A travel experience becomes unforgettable with a beautiful
place and polite and welcoming hosts. Kerala had both- amazing scenery and amazing people. Though best time to visit
Kerala is during winters but it wasn't bad during May-June when we were
beautifully baked till golden brown. The place was clean and roads were
bump-less!Our tour started from Kochi towards Trivandrum- the lower half of Kerala. Since Kerala is horizontally
straight, one can plan it vise-versa too!
Thrissur: After reaching Kochi Airport, we changed our attires and
visited famous Guruvayur Temple in Thrissur. It was quite crowded. Evening processions are held on a daily basis there, where statues of Gods were rested on Elephants and they took rounds of the sanctum sanctorum. Elephants were fairly
trained. In Kerala- many temples allow Salwar-Suits for women, though in
some temples women can only enter in Sarees . While for men- Mundu or Dhoti is
a compulsion. One could purchase these from the adjacent bazaars. Women also have the option to tie
Mundu over their dresses to be appropriately dressed before visiting God. See images below to understand the proper way to wear a mundu and don't ever dare to call a mundu a lungi, some of my Keralite friends swear by it:
Women:
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| Images above are taken from Google |
Men:
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| Images above are taken from Google |
About 2-3 km from the temple is the training house for the temple elephants- Annakotta, you can visit it if you arrive on time: 8:00 to 18:00 hours.
Not very far from this place, were these majestic waterfalls named -
Athirapally. People say during rains their beauty is worth seeing. Though when we visited, it was not raining yet the falls looked beautiful. We were
surprised to see locals especially females jumping from one large rock to
another wearing sarees, and heels with no fear of falling down and getting
wounded. We despite wearing sport-shoes couldn’t make those high jumps, but warily we trekked all the way to this:
KOCHI: Next day we visited Matancherry. Matancherry palace, also known as Dutch Palace was a simplistic building housing the paintings and artifacts of the king's of the yore. Next we headed to Jewish street and a famous Jewish Synagogue there, which didn’t impress us at all. All along the street were some antique shops you could window shop there or buy something if you like.
Next we turned towards Fort Kochi and in vain we asked for the fort, but no fort was to be found as none existed (the Dutch had destroyed it long ago, but the name caught on). We went to a quaint little princess street for lunch and walked about there. One can choose to stay
there as the locality looked attractive. We waited for sunset at the beach having the old Chinese fishing nets. I asked the local coconut vendor(a man fluent in malayalam, marathi, bengali, hindi and english) while sipping on my coconut water, “You must be
getting these fishes real cheap being right there at the source.”
But he said- "No madam. They are most expensive here as they're only half-dead (
'tadapta machli' he explained) and are thus more costly
than others. They perish very easily. So most of the companies buy them from
here and then preserve them for local people and export. One kg of fish is
around 500 INR here. After reaching market they cost about 200 INR."
Watching sun going down from this place through the fishing nets was quite a
photogenic affair.
If you are here, and
interested in photography- don’t miss sunset here!
We missed Marine Drive in Ernakulam and mango festival going on there but as they
say one cannot be at every place at one point, on tours we need to prioritize.
And being from Delhi, malls and bling was not on our list.
Munnar: From Kochi we hired a cab and went to Munnar. Every bit of land
in Munnar seemed to be covered by tea plantations. The patches of winding black roads looked like a snake crawling in a very large green garden surrounded by clouds.
The whole feeling of being there was an ethereal one. A visit to the Eravikulam national park is must. Many
people get discouraged after knowing that there are a few 'goats' i.e. Tahr in this park. But go there to experience a lovely trek in lush green mountains, fresh air, and a lovely weather with
clouds sweeping right by you!
TIP: Book your tickets from Munnar tourism office in advance for the national
park. That will save you from standing in long queues there.
On the way back we stopped at the Munnar Tea Museum which turned out to be overhyped. A man in the museum educates
visitors on benefits of green tea and shows some movie. Also if one hasn’t seen
how tea is made from tea leaves, one can experience it there. Inside the
premises there is a shop from where one can buy multiple-varieties of tea, coffee
and other related products. You also get free green tea with your ticket there ;)
The chocolates local vendors sell were extra sweetened and hence were not up to
our tastes. In the past, we enjoyed home made chocolates in Ooty by heaps, but here they
were not worth a penny!
Catch a show of oldest form of martial arts Kalaripayattu, at Punarjani theater. It was extremely entertaining.
Thekkady: Thekkady is famous for its spices. One will see cardamom
plantations in Thekkady like tea plantations in munnar. We bought spices from there. Red chilly flakes bought there turned out especially outstanding,
I love them in my lentil soup!
Thekkady will spoil your fun if you are not planning to live in forest
premises. We stayed in the KTDC resort inside the forest. The night came alive with fireflies, the sounds of forest, the beautiful fragrance of wild lillies and captivating stories of the animal encounters as told by an ever smiling watchmen. He boasted- 'Madam in Kerala nobody will cheat you. People are educated here, even an Autowalah will be graduate. I had long conversation with him. When I called my mother excitedly to witness firefles (Jugnu) which are nowhere present in metro cities, he told us, “Madam, these are very few right now. Let the monsoon come, and this forest will be covered with flying lamps.” I was lost dreaming of a disney movie scene.
We got up in the wee hours of the morning and walked to the boundary of the restricted area when some deers passed by the road. Afterwards, we went for a boat ride in the periyar lake and saw many beautiful birds, a baby elephant taking a stroll near the lake, black monkeys playing, a fox trotting by and some bisons and sambhar. Though these animals were not very clearly visible at such a distance, still it was exciting to spot them in their safe and natural habitat- a glimpse of a distant unreachable world. Walking back from the lake towards the resort, we saw an Indian Giant squirrel leaping from one tree branch to the other, a group of wild boars crossed our path, some funny and pretty insects and butterflies made us smile.
Alleppy: Alappuzha is known for
it's backwaters experience. And what an experience it was! One can choose to stay in some loved house-boat or on a land resort and take a ride in the backwaters in
Shikara-boat
ride.We preferred to stay in resorts near the backwaters and
opted for three hour Shikara Ride. During the ride in backwaters one gets to
see the local villages, rice bowl of kuttanad (the only palce in world where farming is done 1-2 m below sea level), people fishing in waters, loads of coconut trees, boats with
fishing nets or carrying coconuts, ducks disappearing in water and coming out
with fishes, kingfisher birds looking for prey and pet eagles kept by the locals. To
drink coconut water we got out of our Shikara on the land and saw a pet eagle.
Our Boatman put that pet eagle on our shoulders for a photograph! You will
see different types of boats in it viz. Shikaras, Houseboats, Fishing Boats,
Kayaks and bus like long boats in which people commute between their homes and
offices. It was a very relaxing experience, where we ourselves sit back and witness life happening right on the shores of backwaters, as though a drama was being played for us, the only difference was it was a real one.
Trivandrum and Kovalam: Trivandrum is the capital city of Kerala. We
couldn’t find much to explore there. However early morning at 5 a.m., mundu clad, we rushed for the
darshan at Padmanabham Swamy temple. After coming back from there we
hired a cab for Kovalam.
Had we more than that day, we could have stayed at Kovalam. The shacks serve freshly prepared food, which was very tasty. Head to the German bakery(waves) for a lovely view and some yummy shakes (try the date shake or orange and vanilla drink). Winds at Hawa beach or Eves Beach were very strong especially at
the rock garden high up- it was as if it would sweep us off our feet. The other beach adjacent
to it was light house beach. We saw many surfers enjoying their acrobats on their surf boards. Others were swimming or walking at the beachside. Weather was pleasant, the black sand under our feet was soft as muslin and the waves were big yet gentle and pampering!
Hotels and Other Reservations:
Munnar- We had a home stay at Munnar at Estate Residency, which was around 10
kms away from the main market area and free from hustle and bustle. The owner
has a a cardamom plantations and mornings are greeted by birds songs around-
especially a whistling bird. The food was awesome too. Read full review at
tripadvisor
You can also book your seats for Kalaripayattu Martial Arts shows or Kathakali dance shows here:
Punarjani Theatre
2nd Mile Pallivasal, Munnar, India
In Thekkady: We booked one of the hotels of KTDC. One must live in the forest area to enjoy the wilderness. (Though one has to stay within the restricted hotel premises in late evening to early morning hours). There
are many of these hotels offering different rates catering to different pockets.
Alleppy: In Alleppy our halt was at
Palmgrove Resort. The resort offers a
wonderful view and is next to the backwaters. They have both open bathrooms safely shaded from outside view and closed ones are also available with some specific rooms. However it lacked majorly in good service and good food. One can rent a
shikara for few hours stroll in
backwaters of Alleppy. We found Mister Mohan the most reasonable person there
who offered us a better deal than anybody else there for the Shikara Ride. He can be reached here: 09544999674
Though One can hire a house boat for the whole day if one wants to spend whole
day in back waters. The boat stops at places, if asked. One can enter nearby village on the shores and explore it.
Trivandrum: In Trivandrum we stayed in
Hotel Regency after deboarding from our Allapuzha train. Since we wanted a place
near Padmanabham temple, we found this one 5 kms away. The room service and staff were very unprofessional but then it wasn't expensive for a one night stay. Near this hotel was
another hotel- Highland. It had pure vegetarian restaurant which was crowded all
the time and sumptuous food was served by pleasant people.
