The approach road is a hellish, unending, car-wrecking ride where 8 kms takes 45 minutes to cover. Despite your best care, expect to hear the sickening sound of your car scraping the road at more than a few places. But don’t expect the management to tell you that the road is so bad.
The resort, if you can call it that, itself is non-descript. A vast concrete quadrangle with a couple of nets serves as the place to play volleyball or badminton.
There are small rooms that are stocked with linen that looks cheap, and as if it had been purloined from the city hospital. Absolutely cheap. The bedsheets, bedspread, etc. are paper thin. The furniture absolutely plain, and cheap looking, and cheap.
The food is terrible. The dishes unclean, and food horrible. The soup had thrice as much salt as it should. The papads half cooked. The sambhar tasted like anything but sambhar.
The service is so-so. We asked for butter in the evening, only to be given half a teaspoon of butter, and told that they were out of butter, and that more would come only the next morning. Come on!
There is no coracle ride around. There is a small boat where the caretaker takes you for a ten minute ride in a tank. Yes - no lake, but a man-made tank of water.
If you are a family and coming with kids - avoid this place like the plague. What if you need to take your child to a doctor in the middle of the night? Getting to Chikmagalur will take 90 minutes. And in the middle of the night, you are very likely to have your car breakdown on the hellish, unlit road. Or worse.
if you are single and coming with friends, you could do better if you were to simply pitch tent by the side of the road or even sleep in the car.
There are easier ways of throwing your money than coming to Nature Nirvana.
Spend a thousand or so more and stay at the Taj Chikmagalur.