Homestay accommodation in Coorg, Bethel homestay

We have been blogged - again!!

2010-03-13T04:42:00.001-08:00

Vijay who was with us in February blogged about us - you can check out what he says here

http://vivekvijay.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/bethel-homestay-south-coorg/

Aaaarg we are down!!!

2010-03-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

Aaarrrgh our website is down!!

http://www.bethelestate.com is down – apparently domain registration and package deals of Manashosting are two different deals. So I have a three year deal with Manashosting – but I have to renew my site every year!! aaaarg!!

New year review...

2010-01-13T10:28:00.001-08:00

Chalk one more review for us folks, Raghavendra and team where with us for the New year weekend - he has given us a review, check it out here...

This is the first review of 2010!! -- Many thanks to Raghavendra, for getting our review queue started this year!!

We've been blogged!!

2010-01-09T09:30:00.000-08:00

We've been blogged .. and I found about it 6 months later :-( - that's what happens when you drop off the web!!, Check this out folks, we got some praises.. :-)
http://www.yeeeeee.com/2009/05/30/bethel-home-stay-the-place-to-stay-in-coorg/

It is a small small world..really!

2010-01-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Quite some time ago, when I was traveling from Coorg to Bangalore - I had bike troubles, we managed to make it to Bangalore, but we couldn't go all the way and had to park the bike in the office of Rakesh's friend, Santosh... this was, I think over a year ago...

Fast forward to this week, we had Aman and team coming to Bethel, Aman had found us on the web and had been deputed to co-ordinate the Coorg trip for his team. He collected all the details (links/blogs etc) about us a send it out to his team. His boss goes through the material and one of the photographs is of Rakesh in the homestay! !! (sounds of thunder and lightening here..:-) ) -- and well, his boss turns out to be, no prizes for guessing - Santosh

Phew.. It really is a small tiny itsy bitsy world..

Orchids..

2010-01-03T09:39:00.001-08:00

I have often mentioned this - one the best parts of the being in Bethel is meeting different folk - we get to meet all kinds of people, people with different tastes and interests and we have learned a lot from them.

Subho was with us way back in September of 2009. He had come here with his wife Paramita and son Tijil. At Bethel all of us have very decent idea about the flaura and fauna around us - the birds / animals / some of the trees (any tree we don't know, we promptly name it - "Jungle Wood" :-D :-D) - he introduced us to a part of the flora around us that we were completely oblivious about - Orchids!!

Orchids was Subho's passion (Birds were Paramita's) - he was able to open our eyes to the world of orchids. We don't have any particularly rare or exotic ones in our estate. However there was on thing that we learned that made us particularly happy. Orchids are very sophisticated and very fragile - they are so specialized that they need very precise conditions for them to survive and propagate and hence they are a very good indicator of the health of the ecosystem - Bethel has a pretty decent amount of orchid growth, that is something we are be happy about.

Here are some of the photographs taken by Subho at Bethel -

While we were offline...

2010-01-03T02:05:00.000-08:00

While our blog was languishing - Bethel was doing very well online and in the real world - we have now the highest number of reviews in just about any site for any homestay in Coorg - 10 in TripAdvisor, 36 in HolidayIQ, 12 in Raahi!!

You can check out our reviews here
Reviews in Trip Advisor
Reviews in HolidayIQ
Reviews in Raahi.com

Bah! it's all humbug!!

2010-01-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

On our website - we very proudly announce - all emails will be responded within 48 hours !!It loudly gives three phone numbers that any one can call to get in touch with us...

Humbug - it is all humbug!!
I have 510 unread mails in my mail box!!! - Our blog has not been updated for over 6 months - so much for all our proud service level announcements!!

My sincere apologies to all of the folks whose mails I have replied to -- It is not as if Bethel is not running - Just that my online work got offline :-) -- hmm - that's an understatement

But I am back!! :-)

It's the middle of the month..

2009-07-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

I saw this strip in Yahoo comics (Arlo and Janis for 15th of July) and remembered its been more than a week since my last post..so what's happening.

Well, we had Mohsin and team (numbering 10) who joined us on the 4th of July, of these folks 9 of them joined in rafting also.

Then we had Arun and team (numbering 4) who joined us on the 4th of July, again they too joined us for rafting

We had Kaustab and team (numbering 5), they were not staying with us but joined for rafting.

We had Sunil and team numbering 11 gentlemen who came to Bethel. This team was very different from the usual crowd that comes to Bethel, each of these gentlemen were 40+ years of age and had become friends over the years. What was common among them all ? How did they meet ? Well, all of them were morning walkers in the same park in Bangalore and became friends over the many miles that they walked there!!! -- yup, some groups are special.. and we are lucky to host them.

Then we had Pravin and his wife Shalini who joined us on the 10th of July.
and Nagesh and his wife Hitha who joined us on the 11th of July.

Apart from the folks who stayed with us we also had Misha and Sarita who joined for rafting on the 10 of July

We also had Shiva and team (numbering 10) from Hyderabad whose stay we arranged in Ramcaud home stay near Iruppu falls joining us for rafting on the 12th of July

With this our rafting count has become 46 as of date!!

Again, To know more about white water rafting, please go to http://www.bethelestate.com/rafting.html
or you can contact us at the following numbers for bookings and any help
Anish: +91 9972361564
Rakesh: +91 9972362052
Rakesh: +91 9448201771

The tariff is Rs 1000 / head.

We are in the Financial Express!!

2009-07-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

Check out the Sunday Financial Express (July 5th) — we are there..
Read the article online http://www.financialexpress.com/news/at-home-for-a-price/485123/2

High waters and Nepali instructions!!

2009-07-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

It is all happening now!!

We have had a few very good rains and the Barapole river is in the full spate...Rafters of the world -- be there!!

Yesterday, we had Suresh babu and team at the Barapole, of the 12, 9 decided to go for it. We had three rafts hitting the water, guided by Dhawa, Mahendra and Rana. The fourth guide Subash joined our team of Rakesh, Manju and Mukesh in our raft.

Our raft guided by Dhawa was the lead and rescue raft -- While we were at it, we decided to try something unique .. In our raft were three Nepali speakers.. Dhawa, Subash and Mukesh and the others Manju and Rakesh do manage a smattering of Nepali so it was decided that today, All rafting instructions will happen only in pure Nepali language. And we did it perfectly too :-)

For the first time in his life, Dhawa guided a full raft giving white water rafting instructions in pure Nepali :-)

What can I say, we love to do stuff..:-)

Well, our rafting head count is now 12.
To know more about white water rafting, please go to
http://www.bethelestate.com/rafting.html
or you can contact us at the following numbers for bookings and any help
Anish: +91 9972361564
Rakesh: +91 9972362052
Rakesh: +91 9448201771

The tariff is Rs 1000 / head

First Rafting Review!!

2009-07-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Vivek who was with us last weekend and was the first to go rafting this season has given us a review. Check it out here.
http://www.raahi.com/hotel-reviews/the-bethel-home-stay-coorg/close-to-nature-22740.html#rev

Strike One....

2009-06-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last year, the 2008 White water rafting season started of on the 4th of July weekend, this year the season has started a week earlier.

The first batch of rafters that hit the water were all V's.. Vineeth, Varun and Vivek! Vineeth was with us a year ago in peak rafting season, this time he was the first to hit the water..umm.. literally :-)

The season has just begun and the water level has not peaked yet, low water levels means that the rafting is more technical and you bump into obstacles more often. You really need to buckle down and make sure you are strapped well -- apparently Vineeth was not as careful as he should have been, he flew off the raft at the Grasshopper rapid as the raft bumped into a rock and needed to be rescued.

The Barapole river offers the wildest white water rafting experience in South India with rapids becoming level 4 in peak season. A successful run i.e a non eventful one, is a combination of great guides, proper training and gear and of course a whole lot of luck :-). Thankfully we have good quality equipment, great guides who conduct the rafting at Barapole, the training program includes rafting commands and even rescue techniques. Folks are amply prepared for the river ahead of them and the challenges it throws at them.

Getting thrown of the raft and being rescued is common and even a lot of fun -- in fact, a part of the training and I think the most popular part, is making sure you are thrown off the raft and rescued by your team mates!! \

Still, Barapole river is not a theme park and even experienced rafters need to be very vigilant at all times as Rakesh found out, after Vineeth was rescued, Rakesh started to explain the nuances of holding on to the raft..and before he could complete his statement.. he was thrown off the raft :-)

All in all it was a great start to the season, with a lot of fun and lot of adventure!! For all the folks reading this, stop, and get there for the best white water rafting experience in the whole of south India!!

You can find details about rafting here
http://www.bethelestate.com/rafting.html
Tariff: Rs 1000 / head
Contacts for booking:
Anish: +91 9972361564
Rakesh: +91 9972362052
Rakesh: +91 9448201771

White Water Rafting 2009 Season begins!!

2009-06-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

It's here folks!!!
The 2009 White water rafting season has finally begun!!!

The first batch of rafters hit the water today. For folks who want to know more about it, you can go here
http://www.bethelestate.com/rafting.html

Before we go ahead into the season,here are a few images from the 2008 season

See the same slideshow here (with sound)

Back in action!!

2009-06-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

Last week we got back in action, we had Hema and team who joined us, we also had Nirmal and Gill joing us.

Gill has give us a review in Trip advisor, you can read about it here

Taking a break..

2009-06-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

The meteorologists were all certain that the monsoon would be a week ahead of schedule and would reach Kerala by the 24th May... turns out it effectively didn't :|

Monsoon is a big deal for us, Coorg receives one of the highest rainfalls in the country -- the good is that this tropical rain forest springs to life with lush greenery everywhere, the waterfalls are in their full splendor, rivers rise and in spate....and the best of all, White Water Rafting in the best location of south India begins!!, the bad is well..it rains..and rains and rains..and guess what..it rains some more!!!!

For us preparing for rain means, well, buttoning the hatches!! Get protective covers for all the roofs, make sure everything is waterproof and well covered, generator rooms, kitchen, et. al is revisited in preparation of the anticipated rains

Bethel has been shutdown from the 1st of June, we will be back on the 19th of this month with Hema and family joining us..

All about reviews..

2009-06-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Just as we got the folks who don’t like us, we also have folks who enjoyed being with us, here are some of the new reviews we got.

Satish, from Chennai, was with us in April. He came with his wife and daughter, here is his review in HolidayIQ
http://www.holidayiq.com/Coorg-hotel-reviews-Bethel-Home-Stay-9611-14263-It-was-my-first-experience.html

The we had Ram from Hyderabad who, came with his wife Shoba and 3 year old son, you can read his review here
http://www.raahi.com/hotel-reviews/the-bethel-home-stay-coorg/great-place-to-unwindfantastic-host-22527.html#rev

Here are a couple of photographs from Ram and family,

You can see the complete set of photographs from their trip here
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AYuGTVs0YuGLCOA

Finally we had Prasad, Prasad was our very first webby’s ..i.e. Our first ever guests who came to Bethel by finding our website!!!
he was with us, exactly a year later, he review is here
http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g503697-d1028241-Reviews-Bethel_Home_Stay-Kodagu_Karnataka.html

What do u do with old tyres ? You retrade them :-)

2009-06-09T22:02:00.000-07:00

What to you do with old tyres ? Well, you, ahem, "retrade" (re-thread) them :-)

We found them — Folks who dont like us!!!!

2009-06-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

A big risk you take when you decide to choose a theme for any place, is, well, there are always folks may not like your theme!! We have been very lucky that most of the folks who have come to Bethel have liked our place.

Finally, we had folks, who totally dislike us :-) -- and to be honest we are perfectly fine with it. I have stated this before and I would reiterate it. We do not have any presumption of having a perfect place or perfect processes -- We are thorough professionals and will try to do our very best.

Bethel is an intensely personal creation, we did not do a market survey when we decided how Bethel should be, we made it as a place where we would want to go and what would really represent Coorg, Wild, Close to Nature and at the same time keeping the place clean and hygienic with the additional comfort of good homely food.

Hemant and family had joined us on the May 8th weekend -- and he totally disliked Bethel, he has give us a review in HolidayIQ, you can read it here. They had booked for two days, but decided to leave after the first day -- completely unhappy with the Bamboo cottage that they were allotted, we had to turn down their request for the Swiss cottages because we already had bookings for them.

Folks liking and not liking us is a part and parcel of this industry, we have a standard policy, if folks don't like us and want to leave early we will refund any extra amount that they have paid and even help them in finding another place if needed -- but we will not be re-designing Bethel in the near future -- unless of course we get bored of it :-)

Anyway you can read all the good and bad about Bethel here..

http://www.holidayiq.com/resortinfo_review.php?Resid=9611

http://www.raahi.com/hotel-reviews/hotels-in-coorg/the-bethel-home-stay.html

http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g503697-d1028241-Reviews-Bethel_Home_Stay-Kodagu_Karnataka.html

Old ..err ..Young man Rakesh had a farm…

2009-04-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

On the April 26th weekend we had Narsi, his family and friends joining us. They were three families in all, Narsi, his wife Radhika and daughter Anjali. Surya with his wife Srilakshmi and sons, Suhas and Sharat, and finally Kalyan and Madhuri
They were referred to Bethel by Manjunath who was here with us during white water rafting time last year.(Read about them here). They were with us till the 28th morning.

One of the things that they did was have a full throated full hour parody of the children's song, "Old MacDonald Farm" with Rakesh as "old MacDonald" :-D

"Old man..er Young man Rakesh had a farm, e i e i o..
and on his farm he had some tents, e i e i o..
With a tent tent here and tent tent there
here a tent, there a tent
everywhere a tent tent

Old man Rakesh had a farm e i e i o
and on his farm he had a stream....
....
...."

And to think, Rakesh was blushing a month ago from Sheela's review, well, what I can say, everyone has their "handsomes" and "old mcdonalds"... err.. I mean ups and downs :-)

My website woes..

2009-04-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Manashosting, the service provider who hosts our Bethel Estate website, is really beginning to get on my nerves!!
I got a call and mail from them saying that there is pending payment due to them again and that I have till 28th to pay up or the site services would be "suspended"!! All this, after I get acknowledgments and invoices which show that the payment has been made extending the domain ownership for 3 more years!!
This time I am not going to take any chances, I have already got our other site (http://www.bethelhomestays.com) upto date and I am going to start using that domain for future transactions. It is a Google Apps domain, and has a lot of restrictions on what I can do, but at least I don't have to worry about such distractions.
Slowly, I will start transitioning all the references to www.bethelestate.com to www.bethelhomestays.com.

This is a painful and mind numbing task :(

Bethel on the web

2009-04-25T02:07:00.000-07:00

At Bethel, we have a darn good team. In terms of service quality we are the best in Coorg where homestays are concerned. Today one of the biggest problems we face are ones that are nice to have..we are more often than not completely full and very often direct folks to other homestays.

A year ago, the story was completely different. We were struggling, we never really ran empty but every full weekend was a bonus and generous discounts would leave us with nothing, but we were still happy that the show was going on!!! We had only one sales channel, old guests who had known Rakesh or our friends / family who wanted to come to Coorg.

The only advertisement we had was the word of mouth from our guests.

Then we moved to the Web, we made our website http://www.bethelestate.com, started listing ourselves in HolidayIQ and any and every travel site that we could find and who would list us :-). In the beginning it seemed like a big waste of time and money, a month or so passed and we never got any inquiry from the web. Then we got a call from Priyanka, that was the first drop, the drop turned to a trickle and the trickle now is a full stream (can't call it a flood just yet). Today almost 60 % of our guests are new and coming from the web!!

We spend quite some time on our online real estate, we have Google analytics enabled to see how we are faring over time, Google webmaster tools to analyze our website content to see how we stand in Google rankings and now for the first time we have put out an paid listing in Raahi!!! (We get listed as popular properties in their website bed and breakfast section) and soon we will start with Google AdWords (and maybe even Google AdSense, have to decide on that yet)

We realize we turn up in quite a few unexpected places!! for example, about.com has an article titled "8 Romantic India Getaways" , which lists the "rustic jungle cottages of Bethel Estate" as one the places that people can visit in Coorg. Now, how on earth did we get in that article!!! (Well, we don't mind it at all :-) )

The same way, few of our guests have blogged about us or have uploaded pics, here are a few links in the web that point back at Bethel..

http://www.arvinsharma.com/nggallery/post/weekend-at-coorg/

http://www.yeeeeee.com/2009/04/16/my-beautiful-trip-to-india-30-pics/

http://koide9.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-travel.html

Postponements and Anniversaries..

2009-04-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

Last week we had Ruby and Satya joining us, we found that the visit was not just a simple outing.. It was also their Wedding Anniversary!! The did something that very few folks seem to being doing now, they took out time for themselves away from all the hustle bustle of their daily life.

On behalf of the entire Bethel team, Wish you a very happy anniversary!!

How's this for detail...?

2009-04-12T06:01:00.001-07:00

IMG_1671_new.JPG
Originally uploaded by moinakg2002

One of the photographs taken by Moinak in Bethel homestay
Posted from Flickr

Our Cottage @ Bethel

2009-04-12T05:55:00.001-07:00

Our Cottage @ Bethel
Originally uploaded by moinakg2002

One of the photographs taken by Moinak in Bethel homestay. Posting directly from Flickr

Moinak..

2009-04-12T04:38:00.000-07:00

One of the best aspects of our work is the people we meet,we have crossed paths with several very interesting people. More often that not, folks we meet have very little online presence.

Moinak seems to have both. He is a self-styled geek who makes his own OpenSolaris distro (belenix) and has a regular blog. He sent us the links to the photographs he took on his trip to Coorg and from that he seems to be a pretty good photographer too!!

Moinak was with us on the 7th of March, with his wife, Rima, mother, his father-in-law, Mr Bose and daughter Titli. They were all nature enthusiasts. The 72 year old Mr Bose also managed to do our sunset trek!!

The links to the complete set of photographs are here and here. They include some very good animal photos and some great macro shots..

Good Friday..

2009-04-12T04:37:00.000-07:00

This Good Friday weekend we had quite a bit of surprises..but first the folks who were there,
We had Rahul and his wife Aarti joining us.
We had Mishna and Sumodh joining us.
We had Leena, Nitin and thier son Kaustab, they are Girija's neighbours and were sent by her. Girija was here last year with her husband, Vidya and daughter Sneha, more about them here
and finally we had Krishna, Karthik and team visiting us

Babu and Mandeep

2009-04-12T04:10:00.001-07:00

We had Babu and team visiting us on the April 3rd weekend.
They seemed to be on a wild life getaway, they traveled to Jungle Lodges, K gudi, stopped over at our place and then into Kerala

We also had Mandeep and team visiting us the same weekend.

Cancellations and Confusions

2009-04-12T03:45:00.000-07:00

We had a cancellation on the 27th March weekend, Hema and family was supposed to join us, but had to cancel because of an accident.
We had Abhinav and Tanu joining us on the weekend to much confusion (see previous post).
We also had Neelakshi and Archi who joined us with their two daughters and their maid, Manju.
Ganesh who was supposed to be with us till the 26th, extended his stay till the 27th.
We also had Raghu and his wife joining us on the weekend.

Abhinav has reviewed us at HolidayIq, you can see it here, and here are Neelakshi's reviews

Thanks a lot for the reviews, it means a lot to us.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate ..

2009-04-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

"If I were to boil down a recommendation for creating cultural competitive advantage, it would be communicate, communicate, communicate!!" -- From the book "What I learned from Sam Walton" by Micheal Bergdahl.

Sam Walton (1918 - 1992), for the folks who are not aware, was the founder of the american retail giant, Wal-Mart.

In our line of work, the importance of those three words, cannot be overemphasized. We run an off-beat homestay, in an offbeat location, compete against 166 other homestays (according to HolidayIQ, that is the number of homestays in Coorg as on date) at all possible price points. Communication is our lifeline. To that effect we throw quite a lot of resources into it, we have a website, www.bethelestate.com, this year I'll add www.bethelhomestays.com (which is work in progress now) to it. We have 5 telephone numbers where we can be reached, we are listed in a number of sites, we have two blogs, our photographs go into a number of online sites..all of this online real estate, just to make sure we reach out to folks

Then, We have a well defined process that we follow with our guests, it starts from the time we make first contact on phone/email and ends with the final email thanking our guests and requesting their feedback. With that last email we 'close the circle' on our execution. Thereafter we try to put blog posts and photographs so that we can have a more permanent connection with our guests and the time they had with us.

Most of the times, things move like clock work, some time system gets stressed, some times it breaks.
In case of Vinod, who we sent to Nelgi, on the 21st of March, it caused him an extra hour's travel. Vinod, a thousand apologies from Bethel team...:-\.

On the 21st March weekend, we were running completely full, so we sent Vinod to Nelgi homestay. On that weekend we had Abhinav Sharma, who was joining us, we also had Abhinava Bhatnagar who was an old guest planning to come again, but who had not confirmed the dates.

I made the mistake of saving Vinod's cell number as Abhinav's and send the same to Rakesh.

On the week end, we have Abhinav who tells me he is in Srirengapatnam and 'Abhinav' who tells Rakesh that he is in Hunsur!!! Suddenly our well oiled system has broken down completely and its panic all the way!! The first thought we had was that Abhinav Bhatnagar is joining us, we immediately started to act, I would find who/where is Abhinav Sharma and who/where is Abhinava Bhatnagar, meanwhile Rakesh would get a spare room ready. After some frantic calls, I was able to confirm, Abhinava Sharma was in Srirengapatnam. So we decided to focus on the other 'Abhinav', the other 'Abhinav' was guided to reach Kutta town where we would pick him up. In all of this we never for a moment suspected that the person whom we were referring to in our conversation as 'Abhinav' was Vinod!!! Surprisingly Vinod never corrected us whenever we referred to him as 'Abhinav' in all our conversations!!

Finally at Kutta the air was cleared, all this confusion meant that Vinod has to drive an extra hour and half to reach Nelgi where he was going.

All that was needed was, "We are expecting Abhinava Sharma today. Are you Abhinav Sharma? " one question to Vinod and all of this could have been avoided. When in doubt, ask!, Talk, Communicate...

"Communicate, Communicate, Communicate..." -- Sam was right, whether its associates or employees, guests or customers, not getting your communication right, is a recipe for disaster.

Rajshekar and Jeevan

2009-03-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

This week we have Rajshekar and family and Jeavan and family who are joining us. Rajshekar arrived yesterday and Jeewan is going to be with us today. Jeewan is driving all the way from Chittor....

This is again going to be a very long stretch for us, We have Ganesh and his family who is going to be with us over the week, leaving on 26th.

It is particularly satisfying to have Ganesh with us, the first ever blog post that I made about a team visiting us was about Ganesh!! Check it out here, I will miss not being with Manas and Bhavana this time :-(

Welcome to Bethel home stay folks!!

Manu and friends

2009-03-16T01:35:00.000-07:00

After the long extended weekend, we were lightly loaded for this week, which was a big relief for us. We had Manu,his wife Richa and the their friends Sanjay and Rakesh who joined us for the weekend.
Bethel home stay was referred to them by Murari who was with us last month.

Extended week..

2009-03-08T22:51:00.000-07:00

This time we are having a really long extended weekend, we are occupied from the 4th to the 12th of March.

Here are the folks who are there…

We had Dilip, Mala and their children Suraj and Swathi along with Emil and his wife Leno on the 4th and 5th of March. The left on 6th morning.

We had Vinay, Sowmya and their one year old daughter joining us on the 6th. The were with us on 6th and the 7th. They left on 8th morning. btw, It was Sowmya’s birthday over the weekend. Sowmya, hope you had a memorable weekend. Many wishes from the Bethel team..

We have Moinak and his family, who are going to be with us from the 7th till the 9th of March.

We have Jack and his family who are going to be with us from the 8th till the 10th of March.

We have Roopesh who will be joining us on the 9th of March

And finally Dr Tejas, who is an old regular guest of ours, is going to be with us from the 10th to the 12th of March.

Problems..

2009-03-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Some problems are nice to have while others, well, are just problems.

We seem to having enough of both kinds now.

The nice stuff first….

We are running full from the 4th of March to the 12th — 9 straight days. So why is that a problem ? Well, When you walk into a hotel, have you ever wondered what all happens behind all those clean sheets and spic and span rooms? Do you really believe that you were the first ever person to occupy those rooms? Well ?

Here is what happens at Bethel,

We have an inventory of over 10 times the number of beds for bed covers and almost a similar ratio for pillow covers and towels, the moment one guest leaves, we clean all the rooms, ground up, starting from the bathrooms, everything is disinfected, all complimentary stocks, i.e. Soap, shampoos, toothpaste etc. are disposed off. New stock is put in place, hand wash bottles are replenished and most importantly everything is made dry. Next we move to the bedrooms, remove all covers - bed sheets, pillow covers, towels, hand towels, blankets..et all.., dust the furniture, move it out, disinfect the floors, move the furniture back in place, put all new covers in — it is an elaborate ritual, that is meticulously followed when any guest leaves. The bed sheets, covers etc are hand washed, dried and put back in the storeroom.

We are a small homestay, all of this takes time and effort, and our staff is limited. Most folks double up doing different duties. Almost everybody does everything….and that everybody includes Rakesh, Arun and I. Normally, we are full on weekends and have few guests during week days and while the world goes back to work, we, take a break.

Nine-Ten continuous days of a full house takes a big toll on our systems, at the end of it, our staff is plain crabby, our inventories severely depleted and everybody is just longing for a break!!

We work, stretch to our maximum and make sure all our guests are happy — this is a nice problem to have, this is what we are here for, in spite of everything, we would rather have this problem than not.

Other things are, well, Just problems…

Our website http://www.bethelestate.com has been down for 3 days now!! Now, this is a problem I can do without!!. Going to the site, it says that the domain name has expired on 4th March!!! It was really embarrassing, Moinak, who is our guest this weekend, pointed it out to Rakesh. Apparently in the case of Manashosting, the folks who are hosting our site, what one hand does the other doesn’t know!!. The site has been renewed for three years and the amount paid..but that information has not flowed down the technical department or whoever is supposed to ensure that the site keeps running!!! I have had two SOS chats with Manashosting, and tomorrow the site should be up permanently.. (I hope).I really don’t know how all this is going to effect our ranking in search engines and how many customers I have lost because of this :-(

The Mumbaikars..

2009-03-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

Most of the crowd that comes to Coorg is from Bangalore, Chennai ranks next, but on this Valentine’s day we had Sheela and gang from Mumbai. They are a group of eight, but only five, Sheela, Norma, Sambhav, Haseeb and Brandon, made it to Coorg.

They reached Srimangala by around 2 in the afternoon and were received by Arun, who took got them via the Tata Tea estate. By the time they arrived we had the food ready and waiting for them. They rested till 4-5 in the evening and then went on our short trek to see the sunset. They were joined by, Manju and Murari, the other guests who were with us on that weekend.

Everyone was able to the mild trek comfortably, everyone except Sambhav, that is. Sambhav needed the classic trekker guide encouragement method, every time he would ask how much more to go, Rakesh who was their guide would say “Just two more minutes to go”. Two more minutes, two more minutes, two more minutes ….till finally the exasperated Sambhav burst out that this two minutes were just never ending :-) . To his credit, he did make it to the top.

The campfires were lit and ready when they returned from the trek. They had dinner and partied late into the night.

The next day morning they went down to the stream, and left after lunch to Bangalore via Dubare and Kushal Nagar.

Every now and then a group comes in that is fun loving and jovial — this was one such group, constantly ribbing each other, friendly, it is a pleasure to have them around and very hard to not join the fun. Rakesh got himself a title of “Mr. Bhuddiman” from Sheela and Norma, whose full name “Norma Mendonza”, Rakesh decided was too complicated to pronounce, became “Normal Samosa”

It was nice to have them around. Thanks for coming guys!!

Here are of the photographs of their Coorg trip, including Dubare and Kushal Nagar.

Inside the Golden temple, Kushal Nagar

Iruppu falls, a distant view

Lined up in front of the bamboo cottage, Bethel home stay

Nagarhole jungle, Coorg

At Iruppu falls

At the hanging bridge on the way to Iruppu falls

Coffee, laid out for drying

Coffee plants

Elephants at Dubare elephant camp

Following Rakesh in blue-t for the-trek

Busy week

2009-03-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

We had a busy week.

We had Nirmal joining us with his wife Pearly along with Vittal Gavasker and his wife Uma on the 24th.

Then on the 28th weekend, we had Shireen and team, who were sent to us by Jiten, who was with us last year in December (more about Jiten’s stay here) and also Vijesh and team.

More about them later..

Second Review for the year..

2009-02-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

When I got Ashwin’s mail a few days ago, I was preparing to make this post. We have registered our homestay in a few travel websites – HolidayIQ, Raahi and TripAdvisor, to name a few, where our guests can rate us and give feedback. By far, HolidayIQ has been the best and the worst of all Travel sites where we have registered.

HolidayIQ has driven quite a significant number of guest to us, it has a good listing of home stays in Coorg and gives you quite a decent set of options to sort among them.. (By rating, popularity, price etc.) — However it also has a very opaque system of accepting ratings and a very non-responsive help desk. A lot of our guests have told us that they given feedback on HolidayIQ and those never show up on the site, email to their help desk has never gotten us a response till date. So now, more often than not we are directing our guests to Raahi and other websites

Sheela who was with us last week has given us our second review for the year, it had Rakesh blushing :-) , you can find out why, by reading the review here..

Btw, we are pretty much the top-rated wherever we are listed. Check out our reviews in the different travel sites..

http://www.holidayiq.com/resortinfo_review.php?Resid=9611

http://www.raahi.com/hotel-reviews/hotels-in-coorg/the-bethel-home-stay.html

http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g503697-d1028241-Reviews-Bethel_Home_Stay-Kodagu_Karnataka.html

Added a new theme..

2009-02-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a while since I updated our website. So today, I decided to do some tweaking that is required for better search by Google, and also made a new ‘Simply Blue’ theme.

Check out the new theme here

When I had first designed the website, I decided that it needs to have a mechanism to change they layout and colors without having to re-design the whole web site, the inspiration for this idea was the CSS Zen Garden website. So every now and then I go and create new theme — Well, my themes are pretty amateurish compared to the CSS Zen Garden contributions, but then, Hey, I bet that none of them can run a home stay the way we do :-)

In case you want to know how to see our website in different themes, on the bottom of the Side bar we have heading called ‘Meta’, you can see the image below, it has a drop down that lists the different themes we have for our website, select a theme from the list and voila the website changes colors…

We even have crazy, completely unrelated bike theme that I just couldn’t resist putting in there :-) Well. It’s my site after all.

Hope you like our themes.

Six months late and Just in time

2009-02-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Today morning I was just updating our website and getting ready to make a post when I got a pleasant surprise, Ashwin, who was with us in Bethel in September last year, mailed us the photographs he had taken then. (The old post about them here)

Ashwin was here with a big team, 18 folks in all, in the rafting season. Here are the photographs..and to think, Just last week I was worrying that we did not have any guest photographs in a long time… Like I said Ashwin’s mail was Six Months Late and Just In Time — thanks Ashwin.

Posing for the Camera

Rafting is not a guy thing

Paddling away, begining of the action

Pow-Wow before the Big Bang Rapid

Just before the Big Bang

This is what its all about, the moment of truth

Relief..at coming out

With Arun

With Rakesh

Jiten…

2009-02-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest problems of going to an off beat location is knowing what to expect, inspite of all the reviews and information you can garner of the web..the real deal can be very intimidating. Consider a place like Coorg, the only big town/city is the district capital ‘Madikeri’ ..the rest of the entire district has a handfull of tiny towns and scatterred hamlets in between vast stretches of plantations and completely deserted roads — not a human in sight for miles.. Eight and the whole district literally shuts down, Add that to a very unreliable cell phone network.. and the effect can be a very very scary experience.

In short this was Jiten’s initial experience at Coorg..

On our side, We were very anxiously waiting for them..it had been month since we had any guests …it was the longest break we had ever taken.

Jiten was with us on the December 8th weekend.. he had found us out in HolidayIQ and called us based on the reviews our guests had given us. As usual the moment he started off from Bangalore we got in touch with him and managed to guide them all the way to Coorg, this was very imperative because the driver of the Cab he was using was not familiar with Coorg

Jiten’s arrival was a very odd time..and in his particular case also a very ‘odd’ date.

The day he arrived in Coorg was the day of the Kodava harvest festival, called Huteri.

We had guided the cab driver to from the town of Gonikoppal to T-Shettigeri town where Rakesh was to meet them, we asked the driver
to proceed towards Srimangala and started off from the homestay to receive them… However we got stuck in the Huteri procession…
Meanwhile Jiten already reached the town and was waiting. Huteri is a major festival in Coorg, liquor flows freely and celebrations go on for
a long time, it was not very difficult to notice that most of the folks around were in a very inebirated condition. He immediately asked the driver
to turn around and take the cab back to Gonikoppal, by the time Rakesh reached T-Shettigeri they were well on the way back…we again contacted him, co-ordinated and finally received them

Meanwhile at the homestay the camp fire and dinner was kept ready and we were anxiously waiting, completely unaware of the happenings in Town. By the time they arrived to the homestay the camp fire was almost out.. Jiten and folks, tired from the long journey could just manage to have dinner and crash for the night…

The next day morning we went on a very leisurely trek, followed by a heavy breakfast. Arun took them to the Tea Estate and the famous Iruppu falls. They also went to our stream in the valley below, it is now a gentle brook rather than the fiesty river it becomes during monsoons…

They left very early the next day as they had to reach Bangalore to catch flight.

Jiten and team were our first guests after the renovation break.. we were so anxious to have them, we were sure that any longer and we would
forget how to be hospitable to guests!!

Glad to have you guys, thanks for coming.

Valentine’s Day Weekend..

2009-02-12T00:47:00.000-08:00

It’s the Valentine’s day weekend..and we have Abhinava and Shilpa, newly weds, who reached here on the 12th. Then we have Sheela and team who came in today and Murari and team who will be joining us tomorrow over the weekend..

Like us, Abhinava is another Bullet affectionado, he and Shilpa drove all the way to Coorg on the ‘Bull’, I hope he has taken some good photographs..it has been sometime since we have got any guest photo’s in this blog..

First Review of the year…

2009-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

Satyajit who was with us last week has given us the first review of this year… and a 6.76 / 7 at that. Now that is a good start for the year :-) . You can check out the review here

Another month has started.

2009-02-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Another month in the new year..before I talk about the folks coming in, let me first do a catch up of the times passed.

I haven’t updated about the folks from new year..this is going to be one long list..

So here goes..
We had sent Prashant and his team to Manu Estate for the New Year..
At the same time we had Lionel and his team with us…And Chetana and family

Then we had Ahit, who was sent by Sonia who was our earlier guest, Ahit and his family stayed at Nelgi — this was the time of the Truckers strike..and they barely made it.
This was very bad time for us, with all transportation virtually coming to a standstill we have a lot of cancellations/postponements. Ahit was the only guest in that actually made it to Coorg!!

Well January 26th weekend we back to the problem of too many guests…
We placed Satish in a new place that we have added to our roster.. incidently run by another Satish :-)
We had Lokesh and team, We had Kritika and family and we also had Krishna and family visiting us
We placed Srinivas at Manu Estate.. and Uday and family at Ammathi
From 26th of January we also Satyajit and team who stayed with us till the 28th.
The on the 31st of January, we had Aditya and team, one team that completed the first 12 hour trek of the year.. Congratulations guys!!!

Back after a long break…

2009-01-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Due to personal and unforseen reasons..I have been out the whole of the New Year .. Well… A very delayed New Year wishes to all the readers of this blog.. While I have been away, Bethel has been busy.. We have been sending folks to other homestays ..making a lot of folks happy and .. in general having fun.

And before I forget taking “Not Having Fun”..because of the Truck and Fuel strike that was on in the first weeks of January — that was bad for us. They were hardly any vehicles available for hire, movement of people virtually stopped. January 26th was long weekend we were busy and basically back to normal.

Ill be back blogging more on who all were here and what we did and photographs starting 1st of Feb, that is when I’m really back..

We also putting out a new website .. http://www.bethelhomestays.com, it is very very much a work in progress, the plan being to put together all the different homestays that we recommend so that folks can see all the option in one single website… ..More when I post next…

Finally guests!!

2008-12-17T02:20:00.000-08:00

Finally after a real long break we had guests again at Bethel this past weekend. We are not as ready as we would have wanted to be ..one tent is still not up and work on one hasn't even started but then we decided to go ahead.

This weekend we had Jiten and team and Lokpal and team joining us -- we had been out because of renovation for so long that we were really really glad to see some new faces at home stay!!

More about them and about the time had with us later... right now I'll leave with a few more photographs of Bethel 2.0 vs 1.0

The "Sridhara" cottage, the first one to be seen when you enter Bethel

Inside the cottage

Inside the cottage

And now the 1.0 cottage :-) i.e. before the renovation..
The "Sridhara" cottage before renovation

As I mentioned before, these were good, very good, but tiles tend to look better in photographs!!!..That's just how it is!

The final stretch..

2008-12-09T04:52:00.000-08:00

Well we are into the final stretch… this weekend we have Jiten coming and also Lokpal and his team, so everything that needs to be done..must be done by this Friday without exception.

With these changes we hope Bethel will literally be Bethel 2.0 :-) !!

Here is how Bethel 2.0 is going to look…

The "Chandranna" Cottage

Inside the "Chandranna" cottage

Inside the "Chandranna" cottage

In case you wanted to compare it to the 1.0 version of it..well here it is..

The "Chandranna" Cottage, 1.0

All of a sudden the 1.0 version starts to look..well ..bad.. which it really wasn’t — it was one of the most sought after cottages of the excellent view and sit-out options!!

Well what else is new..well.. we have a decent sized kitchen garden, the watch tower ladders now have railings..

Railings leading to the Watch tower

What else..Nagarhole still looks spectacular..

The Bisons still abound..

and the usual sights…

And some not so usual ones..

Well its happening.. Work for Bethel at Madikeri has started!! The road laying is done.. and very soon we will have Bethel running at two locations..Covering both North and South of Coorg!

We like to laugh at ourselves ..:-)

2008-11-27T02:36:00.000-08:00

Why did the mallu chicken cross the road?

.. To get to the "Fowltary form" ofcourse!!

Still renovating..

2008-11-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

Well the renovation work is still going on...hopefully we should be done this week and then back to business with the New and Improved Bethel 2.0 :-). Here is what is happening..

The tent opened out inside the framework..

A new ranch in front of our first tent

We also traveled quite a bit, trying to identify new places where we can send guests, here are some photographs of Bopanna's place in Ammathi, that we were kind of hoping to get ready and use.. This like Manu estate has a traditional homestay ambience with the hosts living near by in the middle of huge estates..

Here are some photos of the place...

A classic British styled house..

The Cauvery in Ammathi..

Another view of the Cauvery in Ammathi

Funny bones…

2008-11-14T03:10:00.000-08:00

This blog has always been about guests…and what they do and what we do..and so on.. but in reality when you are out there traveling, there are really a lot of things around you that are interesting or down right funny, you just need to keep your eyes open and well intake the scenary around…

English in Rural India can be real real real fun.. Here are some contributions from Coorg to tickle that funny bone of yours, all I can say is English is really a “phoren” language in here..

Sign outside a hotel in Madikeri…. “Reciption“

Manu Estate

2008-11-14T03:01:00.000-08:00

Most of the folks who have been following our posts must have heard of Nelgi, Nelgi homestay is run by Rajesh, it was the only place where we would send guests when we were full or when guests wanted to visit the Northern side of Coorg. Now we have another place called Manu Estate, run by, well, Manu, that we have started to recommend. This homestay has been there for long and Manu is an excellant host.

Though Coorg has a lot of homestays, the quality of service varies from completely outrageous to very good. For anyone coming to Coorg, first do research and only then decide where you want to go, Personally I would recommend that you always come to us :-) :-)

Anyway, here are some of the snaps of Manu estate, it is located in South Coorg, in the town of Kutta, Now this is one of the option that Bethel will provide for our guests.

The homestay..

Another view of the new homestay..

The dining..

The bedrooms..

The old traditional house..

The trek path in the estate

Another long quiet period..

2008-11-14T00:29:00.000-08:00

From October 28th ..its been all quiet online here but not so on the ground..
We have the Vahanwaalas and the D'Cunha's who had come on the 26th and the 28th respectively, Navin D'cunha even gave us a review in HolidayIQ, you can read it here. He also had lot of suggestions for us..

And since then Bethel has been closed (again)..for renovation, so whats happenning. Well have a look..this is before we started the renovation work..

and now all exposed..

We are replacing the roofing of two of our tents and replacing them with Tiles..All the tents have been taken down and are being cleaned, A new kitchen garden is being put in place...And the most significant change...if things go well ... Bethel is going to start in a few other places in Coorg!!!!

Deepthi and team

2008-10-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

Deepthi, Vasavi, Anil and Kalyan joined us on the October 23rd and 24th, they took the Bamboo cottage.

They had a long long long travel to reach us but they managed to enjoy the stay, Deepthi even gave us a review at HolidayIQ, check it out here

I'll put out a write up on their trip soon..

Family time..

2008-10-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend was family time...we had Namrata who was with us, the entire team numbered 17 and had 7 children in the group ..
The arrived at 3.30 AM at Gonikoppal by Bus where they were received by Rakesh, the were with us till the afternoon of the 19th..

As usual photographs as I receive them..

Review

2008-10-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

Sathya who was with us on the October 2nd weekend has give us a review in HolidayIQ,
Check it out here

Sathya's photographs..

2008-10-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

Sathya and his team was with us on the October 2nd weekend, here are some of the photographs from his visit

Here they are from left to right:
Shaju Thomas, Akula, Ramana, Hema, Radhika, Sowmya, Sharon, Shamira, Sujitha, Suresh, Sathya, Uday, Anand, Karunkaran, Charan and Roshan

Well, thats one way to get people to listen to you... :-)

Rafters all..

Few on the machan..

Fun on the trek.

Reached the top..

By this fire, I do solemnly swear that... :-)

Feedback and Shutdown..

2008-10-13T02:12:00.000-07:00

We got feedback from Vani who was with us on the 30th of September and Sonia who was with us from the 7th of October, here is what they had to say,

"1. Coffee needs to be stronger - we found coffee all over Coorg much better than the one at Bethel.
2. The food is delicious and has lots of options for curries. For dinner we had 5-6 curries! But maybe you could chop off two of the curries and add a sweet dish instead - sort of makes the meal complete and people with a sweet tooth would be very happy! A simple Fruit salad would also suffice.
3. You could make "Star Gazing" an activity (like your treks). If you had a "Star Gazing Point" and a more powerful telescope, the guests would be thrilled to see the craters on the moon/ Jupiter's moons/etc. Open up the world from them, since most of us from the cities can hardly see more than 4-5 stars in the sky!

Everything else is perfect. Special Thanks to Rakesh and Arun for their hospitality" -- Vani

Vani thanks for your suggestions and thanks for coming.

Sonia mentioned she had great time in Bethel but that she would have like that the Tents were more dryer, she was not comfortable with tents having moulds... -- to us, this is not acceptable, Coorg has intensive rainfall, fungi formation is very common, but we had taken precautions against it, all the tents had been sprayed with an anti-fungal film -- it just means that we have been neglecting our maintainance activities.

Sonia thanks for your feedback, out in the open we expect our guests to commune with nature, but inside our cottages, the entire living space has to be spotless and hygenic, this is something we do not compromise on.

We have decided to shutdown Bethel for this week and will not be taking any guests till we complete our maintainance activities

Back after a long break..

2008-10-08T22:36:00.000-07:00

My last post was in September... that is one long gap... While we were inactive online..we were extremely busy on the ground ..so lets see who all had made it to Bethel and in this period....

We had a team of doctors numbering 8 booked by Mamata who came in on the 26th of September,

We had Sharat and his team numbering 5 on the same weekend

We had Pavan and his team numbering 4 who stayed at Nelgi, he was there from the 27th of September to the 29th

We had Vani who had dropped in with her husband and two kids on the 30th of September

We had Subash who had joined us for a day on the 1st of October, he had come specifically to raft

We had Satya and his team numbering 18 who were with us from 2nd of October to the 4th

We had Meera and her team numbering 8 who we accommodated in Manu estate (this is a new place near Kutta that we have started to front for, like we do for Nelgi)

We had Mr Lava's guests (Mr Lava is our neighbour) numbering 11 who had dropped in on the 4th of October

We had Santosh and his team numbering 5 who stayed in Nelgi and with us in Bethel for a day from 4th of October to the 7th

We had Mr Srinivas and his team of 15 going to Nelgi.

We then had Praveen and his family numbering 6 who were with us from 6th of October to the 8th

We had Sonia who joined us on the 7th of October and right now with us..

Phew ..that is one loooooong list..and we are like this till the 12th of this month..after which we will take a break...

As usual I'll put writeup and photographs as I get my hands on them

Full house

2008-09-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

We had Ashwin and his team over for the weekend, they were supposed to be 24 but only 18 finally managed to make it. They had arrived on the 19th of September and were received in Srimanagla by Rakesh and Arun. All of them made to rafting and also to Iruppu falls

As usual photos when I receive them

Review

2008-09-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

Forgot to mention last week, Sanjay had given us a review at Raahi.com, you can read it here

Sanjay's photographs

2008-09-13T22:47:00.001-07:00

Sanjay was one of the first ever guests to come to Bethel, this year, he was here on the 12th of July, he sent us some of the photographs that he had taken when he was here

View from Bethel home stay

Inside the rapids

The final lift

Full house

2008-09-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

September 6th was a full house for us, we had Sudhir and his team numbering 22 who had joined us.

They came in a mini-bus through the Nagarhole forest to Srimangala where we received them. We left the bus in Srimangala and them transported to the homestay in Jeeps. It was already late in the afternoon and they were thoroughly famished. As usual we had called upfront and the just as the guests entered the homestay, hot food was laid out and ready for the guests and they dug into it.

This is the fag end of the Rafting season, a good rain and the water levels go up, a dry spell and the water levels go down. We had seen that the waters were good on Saturday, so Rakesh suggested that everyone do the rafting immediately rather than waiting for the next day. So soon after lunch the teams left for the 3.30 PM rafting session.

The rafting session was among the best we had for a long time, of the 22 guests, Aravind had to opt out of rafting because of medical reasons, the rest took to the water. All the four rafts hit the water, the guides Ashok, Mahendra and Muhammad took our guests, while the fourth was taken by a new guide, Andrea, who has joined the team. Prakash and Alok who are the organizers of the Rafting also joined in. One of us almost always are with our guests when they raft, this time Rakesh decided to watch from the sidelines and do some photography instead.

The rafting itself was very eventful, the most promising group of rafters were with Ashok, they were paddling well, however when they actually hit the water, their raft flipped at the Wicked Witch ...and the rafters had to be rescued by the other rafts.. -- Goes to prove, Man may try his best but finally it is the River that Rules. It was perhaps one of the longest sessions of rafting we did this season and it was past 6 by the time everyone got back to the homestay.

Dinner followed and some of the folks carried on partying till late in the night, while others tired from the journey and the rafting session hit the sack. Sudhir for one had body ache from all the exhertion and was unable to sleep! The teams plan was they would all be up and join for the trek at 630 AM in the morning....and we were thinking...hmm a 4 hour journey in a slow bus, 3 hours of rafting.. partying late night.. that means the only way they are getting up at 630 AM is if they are talking of 630 AM GMT not 630 AM IST :-) . To their credit, by 1030 AM they went for trek, the weather was pleasant and I think everyone enjoyed the experience, they returned back for Tea and then left to the stream. The original plan was to spend some time in the stream and then start the return journey with a stop at Iruppu falls, but they enjoyed the stream so much that they decided to stay there for more time and skip Iruppu falls

The team left after lunch and were just in time to take the train home..they forgot a Torch and a Docking station back at the homestay though :|

We were able to meet some very like-minded gentlemen in this group, Daniel, who is a prominent member of the "Madras Bulls" and Kandan, who wanted to make a documentary of treks in the Western Ghats on a back pack and Bull

For the less-informed, the Bull, refers to the Royal Enfield "Bullet" motorcycle, "Madras Bulls" - is the Royal Enfield Motorcycle Club of Chennai

Both Rakesh and I are "Bullet" riders and affectionadoes..and have been planing a trans himalayan trip for some time now... if we are able to take a break from our homestay operations..:-)

Trekkers..

2008-09-13T02:32:00.000-07:00

On the September 6th saturday we had Sandeep and his team (Sandeep, Prithvi, Vinay, Praveen, Sunay and Yogesh) who joined us for rafting, they did not stay with us but we helped organize their rafting session and choose their trekking spot. Sandeep had been to almost all the treks in Coorg and was looking for a new place to trek, so we suggested Chembara peak, which is the highest in Wayanad.

Some of the photos are here as they put it...

Left to Right: Prithvi Vinay Praveen Sunay Yogesh

Sandeep

Iruppu falls

Iruppu falls

Dry run

Stunt show

Into the rapids

Into the rapids

Chembra falls @ its best

View from the Chembara peak

On Cloud Nine...

Perfect view of Heart lake

Soojipura falls in full anger

Team which made it to the peak

Real trekkers sleep in tents

Wine and the newly weds..

2008-09-13T00:44:00.000-07:00

Vasanth and his wife Gomati had joined us on the September the 3rd, they were on their first trip after marriage. They were planning to tour Coorg and Mysore over the week. Arun received them in Mysore, they went through the Nagarhole restricted road on the way to the homestay.

They were with us till the 6th of September, when they left back to Mysore; We had arranged for a place for them to stay in Mysore from where they could do sightseeing in Mysore before returning back home.

They went for the trekking, the spring waters and then they went to Bylakuppe to visit the Golden Monastry.

We also had a good suggestion from Vasant, rather that is a mistake from our side which needs correction.

We always ask our guests about the dietary preferences to come up with our menu and we also enquire if they consume alcholic beverages. We do not stock liquor in our homestay and we always ask our guests to stock up at Kutta or Gonikoppa, the last towns where they can find wine-shops. If our guest do consume alohcolic beverages, we generally offer a complimentary bottle of home-made wine (subject to availability) as a part of the package. -- but this is never ever mentioned in our website..and in fact I realize we never mention it anywhere!!

Vasanth is a "almost" a teetotaller in the sense that he only has tasted wine. When Arun asked him if he consumed alcholic beverages, Vasanth replied 'no' , without realizing that we give home-made wine as a complementary drink....:|. ..Better communication on the package would have helped....

Just for information: Wine making is a cottage industry in Coorg, Wine is made from several things here, Cherry, Gooseberry, Beetroot ..even Betel leaves. Most of wine is just a few months old, has little alcholic content and it is not exactly connoisseur material, but it is different. Do remember to take some back.

Another long week

2008-09-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

This was another long week.

We had Vasanth who was with us with his wife Gomati from the 3rd to the 6th.
Then we had Sandeep who had joined us for rafting on Saturday, and then went to Wayanad to do the Chembara peak, they finally were 6 who joined from the 10 that was planned, they were Sandeep, Prithvi, Vinay, Praveen, Sunay and Yogesh.

The we had Sudhir and his team numbering 23 in all over the weekend.

Finally we also had Nagendra and Shekar with their friends who had joined for dinner on Sunday night. -- they are becoming regulars at our homestay..

As usual photographs when I get them...

Reviews and feedback..

2008-09-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Vishu and Pradeep who were in Bethel on the August 30th weekend have given us their reviews,
Check them out here, from Vishu and this one from Pradeep

Pradeep also had suggestions for us

1. The toilets may need a little extra covering, mainly to keep bugs and other insects that are attracted by the light. The openings can be covered with mosquito mesh to take care of it.

2. Coffee was not strong enough. I was looking forward to some good Coorg coffee but was kinda let down.

Pradeep, Thanks for your suggestions, the second one is really embarrassing :-)..Coorg is literally Coffee country!!

Vishu also mentioned that the Cottages are sparse. ..that is true, we are really spartan in our interiors, our focus has been to cleanliness and ensuring that the basics are perfect; Some creativity can help for sure ..

Vishu, thanks for your suggestions ..We will act on them.

And thanks for the reviews guys, it really matters to us.

One long week

2008-09-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

This was one really long week, first we had Archit and team (numbering 3) who visited us from the 26th of August to the 28th. The we had Sridhar and team (numbering 12) visiting us on the 29th and the we had Pradeep and his team (numbering 6) for the weekend.

All in all last weeks rest was well needed, a lot of folks went rafting, as usual photographs as I get them..

Webshots photo album

2008-08-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

The rainy season in Coorg means, 24 hour cloud cover day after day after day..if you are a rain lover, this is place you have to be. .. but this also means a lot of 'fauna' of Coorg..the 350 odd bird species and all the wild animals are hidden from view, In case you are wondering what all things you can see here..here is a sample...

Coorg Slide Show..

Maintainence shutdown

2008-08-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend (August 23rd) we decided to shutdown Bethel homestay. This is perhaps one of the very few weekends where we have not had guests in Bethel..however we think both the premises and the folks running it needed a break!! So this week we will not be following up with guests, no need to be 100 % focused.. it is a weekend for the staff :)

We will also be repairing/fixing the plumbing and in general prepping up the place. The cottages that are all fine are going to be used by us -- so the whole place is going to be occupied in one way or another..

We also are starting the preparation for the trekking season in Coorg, soon the rains will have stopped and the cold mist of the winter will start to rise. It will become the perfect time to go trekking and we are starting the preparations for the season.

We need to start sourcing/buying trekking equipment, preparing trekking routes, online campaigns etc.., the forests and hills of Coorg are the perfect places to go trekking but we have seen that 'perfect' trek needs a lot of preparation and planning at least on the side of the organizers and thats what we are starting now.

The Travellers...

2008-08-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned before we had a team from Chennai who had come for the August 8th weekend. They were Hari, Vinod, Kesavan, Chandra, Mahesh, Robin and Yogi. These folks were having a slow period at work and were making the most of it by traveling on the weekends to different places. This week it was Coorg and Bethel homestay.

They landed in Mysore on the morning of August 8th, a Friday. They were received by Arun. Arun took them through the Nagarhole forest. This was the week when there was tropical depression over the Indian peninsula, it was raining everywhere...but particularly heavily in Coorg. This is quite normal, a no rain day during the rainy season in Coorg means at least 1 inch of rainfall, a depression means havoc. By the time they reached Bethel, our folks got a good taste of what rain in Coorg means. On the way to the homestay, they decided to visit the Iruppu falls and then reach Bethel in time for Lunch.

Meanwhile in Bethel we were having problems, the other team folks of Ravi sir and his friends wanted to stay over for one more day, but we were full for the weekend between the two Hari's and could not accommodate them, with great reluctance we managed to send them of, it was not a pleasant experience for us, but we needed to do it because all the cottages had been booked in advance and we have to give priority to them!

Our folks landed in time for Lunch and had after that we decided that we will go for a the trek at 3 PM. While some of the folks had done trekking before, for many this was the first time, but inspite of the rain, they all joined in for the trek. Generally trekking in Coorg happens in winter and the dryer months of the year..the big reason for this is Leeches...there are lot of them in the forests of Coorg, these are generally harmless but to many their sight can be pretty unsettling, fortunately for us our trek path has few leeches, but all the folks who joined the trek got leech bites, but they were pretty sporty about it.

The next day they all went for Rafting with Arun, some of the folks were hydrophobes.. but they managed to muster their courage and generally had a great time. They went to Wayanad in the evening, they were not happy with the Wayanad trip. We generally time the Wayanad trip so that they pass through the forest at Dusk, this is the best time for animal sightings, how ever we kind of mistimed it, the Thirunelli temple was closed by the time they reached there.. and so they could not go down to the waterfall or sit and relax there and by the time they reached the forest it was a little too dark..they did manage to see a big herd of Bison though..

They left the next day to Mysore after breakfast as they wanted to spend some time there before they headed back to Chennai..

Unfortunately this time, our service was not as perfect as we would have liked it. At Bethel we focus on basics, clean..no.. Very clean washrooms, clean linen and surroundings and good food. We take particular care to ensure that these things are taken care of, however when Hari and folks came in they had issues with the washrooms, this surprised us because we had never seen these before.. it took us a while to realize what was happening.. the heavy rains in Coorg had saturated the underground water table we now had a Spring coming up from under two of our tents!!! The spring was affecting the draining of the water from the wash rooms, we had to ask the the folks to use the washrooms in other cottages..which were unused. It was a really an embarrassing experience for us :-(..and this also means some major plumbing work for us to ensure that this does not repeat again..

They gave us a reviews at HolidayIQ, check it out here

Thanks for the reviews guys, I hope you really enjoyed the stay..

Here they are, from Left to Right - Bala, Robin (Both in the back), Hari, Vinod, Mahesh, Yogi and Chandra

The Irony of the August 15th Weekend...

2008-08-16T22:29:00.000-07:00

"...
Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face...
" -- Lyrics of Alanis Morissette's - Ironic

That in short is the story of our August 15th weekend...

The August 15th weekend was a long weekend, we had been completely booked almost a month and a half ago!! After that we spent a lot of time taking bookings for Nelgi and all the other places that we could send people to, and after that we spend an equally large amount of time telling people that we could not help them.... and come the weekend...all the places where we sent folks were full...but we ran barely half full...

The previous weekend ...the 'Hari' weekend was the week when we had the tropical cyclone over India.. this had wrecked havoc with the homestay..we realized that we were in a very poor shape to take in people, at least we will not be able to keep the standards of service that we are used to providing...so we had decided that we would cancel all bookings that we had refund the money or optionally offer them another date. We had Saket who we asked to cancel and he obliged, and Rahoul..who insisted that he would come!!!

We were really caught in a piquant situation...here was a guest who wanted to come even after hearing what state we were in.. What do we do!.. After a lot of discussion we decided lets leave it to Rahaoul, we will give him an absolutely clear picture of the state we are in..and thereafter it is his call.. As things turned out, Rahoul said he will come no matter what and so we would have some guests on the long weekend if not a full house.

All these discussion were happening in the seven days between August 7th and August 15th, as the week progressed the rains virtually stopped..and all of a sudden it became a perfect day in Coorg..and we were left with cancellations and empty cottages..while all our other homestays to whom we sent people were running full

"...
Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right
And life has a funny way of helping you out when
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up
In your face...
"
Ironic isn't it ...

Blogging woes..

2008-08-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Blogger took down this blog marking it as a spam blog!! Turns out that the Blogger spam-prevention robots look at the text and if they find a blog that keeps pointing back to the same url or webpage, then it marks it as a spam-blog!!

This blog is very important for the homestay and this kind of down time is unacceptable... so I have created a mirror blog at Wordpress.com and imported all the posts of this blog there. This way I will always have redundancy. Going forward, I will keep making posts to this blog and keep importing them to our Wordpress blog

Check out our blog http://bethelhomestay.wordpress.com

It uses the cool "ChaosTheory" template, I have also created categories to organize my posts.

1. Homestay operations -- Operational journals of the Homestay, How we do things ? Purchasing, Labor problems...

2. Whoz there.. -- Every day we have some one in the homestay, we make a post here to announce it. We try to get names of everyone who have come and post it here. We don't put any kind of identification information..no e-mail id.. no company names etc, mostly just first names and their photographs...

3. Geek Stuff -- Some of the geeky stuff involved with the online real estate of Bethel homestay i.e. Our website, blogs, SEO etc.

Tryst with destiny

2008-08-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell. The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed! We rejoice in that freedom,

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy. And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service. Jai Hind

Jawaharlal Nehru, on the night of August 14th, 1947.
61 years later..still as relevant as it was then.

Rafting pictures..

2008-08-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

Krishna and his team (Raghavendra Aithal, Raghavendra, Krishanaswamy B N, Manoj M N, Saji, Ashwin Srigiri and Girish Babu) were here to raft on the August 2nd weekend. These are the rafting photos taken by him

Here they are with Rakesh, seen left to right,
Raghavendra Aithal, Raghavendra, Krishanaswamy B N, Manoj M N, Rakesh(host), Saji.
Sitting - Ashwin Srigiri, Girish Babu

All their pictures can be seen here

The "Hari" weekend..

2008-08-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had two teams in Bethel, in both of them the contact person for us was Hari!!

One team of 7 from Chennai (Hari, Vinod, Kesavan, Chandra, Mahesh, Robin and Yogi) and another from Bangalore which had 12 numbers)

As usual we had a surprise element too, Rajesh (Nelgi), Sampath had dropped in with a couple of friends of Ravi, in all they were 5 who had decided to raft and stop by for the night in Bethel on Thursday.

Night travelers..

2008-08-06T03:51:00.000-07:00

Manjunath, Patthabhi and folks (our guests for the August 2nd weekend, Manjunath, Pattabhi, Vishwanath, Shailesh, Ravi, Vinay, Sunil and Avdooth ) started off from Bangalore on Friday night, they traveled overnight and were received by Arun at 5.30 AM in the morning.

We always ask our guests to give us a call the moment they start and we normally keep calling every few hours, this way we are able to make sure that folks don't loose their way, and it also helps us prepare for them. For example, if they have missed lunch, then we make sure when they arrive at Gonikoppal or Kutta or where ever we receive them, they have something to eat..Snacks, Chips ..whatever, something to munch on or we just have lime juice or something like that to refresh folks -- after all it is a 5 hour journey from Bangalore!! (btw we don't do this for night travelers :-) )

The guys then refreshed and helped themselves to a full breakfast and after that they went on the trek with Rakesh. Our trek with the estate is beautiful, but mild. It can be classified at most as a beginners trek, just enough for first timers to be stressed but not so much that they can't complete it. We normally come to know about the appetite for adventure of the guests when they do this trek. These folks were the adventerous type ... so our trek was pretty mild for them.

They went for the 3.30 PM rafting session, they had to wait because the 1 PM rafting team turned up late!! This is something we don't approve off -- making our guests wait for no fault of their own, it is our job as hosts to book the rafting slots upfront and make sure we arrive on time, and we take a lot of pains to make sure we do that, there is no reason why our guests should be penalized for being prompt. Rakesh made sure that the rafting folks knew of our displeasure

At night they settled down to a cozy campfire...and the next day they went back home the long way back to Bangalore, via Wayanad, Gundulpet..Bandipur forest with a stop over at the famous Iruppu falls

Photos that they took have been uploaded, the link to the album is here

Pattabhi has also give us a review in HolidayIQ, check it out here

Pattabhi, Thanks a lot for the review, It means a lot for us, and guys thanks for coming.

Here are some of their pics..

From left to right - Manju, Rakesh, Arun, Pattabhi, Vishwanath, Shailesh, Ravi, Vinay(Green Jacket), Sunil (sitting) and photographer is Avdooth

All dressed and ready to take the plunge..

Calm before the storm

The plunge....

Iruppu falls

Anil the Cautious

2008-08-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

Old England had names like "William the Bold" or "John the Just"...Let me introduce you to ... "Anil the Cautious"

The booking for the second team on the 2nd August weekend was done by Dheeraj, I think he had read this blog and was convinced that he wanted to come here, After everything was confirmed, I sent over the account details to which the payments had to be made

The account we use is a personal ICICI SB bank account, the reason we use it is, simply convenience. It was already there and ICICI to ICICI fund transfer is instant and it is the most popular private bank -- so most of our guests have an account with them and we never had any issues with it. That is till now..

Dheeraj did not have an ICICI account and he had said he will find someone who does and transfer the funds through them. So come Friday morning I get a call from Anil, he points out that this account is a personal account..I say yes and clarify that homestays are not resorts and cannot have current accounts, Anil is not convinced..he says he is not comfortable with this arrangement and he will transfer only half the amount due, and the rest, he will give on site. Well, I thought that will have to do and said fine. As I went about my day, I thought, well, that's one cautious guy.

What..Just because a guy is prudent with online transfers, does he deserve to be titled thus on an blog !!! ..emm.. Well no..read on :-)

Dheeraj seemed to be familiar with Coorg and he had said he will be coming to Kutta . They wanted to do rafting immediately so they went to the Rafting site directly. There we collected the Rafting tariff from them and as usual they were asked to deposit all valuables and articles from their person. (fyi, For all the folks going rafting, you are not allowed to take anything on board the raft, even jewelery has to be removed).

After this is done, Anil remarks, hmmm, there Anish collected half the amount from us, here you collected the other half, plus the rafting tariff.. now you have taken all the valuables and every penny we had and our cell phones...Now all that has to happen is you disappearing from here and Anish shutting the site and disappearing from there and we are scammed thoroughly :) :) :)

Well, you can't title for being prudent on online financial transactions and he may have his reasons... but he definitely deserves the title for doing a Jerry Fletcher :-) (Jerry Fletcher is the name of Mel Gibson's character in the movie Conspiracy Theory, the paranoid cab driver who sees conspiracies everywhere and finally finds one which is true)

Anil, you have laid out a very tempting business model there..... but I think we will stick to running our homestay :-) and I hope after the visit we have put all your doubts to rest..

On a more serious note, What Anil raised is a concern for us, a lot of our guests are corporate, they need to submit proper bills to their companies. This is something homestays cannot do because legally homestays are not resorts or hotels - they are not corporate entities, we cannot have current accounts or give bills etc.

This is an action point for us, we will need to come up with a front - a travel firm that can give out bills and have current accounts etc. ..something to add to our todo list..Lets see what we can do..

The Bachelor's party....

2008-08-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

The second team on the August 2nd weekend was Dheeraj, Anil, Shivraj and Vijendra

Turns out that this is to be Dheeraj's last outing as a bachelor .. he is getting married the next week

So before we proceed any further, On behalf of Arun, Rakesh and the entire team at Bethel, Let me Wish you a happy and prosperous married life.

The run up to the the day was quite eventful and is the subject of a another post ..

Anyway, Dheeraj had comfirmed to come on the weekend and Dheeraj and the folks left Bangalore on Saturday morning, Dheeraj seemed to be familiar with Coorg and he had said he will be coming to Kutta. Arun received them there and since they wanted to do rafting immediately, they went to the Rafting site directly. We were not able to accommodate them in the batches that were going that day (we had booked them for the next day)

The made their way back to the homestay and proceeded for lunch and then to the trek.

The next day they went for Rafting, they had one of the best Rafting experiences ever, the waters were high and they even managed to flip the raft. Ashok who was their guide lost the paddle and had to go on a futile search for it.

Dheeraj ,Anil, Shivraj and Vijendra thanks for coming, I hope Bethel was the kind of place you were looking for.

Their photo album can be found here

Here they are at the rafting spot..Left to right: Vijendra, Dheeraj, Anil, Rakesh(host) and Shivraj

The flipped raft at the rapids

Geek stuff: Google sites

2008-08-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

Anyone try Google sites ( http://sites.google.com )? It is a pretty nifty tool to get online, I was able to make the complete replica of our site in about 15 minutes.

It is easy to use , gives some nice templates, I just chose one. For the next sites I am going to build.. this is where I will come to prototype...

Check us out on Google sites

Pop quiz..

2008-08-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

Does a shareholder proxy battle between the Yahoo board and billionaire investor Icahn impact a nondescript homestay in Coorg ??

Oh yea it does, If you were very observant you would have seen that all images and even the slide show that you see on this blog are from Flickr..a darn good site for photos (I would strongly recommend the site, it is a true Web 2.0 site for photos, the API's it exposes and features they provide are far far better than the other sites).

Flickr it is owned by Yahoo, all it takes is some guy deciding to do make a change or a cost cutting resulting in reduction in the services levels and .. my website (http://www.bethelestate.com) is impacted !!

I'm already considering alternatives..any suggestions ..?

Relative quiet .....

2008-08-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

This week we had two teams, Manjunath/Pattabhi and their team (total 8 in number -- Manju, Pattabhi, Vishwanath, Shailesh, Ravi, Vinay, Sunil and Avdooth) and Dheeraj, Anil, Vijendra, Shivraj (team of 4)

We were supposed to have Barath and his team of four, but they canceled at the very last minute and went towards Madikeri. Barath was very apologetic for the last minute change of plans -- My take..Well it happens!! I just hope the next time they come to Bethel

We also had Krishna and his team of ten who had come down for rafting. We also had Vijay and his wife who joined for rafting during the weekend

Did I say 8...

2008-08-02T01:41:00.000-07:00

Well did I say Vineeth will have company of 8 people...you forgot the surprise element, the plan was that we would have a group of 8 guests.. instead we had 14 guests turning up..

This was one relaxed group..they had come with a clear purpose.. relax and enjoy. The spent the entire time joking and pulling each others legs and relaxing..they were also a foodie group.. they thoroughly enjoyed our cooking and made the most of it too..

The rains that Coorg is so famous for, have finally arrived, last week Kutta was in the news for the inches and inches of rain it received, Bethel which is up in the hills got even more, you can now see springs coming from the ground right in the estate

Barapole river is now nearing the danger mark, rafting will be one thrilling affair, anyone reading this..head to Coorg and raft NOW. It is going to be an experience you will never forget.

Postponments and this weeks guests ..

2008-07-26T02:02:00.000-07:00

We had a postponement this week, Sridhar and team were to be here on Friday, 25th July, , but now they will be here only on the 29th of August. So today we just have Vineeth and team at the home stay. They arrived in the evening and were received by Rakesh and Arun in Gonikoppal. Tomorrow they will have company of 8 others

It has been pouring in Coorg, the rafting water levels have surged dramatically, Arun told me both the rafts in todays morning session got stuck in the rapids.. Sounds like every one had a lot of fun, I hope they have some good pictures taken, I need to update my Rafting picture gallery, the last shots are from July 4th, and since then we had lots of folks going rafting... but haven't gotten my hands on any of the photos taken.

We've been blogged!!

2008-07-21T10:10:00.001-07:00

Chetan was part of the team that was in Bethel in July 4th, 08 weekend, he mentions Bethel homestay in his blog (http://chetankrishna.blogspot.com/)

Also Pavani, part of the same group gave us a review in Raahi.com, read it here

Hectic Rafting..

2008-07-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

For a change we had a quiet weekend in Bethel, We had a team from Hyderabad, Vishnu and his friends(Vinay, Ram, Phalgun) joined us in Bethel this weekend. They were supposed to be there for three days, however they decided to leave immediately after Rafting!! They left behind a Cell phone and pair of pants :-)

The relative quiet on the homestay side was balanced by the hectic Rafting schedules we had.

We had Naveen, who along with his friends were planning to do a trek and also complete White water rafting while they were in Coorg. Unfortunately by the time they finished their trek of Brahmagiri, they were too late to reach for their rafting session.

Nevermind guys, the rafting season goes upto August, hope you had nice time in Coorg.

Dr. Chengapa and his team was another guest who was supposed to come for rafting, but couldn't make it

We had Anmol and team, who were also scheduled to go for rafting at 330 PM, but actually went rafting with Vishnu's group at 9.00 AM in the morning

Then we had our gang.. Ravi, Sampath, Sanjay, Santhosh, Shivu, Dhanu, Rajesh, and Rakesh, who had come over to raft, they had lunch in Bethel and went for rafting.. This was first time for Rakesh this season, the first time ever for most of the rest. And it was certainly an eventful start for our folks, they got stuck at the Wicked Witch rapid and had to get off to try and get the raft into the water, instead of steadying things they almost lost their raft, it took some acrobatic diving and rescue from Rakesh and Mohammed (Our rafting guide) to finally get the raft back to the team

Through all this, Ravi, who was rafting for the first time, was at his whimsical best, quote.. "I know everyone dies..but will someone remind me why am I paying money for it" :-)...After seeing Rakesh dive into the raft..."Forget Over Right, Over Left ..if I had to do the same thing..I would have 'left right..to the next world'" :-) (Over Right, Over Left are some of the commands your learn while rafting )..

Of course after all this..he has already booked the slot to do it all over again :-)
Next time, I'll be there too ..

As usual I'll put up photos as and when I get my hands on them..

Rafting weekend....

2008-07-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the pics from the July,4th team's visit to Coorg

The full group at the end of the visit...

Rafting..

11000 volts staring at you..

Hitting the rapids..

By the stream....

Trekking through...

Tippu's Summer palace, Srigangapatnam

Feeding elephants at Dubare, Elephant Camp

Golden monastry, Bylakuppe (night)

Another busy weekend

2008-07-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

This was another busy weekend...

We had Nikil and his team there (4 in all), then we had Samir's team (Samir, Sushma, Adarsh and Deepti) and Sanjay's team (Sanjay, Omar, Ranga and Sudeep).

Incidently...Sanjay, Omar, Ranga were the first ever customers of Bethel...

Then of course we had the unexpected surprise element that we have come to expect :-), John (our first web customers) suddenly decided to come with his team(Chris, Micheal and Kumar)!!

Net net, we had 16 folks in Bethel this weekend, Rajesh (Nelgi) came over to help us

It was Sudeep's birthday today.
Sudeep, Many happy returns of the day!!, I hope it was a day you will remember for long time.

Photos as I get them..I heard Nikhil got some great shots of rafting and he also had some good sightings of Elephants in Wayanad..

It was busy for me too, I added a rafting page to our website, giving details of rafting in Coorg, check it out here

With me in Coorg for the weekend, a lot of web inquries were unanswered, was not able to make the 48 hour response time SLA that we had set for ourselves.

So I need to send out a lot of apology letters for the delay and get back to the website, it needs some more work (link the blog to the website, update latest photos of Bethel, link to customer reviews in HoldiayIQ, add a generic picture gallery ? ...).

Speaking of customer reviews, I hope our guests reading this blog would give us more reviews, it really really really means a lot to us. If you want quick link to where you can put a review, well here it is

Nikhil and team

2008-07-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Nikhil and his team of four are at Bethel today (July 10-12). Nikhil had booked Bethel last month for his team, Arun received them at Gonikoppal.

Hope they have a great time. More later..

Stress testing

2008-07-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

The July 4th weekend saw at team of 24 guests from Hyderabad in Bethel. As I keep mentioning, Hospitality is an industry where there is little order and lots of chaos..
This time, we had a team...that was scheduled to be accommodated on July 6th in Nelgi...arriving on July 5th!!..Since Nelgi was full we decided to get the folks to Bethel. Net result, 30 people in Bethel..this was complete stress testing of the homestay..and I think we came out with flying colors....

Btw, This team was also the first team to do White water rafting in the Barapole river this season.

Will post on this soon...

Coorg White water rafting season 2008 begins!!!

2008-06-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

All right folks, its finally here. The white water rafting season begins in July.
The tariff is Rs 1000 / head. July 4th, the first team of 26 people are in Bethel for rafting..

Please note the contact numbers for White water Rafting...
09448201771 or 09885016017 or 09945742405 or 09448529231

Watch this blog or Visit us at Bethel homestay to know more

So what are you waiting for, call the numbers and enjoy the adventure of a life time

Worst of times..

2008-06-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

This blog reflects what we are and how we run Bethel, it would hardly be honesty to say we run a perfect place and we have always given the service we would be proud of..some times its just not your day..all your intentions and planning can come to nothing very easily

This is one such incident
It was the weekend in May when our first Web customers came to Bethel, per the plan we were not to take any more customers that weekend, however at the last minute we got a call from Rajesh..(for any one following this blog..there are two Rajesh's involved, one is Rakesh's brother and the other is the owner of the our sister homestay at Nelgi -- in this case it was the latter), there was a team of around 15-20 guests who were going to come to Coorg and Rajesh didn't believe in sending them anywhere else and so it was decided that they would be coming to Bethel.

Under normal circumstances this would hardly matter, we have handled larger groups successfully..but there was nothing normal about this occasion, it was a time when everything seemed to go wrong.
The morning the guests were arriving, our water pump conked off!!!
At Bethel our primary water source is a natural spring, we made a small tank around the water source into which we have a submersible pump, this pump pushes water to a sump and from there another pump pushes water to the overhead tanks that feed the cottages. It was the second pump that stopped working, we immediately got an electrician and got it repaired. All of us sighed a relief when the water start flowing again into the overhead tanks. Little did we realize then that it was a sign of things to come..

By the time Mr. Ramana (he was the primary contact for this group) and our guests arrived it had begun to rain in Bethel. As they were having their lunch the storm picked up and there was thunder and lightning, of all things that could ever happen.. Bethel took a lightening strike!.. Luckily for us it did not strike a tree or person, however it was too close to home...."Kutta" who had just stepped out to serve the guests was near the spot where the lightning struck, he was hit by the shock waves..and was on the floor..for a few seconds he lay there paralysed.. Rakesh who was in the kitchen near the Backup batteries also had a shock....and was limping for the rest of the day!! The lightening strike tripped the backup batteries and for the second time in the day..our repaired motor conked off... We now had 24 customers in Bethel, no power backup..and water levels running low..It wouldn't be long before water would run out..and it did....

We had to faced a lot of irritated guests, running water is a basic requirement..and that was not in place..it was a really embarrassing time for us. We immediately placed an order for new motor....but that would come only the next day and in the mean time we started relay process...we had one motor which was working, we would pump the water to the sump..and then get the motor which was about half a kilometer away to the sump and use it to push water to the overhead tanks, once the sump was empty we would take the motor back to the spring and use it to fill the sump..and we would continue this process till the overhead tanks were full..It was Arun and Kutta who did this hard and laborious task, thanks to them we kind of managed to provide sufficient water to our guests...albeit a little too late...

The next day morning it was the same story was repeated, it was not long before the water ran out and we had to repeat the same process, fortunately for us, the next day the folks decided to travel to Wayanad, they wouldn't return till the end of the day ..and we had a chance to rectify past mistakes and ensure that when they came back..everything would be perfect. ..but sometimes its just not your day...We got a new motor and started to install it, after a few hours of installing everything ..we found out that the motor was a defective piece!!! ..Talk about bad luck!!..we immediately ordered for another motor and had it delivered, it was already getting too late and the folks would be getting back soon..this time things went smoothly and finally we were able to send water up the tank.

The firefighters,: Rajesh, Hamsa, Raju (the electrician) and Rakesh, missing are Arun and Kutta..

On your weekend if you have a group of 24 for whom you are not anticipated..Your motor conks off, You have a lightening strike, You order for a brand new motor and that turns out to be a defective piece..if you have a weekend like this..you should realize its just not your day.... We realized that the water that was collecting in the tank had too many suspended particles..it was literally brown in color!!! All that removing and putting the motor had disturbed the well and it would take sometime for the water to settle.. At the end of the day..after all the effort that went it ..It was one big disaster!!!

This was by far the most horrible experience that we could have put our guests to, it was really surprising that at the end of the day our guests actually paid us for the stay!! We were not really expecting to be paid after all these disasters, our principle from the very beginning had been very simple, Value for money, so if we did not provide a good service, we don't deserve the payment.... I know that I wouldn't have If I had to go through the same experience..and we don't expect any different from our guests.

The more we spend time in this industry ... the more I realize that Hospitality is a n industry where Chaos reigns supreme ..and sometimes things work out well.

Now we have a backup generator and an extra motor at our disposal, just to make sure such things do not happen again...but then...this is the Hospitality industry....We never know what happens..

In the middle of all this we did manage to organize a nice trek ..some of the pictures and sights are here

Waiting for the trek to start

On the way

View from the topmost point of the trek

A break during the trek

The full team

The final farewell

Our staff, The final team that made things happen on that weekend: Kutta, Ruthu's son, Arun, Ruthu and Rakesh

White water rafting 2008 season starting soon...

2008-06-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

All right folks, word just in, the White water rafting instructors are starting to gather, the season should start soon after the first big rains hit Coorg (in a few days I hope)...the season should be in full swing by July
Stay tuned for more information ... and prepare for the rush..
Our first teams are all set to hit the water..as soon as the rafting begins..
In case you want to book or know the latest..dont hesitate to contact us
Contact details here
http://www.bethelestate.com/contact.html
or if you are too lazy to click and go there..just call
09448201771 or 09885016017 or 09945742405 or 09448529231

The tariffs have not been decided as of date..but should be known soon..
Will update the blog as soon as I hear more..

Wildlife enthusiasts...

2008-05-31T10:42:00.001-07:00

After John's call and all the questions..we were very apprehensive as to how they are going to be....we were expecting a challenging bunch who are going to be very finicky .... but then we like challenges, so we decided to bend our backs a little bit and go all out to ensure that our guests would have a good time.
We decided to use two cottages and set about laying it out in our standard practice, disinfect, swab and dry. Our normal configuration for all the cottages is for 4 people, this time, We moved out the extra beds to other cottages and moved dining tables in their place. Lunch was to be served not in our usual dining area but on the sitout which offers a spectacular view of the Brahmagiri range.

Rakesh ensured that Lunch was special, with the spread including Non-Vegetarian and Vegetarian dishes. We always aim to do that little extra that makes an activity from good to great, Whenever we take a menu from a guest, we always try to add an item to the menu that the guest hasn't asked -- that extra little surprise is what we aim for..

It turns out our guests were wild life enthusiasts ..they had been traveling to almost all of south indian wildlife scantuaries in search of wild life..and unfortunately had a very poor success rate..especially as a group... So we decide the best course of action would be to send them early in the morning to the safari in Wayanad..and in the evening they could go into the Nagarhole. We called up Hamsa, when we called for Hamsa, he was not available in the Morning, as he was hired by the forest ranger for a trip into the forest, but he promised he will be there to take our folks around once they come back from Safari in Wayanad.

A word about Hamsa..
You can find Hamsa in the Kutta Jeep stand, he drives a Mahindra Di Jeep, and is one of the best drivers you can find anywhere. He is scrupulously honest and has thorough knowledge of the terrain and the wild life in Nagarhole and Wayanad and above all, he does his utmost to ensure that all his customers are treated to the best as he possibly can... If you understand Kannada..then he is at his happiest and will very gladly regal you with jokes, stories and experiences.

The best time for animal sightings is Dawn or Dusk, preferably dawn, try to take the safari as early as possible before the animals are driven away by other noisy safari vehicles. However many of our customers goto bed planning to get up early ..almost none ever make it, so it came as a surprise to us to see Rashmi/John up at the break of dawn getting ready for the safari and waking up Prasad and Priyanka. We also had a surprise for Rashmi...It was Rashmi's birthday, we had tried to arrange for a cake..but all we could get was a nice bowl of assorted chocolates..we had that kept ready for Rashmi in the morning.

The Wayanad trip included 2000 year old Thirunelli temple, famous as Dakshin Kashi, Kurvadeep islands on the Kabini and the Wayanad safari. On the way back, they were to go into the Nagarhole forest. On the whole their Wayanad trip was disapointing, they had very few animal sightings, Priyanka sprained her ankle in Kurvadeep and was in considerable anguish for the rest of the day..However they had better luck in Nagarhole and had quite a few sightings..

The next day, they were supposed to leave back to Bangalore..however after some discussion the folks extended their vacation and decided to take it easy and rest, the only activity was a trip to the Nagarhole forest in the evening...with the fond hope of sighting the elusive big cat.... the Tiger. however it was not to be...and they returned disappointed...

The left the next day after a delay, Priyanka was not feeling well..and was fit to travel only later in the day. This was again a great group of customers..Nature lovers, fun loving, sharing experiences, it was really nice to play host to them. I hope they come back again..

Some of the sights they saw...

By the bonfire

Fireworks....

Morning mist..

Monkeys..

Thirunelli temple

Snake in the water..

Prasad, Hamsa and John..

Elephants..

The tusker..

Rashmi in the Jeep..

Priyanka with Hamsa's parrot

Our first Webbies!!

2008-05-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

The 24th May 2008 weekend was supposed to be Webby week end, We would be hosting our first Web Customers in Bethel. Since its inception Bethel never had a single week
without customers, but these were mostly Rakesh's old customers (which reminds me I need to make a website for him..) who have been to Coorg and their contacts. Two months ago we started http://www.bethelestate.com to broaden our reach to other customers, since then we received a lot of enquiries but none of which translated into an actual visit. We were hoping that the Web can help us reach far and wide....turns out it also reaches places very close to home.

Our first Webby's, Priyanka, Prasad, John and Rashmi are not from far away..but actually reside in the same neighbourhood as Rakesh in Bangalore, they were practically neighbours, who didn't know each other !! The Web, it seems, works in mysterious ways :-)

Priyanka had done a lot of research and some how stumbled upon our site and gave us a call, she seemed convinced that we were real enough and what we put on the web was what we were actually had, It looked as if we will finally get our first Webbies.., she then put John to us, who had a hundred questions for us.. Will there be any creepy crawlies in the tent ? Lizards ? Mosquitos ?...at the end of this call we were no longer sure if the gang is going to make it here ...turns out they were all convinced and they made their payment to Rakesh's brother...Rakesh immediately called me up to congratulate me..we finally had broken our web jinx..and we would have our first ever Webbies coming to Bethel homestay on the 24th of May!!

Here they are with Hamsa's parrot..
John...

Prasad..

Rashmi...

and Priyanka....

Thanks a lot for coming....

Happy Birthday Manas!!

2008-05-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

30th May was Manas' birthday, Hope you had a great time.

Here she is splashing water on her sister..

And getting paid back in the same coin by her sister and mother..

Happy Birthday Sneha!

2008-05-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

15th May was Sneha's birthday, Hope you had as much fun as you had when you were here

Here she is ...

Here is someone who would also like to say Happy Birthday.. Kenju, the Brown one..

Busy Weekend..

2008-05-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

We were busy last weekend, Ganesh is an old school mate of Rakesh's brother Rajesh, this weekend he came over with his family - Lakshmi his wife and two daughers, Bhavana and Manasvini. His friend and colleague Vidhyasagar and his family - Girija, Vidhya's wife and daughter Sneha; joined him.
Rajesh too decided to join for a day to make sure everyone settled in.

We had ear-marked two cottages and spend the day preparing the rooms and getting them ready, Rakesh went out to Gonikoppal to receive Ganesh and Vidhya while and I stayed back to prepare the Bamboo cottage, we had no intention of using this cottage but nevertheless we wanted it spruced up a bit just in case folks wanted to have a look at it. Till then we were using it as a store room.

Our general operational plan is that one of us would got to receive the guests, when the guest arrive, we call back to the estate so that folks back there know about it and start last minute checks to ensure there are no surprises, next when the customers pass T-shettigeri another call is made to the home stay and we start to layout refreshments in the dining area.

The plan was that folks would come in by 1-2 in the afternoon, we would serve 'Bhinda' juice ('Bhinda' is a local fruit, its juice is very refreshing and tends to cool you down), Britannia Cheeselings and green salad (since Rajesh had told us that all the folks were pure vegetarian..) and get the folks settled, then hot lunch would be served.........

Our day couldnt have started more wrong...Ganesh,Vidyasagar were over an hour behind our schedule, Rakesh calls up from Gonikoppal to say that its pouring down over there...and Rajesh will take more time to reach Gonikoppal but he cannot wait because folks are hungry..so he leaves Manju behind in the Jeep to show Rajesh the way to Bethel and joins the rest of the folks in their Qualis

Instead of Eight guests spread in two vehicles, our nightmare scenario, eight very hungry guests, cramped into the confines of a Qualis and they had yet to go through the jungle road sections that lead to our home stay, and worst of all, as they
cross t-shettigeri it begins to pour down in Bethel! The entire dining table, paper napkins everything is ruined by the rain.

I ran down with the umbrella to wait for the Qualis to arrive, once it comes I handed over the umbrella to Rakesh so that he can escort the guests to the rooms, while I run back to clean up the dining place and get fresh dry towels for every one
Before I am done, Lakshmi and Manasvani have reached the dining hall with the rest of the folks following...all I could think was..there goes our First Impression down the drain..

Fortunately for us, Ganesh, Vidya and the folks were very accommodating and we were able to move past lunch without any further hiccup

Next day morning, we took Girija, Bhavana, Manas and Sneha did their first trek of their lives, they are more courageous than what they give themselves credit for, not only did they do the shorter 3 km trek, the next day day morning they did a harder trek that was almost twice the distance even with all their misgivings..and that after they had spend the day travelling over Wayanad.

Manasvini, Girija, Bhavana and Me (Right to left) during the trek

I missed the Wayanad trip because we had another guest coming over and I needed to stay back and prepare the rooms for their arrival. The next day however I joined everyone to the Stream below the estate, this was one fun team and I had great time being with them

Ganesh, Rakesh and Vidya in the stream

Sneha, Girija, Manas, Bhavana, Lakshmi

It was sad to see them go, especially Sneha / Manas with whom I had spread so much time ..and happy to see that all our efforts paid off and they enjoyed their stay here

The Doctor and his wife, our other guests in the weekend, with Arun and Rakesh in front of the Tea estate

Genesis

2008-05-05T19:57:00.001-07:00

Bethel homestay today has 4 operational swiss cottages and one bamboo cottage, capable of serving upto 30 people, a proper crew of chefs and workers, our own jeep -- but it owes it all to, few people, who got it here from an Idea to an actual working homestay.

Bethel homestay started almost a year ago, when it first started it was one single swiss tent on the hill slope with the most bare boned facilities. One single temporary shack that served as a kitchen and 'fire place' and one Swiss cottage.

Our neighbours, the Dalu family, graciously allowed us to use one of their rooms as a store room which would hold our supplies

Rakesh doubled as our cook and travel advisor, Arun as the host and the driver..
They were the bell boys, the chefs, the hosts, the cleaners....all rolled into one

We had Hamsa, who would always be available whenever we want him, no matter what the hour of day to ensure that we had provisions supplied whenever we wanted it, and to take customers around

There were several others ..who had their hand in getting Bethel homestay where it is now..

Here is Rakesh, in front of the dome tents in the homestay,

Here is Arun, with one of our first tents,

Here is Dalu anna, after the visit to the Teerthamulai falls, one of the almost unknown falls of Coorg,

Bethel homestay, Coorg

2008-05-04T02:43:00.000-07:00

It has almost been a year now that Bethel homestay is running, I thought it is about time that I blogged my experiences with the homestay.

But first, a little about Bethel homestay.

The Bethel Home Stay in the Brahamagiri range prides it self in being one of the best home stays in Coorg, Bethel home stay focuses on nature and adventure actvities, It is the only home stay in south Coorg themed to get its guests close to Nature that Coorg is so famous for.

Accomodataion in Bethel Home stay is in Swiss and Bamboo cottages, The cottages introduce its guests to the adventure of camping without sacrificing any of the amenities of a modern Home.

There are 3 swiss cottages (with a fourth coming up by June, 2008) and a Bamboo cottages in Bethel home stay. Each tent is raised clear of the ground and enclosed within a bamboo structure to ensure that the living spaces remain protected and cool irrespective of the temperature outside.

All the cottages are fully furnished and have attached bathrooms with hot water facilities.
Though all the cottages are electrified and have solar and generator backup to take care of emergencies, we prefer that our guests go with the theme and use traditional lanterns for lighting

Visitors can get a good idea about Bethel homestay by visiting www.bethelestate.com.