When you are your best friends get some free common time, the best thing you can do is to plan a short vacation. Considering the fact that my best friend stays at Mumbai and I stay in Bangalore, we planned for a road trip from Mumbai or Bangalore. After a lot of discussions, we zeroed on visiting this place called Vythiri in Wayanad district of Kerala. Since a road trip from Bangalore would make more sense here, Shubham booked his flight to Bangalore. He landed on a Friday night and came over to my place. We started our road trip on Saturday early morning at 5am from Bangalore. Oh yeah! I missed sharing that this was our first road trip when I was driving. I never knew driving before this. Risky, huh? Don’t worry, it was a calculated risk.

HOW WAS THE JOURNEY? (ROAD CONDITIONS, FOOD, TOLLS, TRAFFIC)

We remember paying INR 180 of total toll charges from Bangalore to Vythiri, and the same amount while coming back. This was for a Compact Sedan, which will vary depending on the vehicle you use. The roads were just fantastic from start till the end of our road trip.

There are plenty of options to have food on the way, but I would recommend you to finish your meal at any good place you see between Bangalore and Mysore. If you decide to go from Mysore city (we skipped it and took the Mysore bypass), you can have your meal there as well, but keep in mind that you will waste few hours in that. We had our breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi, Ramanagara.

OUR STAY AT VYTHIRI HOLIDAY RESORT

When we were doing our research for places to stay at, we had the fantasy of finding a place at the bottom of mountains with natural water flowing closeby with birds chirping and no noise around. Spot on! The place we booked our stay at had all that I mentioned. There is just no better first impression than this, isn’t it? I am sharing some photos below for you to trust me (winks)

It was a double room suite with all the amenities you can ask for. From the dining area to the living area, from LCD TV to Coffee Maker, from Refrigerator to Water Boiler, it had everything. Just in case you feel that there is something missing, you can always the Reception for it. Not to miss, we were pretty impressed with their service. You ask for something and you will have it within minutes. If it’s food, they just need the time to prepare it, no extra time, and you get your food served very hot & fresh in your room if you asked for room service.

The food was amazing. They usually have the buffet, but a la carte is also available. The prices were very affordable. Since I am a big fan of Kerala Sadhya (Traditional Kerala Feast, you can call it a Kerala Thali), I requested Ashish to prepare that for us for lunch and he did. It was just out of the world.

Who was Ashish? Ashish was our point of contact for Vythiri Holiday Resort. When I called the number mentioned on their website, he was the one who answered. I got to know later that he is the one who is managing this beautiful property. What an amazing guy! He took special care of everything I needed. He even made special arrangements for us to make sure we had an amazing vacation. Let me share a bit about that.

First, he arranged a Barbeque with Bonfire for us, exclusively. Barbeque had Veg and Non-Veg both, as I wanted, and it was just yummy. The marination in it was just perfectly tangy, spicy. It was pretty amazing to experience Bonfire with Barbeque in the cool breeze with complete silence around. You cannot experience that often. Can you?

Second, he took us on a trek to the nearest mountain. It was a great experience knowing about the coffee plantation, pepper plantation, cardamon plantation, and what not. The view was just serene. I have uploaded a video on the entire experience on our YouTube Channel. Do have a look.

Third, we came back to the resort tired. All we wanted was a good massage. Ashish got us a very good discount at the Ayurvedic Massage Center they have in their property, it’s called Punarjani Ayurveda Spa. I will share more about it in a separate post, maybe.

Fourth, he took us to local shopping areas and a few tourist attractions. Isn’t Ashish amazing?

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

We will soon be visiting Vythiri Holiday Resort again. It was a vacation we were expecting, even more than what we expected. Everything was perfect during the vacation. I am sharing the contact details of this beautiful property below, in case you would wish to experience what we experienced. It’s definitely not sponsored, but something genuinely from the bottom of our heart.