Mysore - Kabini Trip

We did this road trip to Mysore and Kabini Serai that is about 70 KM from Mysore, over 3 days and 2 nights. It was after the south-west monsoon time and around north-east monsoon time as well, and we had a pleasant trip.

We drove from Bangalore to Mysore on 6Nov morning (it was Deepavali day, and we started right after finishing our celebration at home), and returned back from Kabini to Bangalore on 8Nov evening, after a night's stay at both the places.

 

What we visited

• Meenakshi Handicrafts, Channapatna
• Chamundi Hills, Mysore
• Gayatri Tiffin Room, Mysore
• Karnataka Silk Factory, Mysore
• Sandal Oil Factory, Mysore
• The Serai Kabini

Routes

Route map from NICE road toll to Mysore, including the stops and local visit stops is here, and from Mysore to The Serai, including the local stops at KSIC Silk Factory and Sandal Oil Factory is here.

Scroll down to see the travel details and pictures. Look for our itinerary outline and the reviews later below.

Mysore

Starting from Bangalore around 10 am, we stopped on the way at Shree Meenakshi Handicrafts Emporium Channapatna to buy some wooden articles. Channapatna being the town of toys, this shop that we picked randomly to stop, had a huge collection of wooden stuffs and we were just lucky we had stopped there. And then we also had our customary stop at McDonald's drive thru before Maddur around noon, and later as we missed a few good stopping for lunch, and we could not wait all the way till Mysore for lunch, we found a sudden stop at a small restaurant at Baburayanakoppal before Srirangapatna SPR Halli Mane for a basic quick lunch. We just had a vegetarian meal but was not great though.

Reached our hotel in Mysore around 2 pm. We had chosen the ITC Group's Fortune JP Palace Hotel after closely considering KSTDC's Mayura Hoysala Mysore (where we had really enjoyed our previous stay, a couple of times ago), KSTDC's Mayura Cauvery (far from the city, but must be nice inside Brindavan Garden) and The Green Hotel Mysore (The Sword of Tippu Sultan TV series fire fame), after weighing various factors like location, distance logistics, trying something new etc. But it turned out not the right choice, with too little parking space at the periphery, bad access to the basement car park, small room size, quite closed floor corridors, etc. The terrace had a nice dome architecture and a very wide spread menu at the complimentary breakfast which were the two things we liked. And obviously made sure to take pictures around the terrace dome in the night and again in the morning before departure as well.

Chamundi Hills

Mysore's charm always enchants us with those nice buildings and constructions we see all around in most of the roads we drive through. That is one reason we keep including a Mysore stop whenever we plan a trip to places located beyond Mysore region. The drive to Chamundi and again while coming back from there later also did not miss to impress us with a lot of those charms. We reached Chamundi Hills temple around 6:10 pm and learnt that the temple was closed for some pooja for an hour or two and would open only by 7:30 pm. We clicked some photos in front of the main Gopura / tower and the jumbo Mahishashura statue and left.

Gayatri Tiffin Room

We made sure we had dinner at our favorite Gayatri Tiffin Room Mysore. We did not miss to once again taste their tasty Butter Masala Dosa, Open Masala Dosa, Kesari Bath, Coffee among others. As we came out after dinner, we were gently stopped by an old man selling incense stick by the street, and we talked to him for a moment; amusingly, he told us that the products are great, and are made in Bangalore, not knowing where we were from. We also got some MysorePak at Vaishnavi Sweets located in the vicinity on that nice little street, that gives a good feel to take a walk in the night with some old time buildings around. Before getting back to the hotel, we also drove around the Mysore Palace in the night and also saw from a distance the trade fair in front of it was buzzing with people.

 Karnataka Government Silk Factory

The morning breakfast at Fortune JP Palace Hotel was nice with a wide spread of south Indian items, cut fruits, juices, cake and bread varieties, and interestingly sprouted green gram, soaked almonds, and such. Next our first stop in the morning before proceeding to Kabini was at the Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation (KSIC) Factory that has an attached factory outlet for authentic Mysore Silk Sarees. We drove through old time roads once again admiring a lot of those nice heritage buildings of Mysore. The factory outlet was just being opened when we entered at 10 am. The silk sarees here are really expensive and are touted to be genuine authentic Mysore Silk sarees you can ever get from anywhere. So though we had a desire to buy one such precious stuff, due the high cost of over Rs 13k, we had a long yes no yes no decision making dilemma. But later after we bought, and went in to the Factory visit that is located right behind that sales showroom, the amount of insight we got by walking through the entire making process made us feel so glad and satisfied that we really bought that saree without missing it!  The manual effort put in by some rows and rows of experts working on each saree was mind boggling to say the least. No photography allowed inside the factory, and rightly so, to prevent distraction to them. Each saree even has a unique serial number that is embroidered in it for life time tracking! It gave a fantastic feeling of possessing our very own home grown product made very sincerely by a collective effort of several of our people together!

KSDL Sandal Oil Factory

We also visited the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents' Sandal Oil Factory that is located very close to the Silk Factory. Here too photography is disallowed, but the visit inside gave us a quick peek at how sandal wood is processed to extract oil and then it is sent to the factory in Bangalore to make various sandal based products like soaps, incense sticks and so on. We stopped by the small factory outlet that is located in front side of the factory, and picked up a pack of Mysore Sandal MYSTIC brand Agarbathies.

The Serai Kabini

Starting from the Sandal Oil Factory in Mysore at 11:30 am, we reached The Serai Kabini at 1:30 pm, covering a 75 km distance. Towards the end, the left turn to get off from NH33 to go to The Serai is a tricky one. Google maps would show a shorter route to turn left at Manchegowdanahalli, but when we contacted the Resort folks for advice, they recommended to go another 10-11 KM and then turn left just after a forest check post point, located on that road at N Belathur, as seen here. When you get off NH33 from N Belathur, it is about 6 KM through village roads, and the last 1-2 KM is a gravel-mud kind of road, so be prepared. At a small shop about 3 KM before Serai where we stopped to buy water and some snacks, we spotted a lot of sparrows, playing on the floor right near our feet, we have been missing these sparrows in Bangalore.

When you drive in, it is located just after the Jungle Lodges' Kabini River Lodge, which we considered before choosing to go with Serai. With an all inclusive package for 3 meals, jungle safari, boating ride, etc. included, the cost with Jungle Lodges Kabini is a bit more expensive than the Serai, and also the other problem is that as soon as we check-in, we have to be continuously on their schedule of moving around from one event or activity to the other as we have paid for everything together. So we picked Serail here.

Serai's stay was good in the cottage with nice outlook in a Kabini backwater setting. Cycling, Animal / Forest life video played in the small film show room, Machan / Paran deck to watch the waters and distant hills, quick visit to the Boating point, Library in-house, late evening camp fire gathering, are somethings we could do. Lots of trees, and a lot of birds around, it was a nice chirpy stay. As the packaged buffet food was very pricey, we went for Al-a-carte ordering for our lunch and dinner, while the breakfast was part of the package anyway. By this we could save almost 60-70% of the bill on food as it is so little we all eat. As we had earlier been on the jeep safaris in the wild at other places like Bandipur, Badravathi, etc., we skipped that paid trip choice here in Kabini. And we had never spotted any great wild animals other than deer, elephants, wild boars, and such. Though later we heard from the font desk folks that on that morning jeep safari they sighted a tiger as well as a leopard! We went with the guide arranged free by the front desk for a morning nature walk in the surrounding did watch a lot of birds. The highlight of our stay was seeing so many birds within the resort and during the nature walk in the morning. The guide also showed us foot marks of wild boar and sandal trees during the walk.

We checked out and started from The Serai at about 11 am on the next day. On the way we spotted a lot of people taking their bulls and cows on the road, with all of their horns given a refreshed paint, perfect bath and so on. They said it is the custom on the Deepavali occasion on that day; all the bulls and cows were all happily having a nice walking march on all the road we drove through.

Along the drive back, I had to pull over for more than an hour for an official conference call on road, and so we could stop only at about 2:45 pm in Country Club Restaurant on the Mysore-Bangalore (we took the byepass road turning right from Mysore, but that turned out to be really long, very long to reach the Bangalore road at Mysore exit point) highway for lunch. Unfortunately we got impressed by the several advertising boards they had on the outer compound wall and went in. However, the food quality was not too good. We also stopped at Kamat Lokaruchi just before Ramanagara for amazing coffee and tea, and some pakoda snack around 4:15 pm. We have been wanting to stop here for breakfast or evening snack during many of our previous trips on this route, but due to the heavy crowd we were not able to do. We had also planned a repeat trip the Janapada Loka that is located adjacent to Kamat Lokaruchi for a year or so now and have not made that as well. We reached back Bangalore by about 6 pm.

 

Birds in The Serai and during the Nature Walk in the morning

Large beehive

 Sandal trees

Foot marks of wild boar

 
Mongoose and its little one

Here are a few pictures of the Caught Special moments from this trip in my next post Caught Special - 101.

Itinerary Outline

Here is a short itinerary of the entire trip, with a little more information, in case you are looking for.

     - Day1, started from Bangalore 10:15 am; Meenakshi Handicrafts Channapatna at 12 noon
     - McDonald's drive thru before Maddur at 12:30 pm
     - SPR Halli Mane Baburayanakoppal before Srirangapatna at 1:30 pm
     - Arrived at Fortune JP Palace Hotel Mysore by 2 pm
     - Chamundi Hills around 6:15 pm
     - Dinner at Gayatri Tiffin Room at about 7:15 pm (see timings tips below); Vaishnavi Sweets at 8 pm
     - Palace Drive 8:10 pm; and back to hotel by 8:30 pm
     - Day2, breakfast at 8:30 am; checked-out by 9:30 am
     - Government Silk Factory at 10 am; Sandal Oil Factory at 11:15 am
     - Reached The Serai at Kabini by 1:30 pm; Al-a-carte Lunch at 2:30 pm
     - Machan deck view of the waters 6 pm; walk around the resort 6:30 pm
     - Video show 8 pm; Camp fire joint 8:15 pm; Library visit 8:30 pm; Al-a-carte Dinner 9 pm
     - Day3, Nature walk 7:45 am; cycling around the park, walk to Boating point 8:30 am
     - Breakfast by 9 am; checked-out by 11:15 am
     - Country Club Restaurant Mysore Lunch stop at 2:45 pm
     - Kamat Lokaruchi Ramanagaram snack stop at 4:15 pm
     - Reached Bangalore by 6 pm
 

Trip Tips

• The visit to Mysore Silk Factory is definitely a not to miss place.
• Fortune JP Palace Hotel is so so. Not the best to recommend from the one experience we had.
• The Serai booking generally includes with breakfast; they have an option to do all meal package; however the total cost going by Al-a-carte for lunch and dinner works out much lower than the total all meal package.
• The Serai stay is expensive, but comes with high quality room, and a serene plush green environment close to the Kabini backwaters.
• Gayathri Tiffin Room is a great place to eat, so do not miss. You must remember to go there very early, as they close around 8 pm as their stocks get over so fast.

Verdict

Our ratings on a scale of 5 (1 being low and 5 being high).

• Meenakshi Handicrafts Emporium, Channapatna -- 3.5/5
• Food at SPR Halli Mane, Baburayanakoppal -- 2.5/5
• Stay at Fortune JP Palace Hotel, Mysore -- 2.5/5
• Food at Gayathri Tiffin Room Mysore -- 3.5/5 
• Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation Factory, Mysore -- 4.25/5
• Sandal Oil Factory, Mysore -- 3/5
• Stay at The Serai Resort, Kabini -- 3.5/5
• Food at The Serai -- 3.5/5
• Morning nature walk and bird watch at The Serai -- 4.5/5
• Country Club Restaurant, Mysore -- 2.5/5
• Coffee and snack at Kamat Lokaruchi -- 3.5/5

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