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Everyone goes to Coorg in December. We went in the third week of August, in proper rain, and I don’t think I’ll go back in the dry season.
The drive
Five and a half hours from Bangalore with one long coffee stop. Leave at six and you miss the worst of it; leave at nine and you’ll add two hours. The last thirty kilometres are potholes and cows and it takes as long as the previous eighty.
Where we stayed
A homestay on a working coffee estate, four rooms, run by a family who fed us three enormous meals a day and were faintly amused by how little we did. There was no television and patchy signal, which I resented for about four hours and then stopped noticing.
The veranda looked straight into the hills. It rained for most of three days and the whole valley kept appearing and disappearing.
What we ate
Pandi curry, kadambuttu, and more filter coffee than a person needs. The estate roasts its own; we came home with a kilo and it’s already half gone.
What I did
Almost nothing, on purpose. I painted from the veranda twice — a watercolour that came out better than anything I’ve done at home, mostly because I had twenty minutes before the rain came back and no time to fuss with it. I read most of a novel. I slept nine hours a night.
Why the monsoon
The hills are green in a way they simply aren’t in December. There are no crowds, rooms are half price, and the rain gives you permission to sit still, which is the only thing that gets me to actually rest.
The trade-off is real: leeches on the walking trails, laundry that never dries, and one afternoon where the road flooded and we didn’t go anywhere. All fine. All part of it.
If you go
Take shoes you don’t mind writing off. Take a bag that can get wet. Book the homestay directly, by phone, and ask what time dinner is so you’re not out driving when it happens.
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