Vacation at Mugilu, Sakleshpur

Earlier this week, we had driven down to Sakleshpur for a brief vacation.

Sakleshpur, for the uninitiated, is a 4.5 hour drive from Bangalore with excellent roads all through.

I had vaguely known about Sakleshpur’s existence when an ex-colleague and her husband left their Bangalore life by buying a 10 acre coffee estate there and moved for good. They had started a 3 room home-stay there called Mugilu. And this is where we stayed when we drove down this week.

Having been to other coffee-growing vacation spots like Coorg and Chikmagalur, I was expecting a largely similar experience. It was too, in fact, but for one major difference.

Here’s a question: when was the last time you saw a sprawling green meadow in your life? This is a particularly bothersome question for city-dwellers in India.

Me? The last time I remember seeing such a meadow, quite achingly, was in a Teletubbies episode that I watched along with my daughter, Samyukta. Yes…it was annoying that I haven’t seen anything like it for a l-o-n-g time, in real life, in ages.

Till early this week, in Sakleshpur. Mugilu is right next to one of the most breath-taking meadows I have seen. It is massive and seems almost endless. The best part was that it was completely uninhabited. There was no soul anywhere in the vicinity and it was just with nature that we interact.

The weather was perfect when we were there and it was a wonderful scene to watch my son and daughter, usually constrained by city-centered space crunch, run around freely with no boundary or man-made annoyances to stop them.

The home stay itself was clean and highly functional. Set amidst dense greenery, with good food and clean bathrooms, it is a perfect getaway from Bangalore, in my opinion. This is the kind of getaway where you don’t do anything…just put your foot up and relax. I had a great time listening to Asimov’s Foundation (in audio book version, that is) while watching the greenery from my room’s balcony.

Chandan and Sapna are wonderful hosts at Mugilu. If a relaxing getaway from Bangalore is in your mind this summer, do consider Mugilu and don’t miss the meadow next door.

Here are some photos from Sakleshpur, by the way – click on them for a slightly larger view.