast and headed to Edakkal caves.

Wayanad like all other hilly destinations around Bangalore has its own share of lakes, waterfalls and dams. However, something very unique to Wayanad are these caves.

Edakkal caves are one few of sites in India where you can find Petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are basically rock art created by pre-historic men/women by incising, picking or carving on rocks. The Petroglyphs in Edakkal caves are estimated to be at least 6,000 years old.

Reaching these caves are not easy. Whereas it starts with steady climb through well paved, slightly steep, almost roads. It then turned into steep steps and climbs over rocks. I would have had second thoughts about going here if I knew the exact nature of the climb, specially as I had to carry my 4 and half year old daughter in my lap for almost half the way (in instalments though).

The view from the top was quite gorgeous!

With shaking legs and panting breaths we came down back to the car! It was past 2pm and we headed for lunch.

Lunch was at a nice place, a short distance from Edakkal caves, on the way back to Sultan Bathery.

While driving up to the caves, there were quite a few places on the way, where it was written that they serve home cooked thalis. I wanted to try them. But while coming down we were hungry and we just went into the first food option we could find. The place we went in was like any other restaurant. It did not have the home cooked food charm. But in general food was good.

We were too tired to go anywhere else on that day. We were on vacation after all. And, relaxing is always an integral part of any vacation!

We came back and spend time in the resort itself. We had 2 kids and a dog, so there was no shortage of entertainment 🙂

Next day morning we went for safari in Wayanad forest. We spotted few deers, elephants, a boar, etc. Generally the forest landscape was quite beautiful.

I guess it was summer time, so there was a bit of a crowd. Safaris are for one hour. One safari started at 7am. We reached the ticket booking counter around 6:30am by which time tickets for 7am safari was over. We got a jeep for 8am safari.

I guess early morning safari would have been better. If you want this, then it is safer to reach by 6am at the ticket counter.

Post breakfast, we spend some time at the pool and then we bid adieu to Vintage garden resort.

We headed for Blue door villa. It took around one and half hours to reach this place.

Blue door villa was almost on top of a hill. Very well furnished, neat and clean property. The views were amazing!

We had lunch here…food was also great – home cooked food which came right from the owners home kitchen, which was located just beside this property.

It started getting cloudy just a bit later, and rains poured in. It was beautiful!

Evening went in playing some card and board games which were there in the villa. There were also lot of interesting books in the Villa.

Next day morning was equally magical. We prepared tea and had it sitting on the roof, watching the romance of clouds and mountains unfold as the sun slowly started to appear.

There is a hiking trail behind the villa. Though I started on it, I could not continue for long as my city bred daughter started protesting against insects and refused to walk any further!

Post breakfast, we started on our way back to Bangalore!

On the way back we drove through Bavalli and then Nagarhole National Forest. Though the roads inside the forest were horrible, we got compensated by quite a few animal sightings.

When we go any place through Mysore, (or come back to Bangalore via Mysore) we always plan to have a stop at Poojari’s fish land for lunch! This time was no different. We had a gala fishfully fishsome lunch at Poojari’s.

If you are a fish lover, this is a place you cannot miss!

It started to rain cats and dogs when we were somewhere around Ramanagara. It almost went to zero visibility and hence we had to park the car in the side of the highway and wait for sometime. We lost quite a bit of time there. And then of course as we entered Bangalore, our traffic did not disappoint.

While we had started from the blue door villa at around 11am, we reached home in Bangalore at around 8:30pm!

However, I was not complaining! It was a great trip!