Royal treatment in Karnataka #28States28Plates drive goes to Bengaluru

After the special dinner at the Lemon Tree hotel in Chennai, we headed straight to bed which meant getting up early wasn't a problem yesterday. Breakfast was planned to be done at one of the many famous Saravana Bhavan restaurants in Chennai, but how could we decline the kind folks at Lemon Tree Chennai, who had made for us some tasty and super flaky paratha, dosa and coffee for the first meal of the day. We obliged and started our journey, which meant navigating our way across the busy early morning traffic of the city. Although it wasn't that bad because even if the streets are narrow in Chennai, the traffic was moving and congestion-free.

After bidding adieu to Chennai, We joined NH48 to head over to Bengaluru. A lot of you had recommended the famous Saravana Bhavan restaurant for breakfast, so despite being full, we ate in Tamil Nadu. After sampling the dosa, which made sure our tummies were full to the brim, we were good to stop directly in Bengaluru!

The drive to Bengaluru was pretty smooth, courtesy of good roads, but the traffic on the highways was much more than we'd expected. We made good progress without any stoppage except for our lucky stop at Burger King just before entering Karnataka and after gobbling in some burgers we made our way to Bengaluru.

Now Bangalore has a reputation for a traffic-heavy city and we found out that certainly is true. Getting into our halt for the night — Lemon Tree Premier Ulsoor Lake (which is right in the middle of the city) took us an hour. But all the traffic complaints went away after the warm welcome we received at the hotel. But this was just the start of the royal treatment for the day. After a couple hours of rest, we visited Trident Renault, who had very kindly invited us as chief guests to deliver their 1000th Kiger! We were honoured with traditional caps and garlands and got a send-off with best wishes for our drive ahead. Bengaluru's peak evening traffic wasn't making us mad, because waiting for us at the hotel was a Karnataka Thali for dinner which was fit for royalty.

Now we had requested the chef to keep the portions small, but he very kindly ignored that request and made for us a 14-dish Thali which looked too good to even eat. Pan-fried prawns, ghee roast chicken, Mysore paak — we weren't kidding when we said the royal treatment had just begun. What an epic way to end the day, next stop on the list is Coorg!