A special birthday in a special place

It all started with wanting to do something special for S's 40th birthday. Well, in our family "special" is quite simple; Special = Travel! :) What made the decision a no-brainer was the hard fact that S hates any noise or drama around his birthday. He confesses that when he was growing up he was most happy that his birthday used to come around during the summer holidays :) I did ask him a couple of times what it would be like if I threw a big surprise party for his 40th. He answered with his usual dry wit "Yes, by all means; the 'surprise' will be that I won't be there!"

Therefore, a trip. Ok that was settled. I also decided to invite his parents to join us, seeing that it was their baby's 40th and all. The question was where, since we just had a small window of 2 days with no flexibility since the kids' school reopened on the Monday post S's birthday (which fell on a Saturday). After much research, I settled on Sakleshpur which seemed to fulfil all of our criteria - a comfortable driving distance from Bangalore, rolling hills, tea estates, cool weather and finally, this.

Friday arrived and we loaded ourselves into an Innova. Our enormously efficient driver got us to Kadamane estates in exactly 5 hours, just in time for lunch. The drive was uneventful and not particularly scenic until we reached Sakleshpur and began climbing to the estate, at which point the scenery changed dramatically eliciting some oohs and aahs from all of us. After a quick lunch, everyone dozed while I quickly laid hands on my camera to capture some of the beauty around me.

That evening, we decided to go to a place called 5 Acres, which was supposed to offer great views of the surrounding hills. We argued whether S and I would trek the distance while the others would follow in the jeep (I was all for taking Ads with us on foot but was shot down). In any case, S backed off too leaving me in a brief sulk as I really wanted to trek the distance. However we made peace and were treated to a jolting jeep ride for 20 minutes, to finally reach this place. Gorgeous, isn't it?

The next day, we chilled, hung out with the kids, playing frisbee, cricket, catch, cards, ludo and what not. With chores and meal-prep out of the way, we finally had the luxury of time and we made the most of it. The children had gifts for their dad which they had ordered earlier on in Bangalore - custom coffee mugs from each with a nice photo and a message. Of course, birthday cards had been created in total secrecy the previous week itself. I had also ordered a tea cake at the resort which was an apology of a cake, really and not at all my idea of what a birthday cake should be like. But well, it's the thought that counted and we did have the satisfaction of getting S to cut his cake and eat it too!

It was a brief but fantastic break and I would highly recommend the destination/property to family and friends alike. Most important, S had a wonderful 40th with all the most important people in his world :) Now- ahem - the pressure is on him to give ME an equally fantastic 40th birthday party (=trip)!