"All dreams do come true, you just have to be patient enough and willing to put in the work consistently"
I always wanted my life to involve travelling and exploring new places for my work. Working with The Hosteller for their Coorg Mini Property was one significant leap in that direction. I'm so excited to share with you all the fun and the learnings I had on this paid mural trip to Coorg. Let's start from the very beginning.
The Start of The Journey to Coorg
After all the formalities had been completed with The Hosteller, they booked us our train tickets to Bangalore from Delhi. Unfortunately, there is no direct train available from Delhi to Coorg. Our plan was to go till Bangalore on train and then take a cab for Coorg. I was carrying all my paints and other supplies with me as I didn't want to take any chances. Accompanying me on this beautiful journey was my partner (in my business and in real life both).
The train journey till Bangalore took us around 52 HOURS!! Our families felt more tired with this long a time than we did. For us, the entire train journey was pretty interesting. We saw the terrain change from our windows outside every few hours.
And IRCTC now offers e-catering services on the train itself so we got dominos pizza delivered right on our seats in the train. How amazing is that! To top it off, for the most part of our journey, we had only 3 people in our compartment that had space for 6 people in it, so we travelled quite luxuriously.
Bangalore - The Beauty, and The Struggle to Get to Coorg
We reached Bangalore on Day 3 of our journey and were truly mesmerized by the cloudscapes there. We booked an Uber to Coorg from the Bangalore Railway Station and as soon as the driver realized we wanted to go to Coorg, he started explaining to us why it would cost us more than the amount displayed on the Uber app.
At first we thought he was trying to fool us (like some people often try to fool tourists), but after talking to multiple Uber drivers and all of them voicing the same concern, we began to believe their story.
So the thing is, the journey from Bangalore to Coorg is around 270 kms, and these drivers were concerned that there is no CNG refueling station available on the way. That's why they were demanding more money as they would have to come back running their car on petrol instead of CNG most probably.
We communicated this to The Hosteller and they were already aware of this issue and happy to comply to this demand by the driver.
The journey from Bangalore to Coorg was very comfortable and scenic. We had Coconut water in between and tasted the delicious South Indian rawa masala dosa made in coconut oil.
We Reach The Hosteller Mini Property - Finally!
After around 58 hours of continuous travel, we finally reached The Hosteller Mini Property in Coorg. We were received by the amazing transformation managers already present on the site. It had just started raining when we got there and little did we know that it would continue to rain like that 24*7 for as long as we were there.
I saw the rooms, dormitory, café and the entrance walls that I was supposed to paint the wall murals on and made a mental map of how I would go on with that process.
We sat with The Hosteller team and spent some quality time getting to know them and their backstories a little, after which we called it a day and went to sleep.
The Room Murals Begin
I started sketching the room murals early morning the next day as soon as I got the go ahead from the brand.
After a few hours of work, it was time for breakfast.
Now here's the thing, since this particular hostel of The Hosteller was not yet live and still under renovation, the kitchen staff was obviously not present on the site. So all of us, including the transformation managers on site, used to get daily allowances for food from The Hosteller and the staff present there arranged the food for us from the nearby market.
We ate delicious idly sambhar that day for breakfast and continued with our work.
(Click here to see the super cute Instagram reel of our first day working at The Hosteller Property)
I Spotted Hydrangeas!!
In the afternoon, we explored the nearby forest and plantations a little. It still continued to rain, but the intensity kept changing from time to time. So we stepped out when it was just drizzling.
The Coorg forest was almost as dense, wet and muddy as a rainforest. Before coming here, we had kept a little space in our itinerary for trekking and exploring the beautiful Coorg landscape, but when we finally saw the forest in front of our eyes, we realized that it was completely impenetrable.
There were all kinds of insects and spiders here. One insect in particular made so much noise we legit thought it would be huge. When we actually saw how small it was, we were quite shocked.
While exploring the neighborhood of our hostel, I saw this beautiful private garden that had HYDRANGEAS!! I just couldn't control my happiness at that point. It was sooo beautiful you guys.
The Room Murals are Done
By the end of the second day at the hostel, I had completed the room murals and gotten them approved from The Hosteller.
We were having so much fun working here. The weather was amazing (considering you didn't want to step outside the hostel premises as it was raining continuously). The temperature varied from 16 degree Celsius to around 22 degrees and the wind kept blowing throughout the day.
The Haunted House Nearby
Just adjacent to our hostel property was a very beautiful house that the managers on site believed was haunted. They claimed that they heard some strange noises there at night (although I'm quite certain that they were just toying with us). Nobody lived there and the path that went towards it from the main street was covered with huge grass and vegetation, indicating that nobody had walked on it for quite some months/years.
My partner was very keen on going there and seeing what the hype was all about. He even tried, but the grass was quite tall and the mud was loose due to all the rain. His slippers sunk into the mud and he just couldn't walk through that. Not to mention that there could've been snakes in those dense and wet bushes. He gave up the quest at last and I was very relieved.
The story of that haunted house nearby (most probably false) really made our stay in the hostel more memorable and exciting, especially at night. Hehe!
How many times can you eat your favorite food?
It is very rightly said that you can't eat the same thing over and over again daily, doesn't matter how delicious and mouth watering it appears at first.
We were in a similar situation now. The food for all the three meals was more or less fixed. We, the transformation managers and the helping staff there used to eat the same meals again and again, on a daily basis. As you can imagine, the taste slowly began to become a punishment more than a pleasure. So much so that towards the end of our project, we started preferring to skip one meal a day. Huge respect to all The Hosteller staff working there, they went through this monotonous food routine for a much longer duration than we did.
The Entrance Wall Mural is Completed
This was the best place to work amongst all the walls. It was isolated, cute and provided a gorgeous view of the entire forest around the hostel. It was placed right at the entrance of the hostel and was also adjacent to the lift.
