The jolly trip to Madikeri

 

I recently embarked on a trip together with fellow course mates of journalism and mass communication to Madikeri and the fond memories coupled with the excitement, pleasure and some historical insights kept ringing like a favorite ring tone in my ears which I couldn’t help but kept reminiscing.

Madikeri, a hill station town and a popular tourist destination, is located in Karnataka state of India. It lies west to the city of Mangaluru and to Mysuru in the east.

Having led us in on the location of this wonderful tourist town, let me spare you the trouble of having to wait further in knowing what makes Madikeri such a juicy tourist destination in the Karnataka State.

It’s exactly 5.a.m on Friday, November 14, 2017 and students as well as other faculty members had already conveyed in front of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism (M.C.J) to embark on our scheduled trip to Madikeri.

Indeed, having all these people gathered this early in the day was a show of enthusiasm and excitement the trip, which promises to be a worthy academic exercise.

Around 5:30am, the driver had already injected life into the engine of the bus, and shortly after, our 110 kilometers journey had kicked started.

Just like other trips of a kind, the atmosphere was thus electrifying. As typical of such student trips, the enthusiastic students have set the ‘anatomy’ of the bus on fire with music and dance.

Surely, this is a no time to envy the man at the wheels. How on earth he was able to drive through such a charged atmosphere without a singular attempt to join the frenzy still puzzles me.

He must be a professional to have driven through unperturbed.

In fact, one might only be acting under strict expert’s advice to have ignored any temptation of joining the craze.

Music as a language knows no barrier indeed. In the fun filled atmosphere, the opportunity was presented to relive such moments of musical interludes, which was common with Bollywood movies. The language barrier was conquered. All we could appreciate at the time was how sumptuously crafted; the beats coupled with the lyrics came playing. On display were diverse dance moves from all.

After several hours on wheel, we are finally at our destination.  Our first point of visit was the Raja’s seat.

The Raja’s seat, which literally meant, ‘the King’s seat,’ was such a beauty to behold. Laced with a well demarcated garden, amidst many other eye-catching and colorful flowers, a sense of royalty was rekindled in us.

It isn’t a fantasy though, but I must say, our walk through such a beauty took a different tone. It was a majestic walk only typical of royals at a palace.

By the description, the seat had a design with a touch of cream-like painting, taking the form of a pavilion with 4 pillars. Such breathtaking site required a need to be taken along forever, and it didn’t come as a surprise seeing all take selfies with their smart phones.

Adjacent to the Raja’s seat is an arc-like park to enjoy a beautiful view and admire the magnificence of nature.

Dubare Elephant Camp which is situated on the banks of the river Cauvery was another unforgettable place we visited;

The peculiar nature of this place meant, you have to enjoy a boat ride to cross the Cauvery River in order to get to the elephant camp. The boat ride is not the only fun here, you also get to see real elephants in all kinds of sizes and have an interaction with them as well as feed them or watch them being fed by others in case you are the ‘fearo’ type like some of us. And of course selfie or “wefie” is assured!

Admittedly, the trip Madikari was one intertwined with fun and history. In that, it was not only about the excitement and merry making, however, the places visited had enormous historical lessons worth learning about.

One of such historical sites was the Omkareshwar Temple. The popular temple is surrounded with a pond.

A course mate, whom voluntarily assumed the position of a tour guide at that time, enlightened us on a brief history about the temple.

According to our new tour guide (Charan), the temple was built by king Linga Rajendra II in 1820.

King Linga Rajendra was alleged to have killed a Brahmin (belonging to Hindu priestly caste) to fulfill his political ambition. The King however started having nightmares and some spiritual attacks and was advised to build a temple in honor of the Brahmin whom he allegedly killed in order to purify himself. And that was how the temple came into existence.

We couldn’t afford missing the opportunity of visiting Abbey falls and touring the Golden temple (Buddhist monastery) before returning to our various places of abode.

In fact, we left Madikari asking for more! But time wouldn’t allow us.

In case you are pondering about a tourist destination to visit at your leisure time, you may consider Madikeri and you won’t regret it. There are other equally interesting places to visit like the Madikeri fort aside the places we visited.