On the route to Kudremukh it's a good idea to keep the driver caffeinated, though it'll always be the scenery that'll wake up the senses here. As you go beyond Chikmagalur and to the windward side of the Malnad coffee hills, spring would have already reached there. Coffee trees that still await the first shower in Chikmagalur are drenched in white blossoms in Kudremukh. With no apparent effort, the land here grows coffee, arecanut palms, cardamom and mango all at the same time, with quite a few hills also given over to mosaic-like tea plantations. Kudremukh is a landscape designed entirely by rain and there is an ease to life in these parts that is obvious in the freshly painted villages and the clean streets. Lying on the southern edge of Karnataka's border, its beauty makes an apt foreword to Kerala.
But nature is not the only performer in these parts. Ask for coffee on this drive and your taciturn petrol pump attendant will immediately slip into a first world act. Wiping hands, he will don disposable plastic gloves and proceed to serve excellent machine-brewed stuff in golden yellow Coffee Day cups that have spill-proof lids on them. The price makes a statement too. At Rs 3 a cup, coffee is cheaper than tea in these parts.