Have some time to kill after a cousin's wedding in Bangalore before I go to Mangalore to meet some more family, so thought of doing a solo trip somewhere within Karnataka for a couple of days. Did some research and Chikmagalur came up, so decided to come here. Told a friend, and she said she would join too. So making a short trip out of it.
Got a rental scooty on my first day because the hostel where I'm staying at is pretty far away from the city centre where everything is. In fact, the hostel is on a 2-lane highway that goes from Chikmagalur to the interiors of the state, and it's in an area where the road is pretty straight and empty so vehicles tend to speed through here. Now, the hostel is on the right side of the road, and its entrance is completely covered in trees and plants. If you're not looking, you'll miss it. And because this is a patch where vehicles go really fast you can't even come to a full halt and turn right to ride across because you'll definitely get hit by the traffic either behind or in front of you. So you have to swerve away to the left, get off the concrete road, then back up, align yourself straight with the entrance of the place, ensure no one's coming from either direction, and then speed straight into the gate. Weird.
But Chikmagalur is quiet and has lots of nice, small places around. Mostly hills and lakes. And thankfully not too many tourists. The Hirekolale lake is an especially nice attraction. Chill place to hang around in the evenings.
The hostel I'm at had only an 8-bed dorm available, so I booked it. But there's no one else here, and I have the entire dorm to myself, so it's quite peaceful.
There's a hammock out front on which I lie down and read most mornings, which is something I've never done, so that's pretty great. And I've done lots of rides close by, and a couple of runs in the local park too, which was interesting. Thought I'd be stared by locals because this place doesn't seem to have a running culture but no one cared. Took some pics, but the camera on my HTC is acting up. I think there's some kachra in it, but I can't tell, and there's hardly any places that will repair HTC phones. Bad decision buying it. But the phone's decent. And the pics now have a nice vintage cam feel, which is awesome.
Anyway, Chikmagalur is good, but don't know if it's worth visiting a second time.
