Bamboo Banks Farm in Masinagudi, Mudumalai

Bamboo Banks Farm is a property located in Masinagudi, about 9kms from Mudumalai National Park. This is quite an old property, but is well maintained.

We visited this resort in the month of May, 2009. They just have 4 cottages and quite some distance apart. Infact, its difficult to locate each of the cottages.

Accommodation is value for money. A cottage has a verandah and a decent sized room with double beds. It was priced at Rs. 2000/- when we visited it. The room has a lot of facilities like -
* Facility for making coffee & Tea, including crockery
* Fridge
* TV
* Bathroom has the standard toothpaste, powder, shampoo, sewing kit etc

There is ample space for kids to play. Kids will also enjoy seeing ducks, horses, cocks/hen.

The only let down is the food, in terms of pricing. Lunch & Dinner are charged at Rs. 200/- and Rs. 250/- per head respectively. But the quality of food is fine.

Photos & Videos
—————

Bamboo Banks Cottage view

Bamboo Banks - Place to play

Bamboo Banks Dining area

Reena’s Homestay in Madikeri

This homestay is in the heart of Madikeri Town. This is run by a lady by name Reena Devaiah and her husband. This is a big house (can call it a bungalow actually) with three huge rooms. The attached bathroom in the room that we stayed is almost the size of a bedroom along with a dress area. Food is prepared by Reena herself and is quite good. There are sufficient beds even if you have a big family.

The best part that we liked was the hygiene that was maintained. This was important for us since we have two small kids. The house is maintained very neat and the mattress, bed spreads and blankets are new and are of very good quality. No worry of bed bugs or dust etc.

The other highlight was the huge garden area. This is the place ideal for kids to play and you can park your car there during the night.

It is worth a stay out here and value for your money, if you want to do a lot of sight seeing within Coorg.

See below for some snaps of the homestay -

Reena's Homestay Bedroom View3

Reena's Homestay Bedroom View2

Reena's Homestay Bedroom View1

Dining Hall at Reena's Homestay

Garden area at Reena's Homestay

Contact numbers:

+91-94802-51969
08272-315589

Honey Valley Estate in Coorg

About the resort:
—————–

This resort is a perfect place for Nature lovers. Its ducked away deep in the nature, far far away from the hustle bustle of the city. Spending day and night amidst constant chirping of birds & insects is a fantastic feeling. You are right on top of the mountain surrounded by greenery on all sides, there are tall trees everywhere, flowers etc.

Other highlights -
—————–
* This is a “Do-It-Yourself” place. No room service or waiters to help you.
* No TV, no music allowed; absolute silence preferred
* Ideal for Trekkers & bird watchers
* Ideal for people who want to spend time in silence or read books
* Ideal for Honeymooners. The interiors of the rooms are cozy and lazy!

Avoid this place if you want to basically do sight-seeing of Coorg. This is a place to just relax and not go out anywhere.

There is a lot of place to play. You should carry your own sports equipment though. There is a Swing & a natural see-saw for Children.

Food
—–
Its like home made food. The owner’s wife runs the kitchen and prepares food for the guests. The food is mostly vegetarian (unless you place a request in advance for Fish) and tasty. Nothing exotic, and you will not miss it also. Simplicity is the word here!

Directions
———
How to get to Honey Valley Estate, Coorg if you are traveling from Bangalore?

In short, Bangalore-Mysore-Hunsur-Virajpet-Kabbinakad

Detailed directions -
——————–
1. Travel till Srirangapatna
2. A couple of kilometres after Srirangapatna, you will find a road on the right leading to the Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary
3. Take a right there and keep going. This will join the Mysore-Hunsur road.
4. Travel till Hunsur which is about 46 kms from Mysore
5. About 5 kms after Hunsur, you will reach a spot where the road forks into two.
6. Take the road that goes to the left. This is the road that takes you to Virajpet, which is about 58kms from this spot
7. Once you reach Virajpet, take the road that goes to Madikeri. Travel for about 4kms till you see an old bridge.
8. Immediately after the bridge, you will see a road going to the left. Take this road to travel to “Kabbinakad Junction”.
9. At this spot, you should expect to see one of Honey Valley Estate’s staff person.

You will be asked to park your vehicle in one of the houses (as the road to the resort is not motorable), and the staff will take you in a Jeep to Honey Valley Estate which is about 3.5kms from there.

Photographs & Videos
———————–

honeyvalley Resort room view

Morning view from the room in Honey Valley

Contact Details
—————
Suresh Chengappa / Jack

Ph: 08272-238339
email: honeyvalley_2000@yahoo.com

Bangalore Packers & Movers: There doesnt seem to be one that is highly recommended

Bangalore Packers & Movers: Is there any that is clearly a recommended one?

There doesn’t seem to be a Packer that everyone recommends. I am talking about Bangalore, but my guess is that it must be true with many other cities as well. We had to recently move from one part of the city to the other. I started looking for a packer & mover (P&M). I started with yellow pages, and then collected a few more by calling JustDial Services (2333 3333).

I was given quotations on the phone and there was a total variance of about 2500 rupees. Lowest quote started from 4000 to the highest being 6500. I then started looking on the internet for reviews on the folks who had given the lowest quotations. To my surprise, I found that no matter which vendor I was evaluating there was someone on the net who had posted a negative review. A lot of these are there on mouthshut.com. Then I understood that there is no clear vendor that is a recommended Packer and Mover by most people. Some folks had mentioned to me about Agarwal Packers to be the best, and to my surprise found negative comments against them as well. Interestingly, I also discovered a few manipulations there where some vendors had posted positive comments (or may be negative comments to spoil competition’s reputation) posing as customers. So, watch out!

It had me confused as to which vendor I choose from the several quotations that I had. Finally, I realized that I had to just go by what my gut tells me and hope for the best. I selected a vendor called “Pragati Packers & Movers”.

So, How was my experience with these guys – Mixed; Good & Bad. It was good because these guys (4 workers) worked tirelessly throughout the day without even taking a lunch break. They kept assuring us that everything will be safe and they would take care of things as though it belonged to them. And they kept up this word to most part, and it was close to midnight when the entire unloading and re-arrangement was completed.

Now, the bad part. Their packing was not very professional. Towards the end of the day, as it was getting late; they skipped packing a few items and rushed into dumping them into the truck. As a result of this, a couple of our wooden furniture units had a few scratches. Another goof up was that they did not seal with adhesive tape on the Kitchen aata box, and the entire thing spilled over & created a mess. Another issue was that they came with an open truck and had forgotten to get the tarpaulin cover to protect things in case of a possible rain. It was later that someone from their office delivered it.

Summary: Pragati Packers & Movers – Go for them if you have lot of household items and want a competitive pricing. Avoid them or supervise properly, if you have a lot of expensive & glass furniture/items. I would rate them as average, 7 on a scale of 10.

Some things to note –

1. Always insist to have the Vendor come over to inspect the house & then give a final quotation. If you finalize on phone, it is likely that you will be asked for more money indicating that there more items than expected.
2. During quotation phase, ask if the pricing is inclusive of all taxes. Typically these quotations are given without Sales Tax included. And this is about 10.3% as of the date of posting this article.
3. During quotation phase, ask how many people will come and if there would be a Supervisor. If there is a supervisor, then the quality of the work is likely to be good. If you do hard bargaining and go after the guy who is giving you the lowest quote, it is likely that Supervisor is not going to be part of the team and quality is likely to suffer. Having 3 people is going to take you forever to shift the goods. There should atleast be 4 people, and one or two more would be even better.