No. 6 Silver Oak Farm -
a great place for a family reunion!

chillibreeze writer — Trixie Asirvatham

Silver Oak farm is an easy one and a half hour drive from the heart of Bangalore. Book Silver Oak Farm for a weekend getaway with friends. My friend Trixie recently reserved Silver Oak Farm for a family reunion. Read on to hear her impressions...

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We had a lovely family get-together at a place called Silver Oak Farm at the foot of Nandi hills.  It is just one and a half hours' drive from Bangalore. My brother Pradeep and family were visiting us from the USA, my sister Jeyanthi and family from Chennai joined us at Bangalore and we drove down to Silver Oak Farm in three cars… four generations of Davids – from my mother who is eighty years old, to my grandson who is just ten months old.  He loved being flung on to the beanbag on the verandah, spreading his arms in delight and laughing happily.

The couple who run the place open it to guests only on weekends. We went on a Friday and came back on Sunday after lunch. They offer a package that covers three meals and snacks, juices, tea and coffee in between.  Meera Khanna is a great cook and she personally cooks the Continental meals, she also offers Indian food for some of the meals.

Relaxing on the Verandah and having lunch at Silver Oaks. Look at the View!

A perfect place for a family get together.

She can also offer a combination menu of Indian and Continental if you want it, though she recommends focusing on one cuisine at a time. 

Meera makes exotic dishes like Nongu icecream and lasagne and quiche etc.  She offers a real variety and the food is excellent.  We also enjoyed a barbecue one night, sitting on stone benches around the bonfire, playing the guitar and singing. The barbecue comes at an additional cost but is well worth it!

We spent a relaxing two and a half days there and felt very much at home.  On the very first day, my neice Neha, the little organizer, asked Meera to make up a picnic basket for the kids, then called all the adults to join them on a grassy spot at the farm. My daughter Priya persuaded her grandma to join in a game of Frisbee!  It was great because we had a lot of family time without worrying about mundane things like cooking, cleaning or running the house.

Neha had asked the staff to organize a picnic lunch which we enjoyed on the hills.

There are hills all around Silver Oak Farm, the kids and my husband Rajan and Pradeep enjoyed climbing one of them.  Another time we drove up to Nandi Hills which has some beautiful temples (but watch out for the monkeys!)  Some of the group climbed down the steps on the side of the hill, which lead right to the front of the Farm.

At the village close by, we visited a pottery workshop and a silk unit where they were doing sericulture.  Pradeep took pictures of the silkworms and cocoons, and the place where they boil them and then spin the silk thread. Pradeep's kids will do a "show and tell" in school, back in the USA!

The kids enjoyed the pottery class. Imagine, your kids could do this just 1 hour from Bangalore!

(top) Silk Thread (below) The children were fascinated as they watched the silk cocoons being boiled.

You'll find a map and directions on how to get to Silver Oak Farm at www.silveroakfarm.com They have two large family rooms and two double rooms – comfortable, homely, neat and clean.  A big plus is that we didn't have mosquitoes there and could enjoy our meals on the long verandah with a picturesque view of the hills. We booked all the rooms and so had the whole place to ourselves.

We created our own entertainment at the farm, which is a new one, they have just planted some bananas and are developing the area.  Meera and Praveen offer some board games like Scrabble, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary etc.  There's a lot of breeze which makes it suitable for kite-flying but you'll have to take kites from Bangalore. We went back with a lot of happy memories of our family reunion.

—About our writer: Trixie says, "I'm a mother of two web designers and grandmother of two little boys, Tarun and Varun. My daughters got me interested in writing content for the web, so my 24 years as a copywriter in the advertising business is now being put to a different use! I like researching and browsing on the Web - it's fun! I enjoy reading and writing, but not 'rithmetic!"

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