Georgia Sunshine Village

Just a day before New Year’s eve, we were looking for a quiet retreat to a place close to Bangalore. We had just a day off, so it had to be a place not more than 2-3 hours away. Googling for such places, I came across a resort located close to Sivanasamudra and around 120 kms away from Bangalore. This is the only resort in the vicinity of Sivanasamudra falls. We made the bookings – the money has to be paid in advance – and headed for an overnight stay at Georgia Sunshine Village with Sito and Vrushali.

The Route:

We started from Bannerghatta Road, hit the NICE corridor and headed towards Mysore road. There’s practically no road connecting the Bannerghatta Road to the NICE corridor, so be prepared for a dusty and bumpy ride for around 100 meters or so. But the NICE corridor is a pleasure to drive on – a stark contrast to all other roads in Bangalore. This road led us very quickly to the Mysore road. We drove straight on the Mysore road (SH17) till Maddur via Bidadi and Ramanagaram. At Maddur, we took the left fork towards Malavalli. On crossing the Malavalli town, we drove straight ahead till we reached the ‘T’ junction that leads to Shimshapura road. We turned left at this junction and went ahead till a board for Georgia Sunshine Village directed us to turn right. Now this right turn leads to an uncomfortable 2-km stretch drive on a narrow untarred road before you reach the resort.

The resort:

As soon as we stepped into the resort, we were greeted by a cute little daschund, Whisky, as well as the owner of the resort, Mr Leonard. As we discovered later, there were a few more daschunds apart from Whisky, a friendly Labrador and another fierce looking Labrador (this one was tied, luckily). The resort has around four cottages, each having two rooms set back-to-back. The room Sito and Vrushali were put up in had a semi-open bathroom i.e. the roof covered only half the bathroom. The rooms were quite spacious & clean and the resort itself was quite tastefully done with rugged walkways, an enclosure for rabbits and lots of flora. There’s also a small swimming pool and an activities room (with a TT table and some board games) at the resort.

The Food:

The most important part of any laid-back holiday at a resort is the food served by them. The food at GSV was quite decent, though not outstanding. The menu wasn’t extravagant, but we enjoyed it, nevertheless. We didn’t order any extras – like tea/coffee etc – but I think that anything extra, even as simple as tea, is charged here. The package includes morning as well as evening tea, apart from the meals.

Activities:

GSV arranges fun-fishing at a small pond near the resort. It was fun initially, got boring after the first few minutes. There’s no fishing to it, it ought to renamed fun-feeding. There’s a bonfire arranged by the resort at night and the board games, TT and the swimming pool are available all of the time. Early in the morning, GSV arranges a small trek – I would call it a nature walk – across the nearby village fields. This was the best part about the stay at the resort and we really enjoyed it.

About 14 kms from GSV, is the Gaganchukki waterfall and another 10 kms is the Barachukki waterfall. We didn’t have time to visit both after checking out of GSV and on consulting Leonard, we decided to visit just Barachukki which is supposed to be better. Here, one has to descend a steep rocky stairway to reach a lagoon right at the bottom of the falls. Coracle rides are provided where they take you almost underneath the waterfall. We went coracle riding and the experience was good. Apart from the coracle ride, there is nothing much to do here. As all other tourist spots in India, this place is damn crowded, so sitting down and relaxing is out of the question.

After the visit to the falls, we headed back to Bangalore.