Worker's Trail- Must try activity Evolve Back Coorg

There’re several activities guests at Evolve Back Resorts (Formerly Orange County) can indulge in. During my recent stay I tried most of them. My most favorite one is Workers' Trail.

Evolve Back Coorg is a plantation theme based resort. Worker’s trail activity is designed to simulate the life of a plantation workers. Every day, workers are picked up from their homes on a tractor and taken to the place of work- the coffee plantation or paddy fields etc. Workers get off the tractor here and get started with their daily task- such as plucking coffee beans or cleaning, clearing weeds and various other activities needed at the coffee plantation. Coffee is seasonal- during July, the beans were all green. They get ripe by December and harvesting is usually done in January/February. Because of this there wasn’t much work in coffee plantation. So we were taken to the paddy field, where sapling plantation was in progress.

While the regular workers sit on the rough floors of the tractor, cushions were placed for the comfort of the guests. We sat on the trailer, while our guide, Yesudas and the driver took command. We had a quick stop at Chairman’s bungalow. The 300 acre estate inside which Evolve Back Chikkanahalli resort is located was purchased by the grandfather of current chairman, Mr Emanuel Ramapuram sometime in 1930. The resort was built only in 1994

Then we had a ride through the plantation-Yesudas briefed us about interesting trees and plants enroute. We also met Mr Johny Walker, resort’s resident expert in waste management.

Next we stopped at the paddy field. The worker women were already at job. I walked on the edges and entered the field- it had about 1 feet deep slush. Navigating my way into the field, my first task was to pluck the saplings with roots from the primary field (Paddy is grown in 2 stages- the seed is first sown in a denser format in primary field. After a month or two, the saplings that emerge are carefully plucked from primary field and plated afresh in the second field, which will be its final destination. Here the saplings need to be planted in small bunches, with enough gap in between, as they would grow to a height of about a meter or so within few months). I plucked a bunch and was guided to the secondary field that will be final place where the sapling will grow into paddy plant. Here I planted the sapling with couple of inches of gap in between. One of the worker lady guided me in the process.

I could have spent all evening there planting more n more saplings, but had to leave at some point... It was a great experience going back to the field and getting hands and legs dirty. Watch a 2 minute video below:

Activities like this help guests get a find hand experience of life in the plantation/field. If nothing else, guests will return with much better awareness about the life of workers, be more sensitive to their problems and while enjoying our food and drink, realize that lots of hands have put substantial effort to grow that food/drink before it has turned up on your plate. Many commercial resorts in Coorg do not offer anything to guests other than touring popular tourist spots in Kodagu or relaxing in the pool. Evolve Back’s efforts to offer these activities deserve some appreciation. 

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