Kerala - God's Own Country

We are among those who wait for the entire year for a trip which will take us away from the hustle bustle of metro life. We plan for such trips months in advance and start day-dreaming about it long before we actually start. This year was no different and this time I was determined to steer clear of our favourite destination – the Himalayas. The first destination that came to my mind was Kerala, one of the most favourite tourist destinations in India. Though a little skeptical that this (first week of March) wasn’t the right season, I started my research and settled on a five day trip to Kerala, encompassing a hill station, a reserve forest and the backwaters. In order to be safe rather than be sorry (since my parents were travelling with us), we relied on KTDC (Kerala Tourism Development Corporation). Though a tad expensive, KTDC is one of the most professional and efficient Government tourism bodies operating in the country. They were very prompt in all their mail correspondence and also extremely punctual when it came to pick us up at the airport.

Day 1

On Feb 28th, the four of us took an early morning flight to Kochi. The Cochin International Airport is one of the busiest airports in the state. The red-tiled traditional architecture at the CIAL that greeted us as we landed, was quintessential Kerala. After collecting our luggage, we went out to find Mr. Pillai waiting for us with a name placard in his hand. It was around 11:00 am when we started from the airport which is at the outskirts of Kochi and headed straight for the famous hill-station of Kerala, Munnar.

Driving up to Munnar can be adventurous if you are driving. For us, our life was made easy with Mr. Pillai who knew his way around most of the major towns in Kerala. Our plan was to reach Munnar which is around 110 km away from CIAL by late afternoon. The NH-49 that goes all the way to Madurai in TN was remarkably well-maintained and the winding roads with thousands of bends and superb surface quality made the journey very pleasant. Very soon, w e came to know why Kerala is called the ‘land of spices‘ - black pepper was being sun-dried casually on road sides stretching sometimes for hundreds of meters. We took a quick lunch in one of the many eateries just on the outskirts of Kochi and it mainly consisted of the famous Kerala Porotta and fish fry (staple diet for Bengalis). Our next halt was at a quaint little bridge just before the uphill climb to the hill-station started. As we climbed, the climate changed from humid and sultry to pleasantly cool in a couple of hours. As we approached Munnar, beautiful tea-gardens started showing up. Even in the month of March, we could see all the shades of green that God has created. The temperature dropped considerably and soon, we had to turn to our sweaters.

We had booked our stay at the KTDC Tea-County resort and it was already 3 pm when we checked in at the resort. It was a huge and well-maintained place, with many rooms and facilities and was conveniently located in the heart of the town. After freshening up and an hours' rest, we decided to visit the town. The town has two distinct areas, Old Munnar, where the tourist information office is, and Munnar, where the bus station and most guest houses are located. We went to the market place and found shops selling local goodies like tea of various types and quality, local hand-made chocolates as there are cocoa plantations in Munnar, wooden handicrafts, spices and ayurvedic oils and medicines. We bought some tea and hand-made chocolates. The chocolates were some of the best I have had. Kerala is high on the list of must-see places in India for foreigners and it showed. There weren’t too many tourists around. A tall, possibly Scandinavian girl was trying out bangles in the shop we bought the tea from. By 8, we returned to our resort, finished our dinner quickly (it was a large buffet spread) and called it a day.

Day 2:

Next day, we woke up totally refreshed and rejuvenated. The plan was to explore the outskirts of the town. We had a quick south Indian breakfast at our hotel and Mr. Pillai was ready for us with his car. Munnar is one of the greenest places I have ever come across in this country. There are just miles and miles of tea-plantations around and the real beauty of them is that they are on small hills, so the curves and the slopes give the green various colours and textures which is really soothing to the eyes.

The place was so uniformly beautiful that we had to stop at various places to enjoy the natural beauty.
Our first destination was Mattupetti Dam which is about 10 km from Munnar. This lake and dam is surrounded by hills, forests and tea plantations from all side and is a popular picnic spot amongst tourists. The forest around Mattupetti is ideal for trekking and bird watching. We took some photos on the dam. The locals have already put up several stalls of local knick-knacks on the road just outside the dam and like any popular tourist destination in India, we found the area around these shops to be littered with plastic. One of the common activities enjoyed by visitors here is boating in and horse riding around the lake. Since we had gone there a bit early in the day, we missed the major tourist rush.

After a mandatory photo session, we started from Mattupetti Dam towards Top Station. My husband, who has spent some time studying in Kerala, has visited Munnar many times and he says that the 25-km journey from Mattupetti to Top Station is one of the best short drives in India. We soon found why. Everything – the manicured tea-gardens, the brilliantly blue sky, the immaculate blue-green lakes, the forested hills, the tall trees by the road and the black-topped road itself winding through this unbelievable picture-postcard scenery – was so perfect that it took your breath way. For long moments, you will think that you are in Lake District of Scotland, while you are less than 100 km from the heat and dust of South India. Ours was a very short trip, but to really enjoy Munnar, three to four days are a minimum.

Our next destination was the Kundala Lake, around 23 km from Munnar and nestling amidst lush jungles, it was serene and beautiful. We found a few shikara-like boats moored at the waterfront, possibly waiting to be deployed later in the day when the rush of tourists would inevitably come. In this serene early-morning atmosphere, those shikaras lent a nearly Dal Lake-like look to the scenery, as this photo shows. The best way of enjoying the lake is to hire a pedal boat and explore the lake and its surroundings. We did that and both my parents and we really enjoyed vigorously pedaling around the lake for close to half an hour.

Our plan was to carry on further to ‘Top-station’ but we were informed that the roads were bad in the last stretch and so we decided to return from there. While coming back, we saw large number of tourist buses around Mattupetti dam and boating and horse riding in full swing around the lake.

After returning to our hotel we had a relaxed lunch. In the afternoon, we wanted to visit the Eravikulam National Park which is around 16 km from Munnar and is one of Kerala’s finest reserves. The Atlas moth, the largest of its kind in the world, is a unique inhabitant of the park. Other rare species of fauna found here are the Nilgiri Langur, the lion-tailed macaque, leopards, tigers, etc. However as we started from our hotel we were told that the park remains closed for 45 days starting from February onwards as this was the breeding season for the animals. We were not aware of this and were really disappointed. We spent some time in and around the local tea-gardens of Munnar and then returned to our resort by 4 pm. The rest of the day we spent time playing table tennis, carom and snooker.

Day 3:

With a heavy heart, we bade farewell to Munnar on the third day and started towards Thekkady. Thekaddy is 110 km from Munnar and given the good roads, it was a mere 3 hours’ journey unless you take frequent halts, which you will inevitably end up doing. After the magical drive to Top Station the day before, we thought we had seen it all, little knowing that an even better (or at least as good) experience was in store. The scenery opened up dramatically, and the hills assumed a scale that we haven’t seen so far. They became taller and craggier and the valleys became deeper. We could now see the tea-gardens sprawled for miles around a huge landscape, with the road snaking through it. The air was crisp and cool, despite the strong sun and the feeling of having been in a near-perfect, paradisiacal land that we had the day before, now only got compounded. The tea-plantations themselves were here dotted with orange trees which, we learnt, served both to provide shade to the plants and give a distinctive orange flavor to the tea. We soon came upon the huge Anayirankal lake lying deep in the valley below, set amidst towering hills, deep forests and tea-gardens around it and adding the final, logical, awe-inspiring dimension to this epic English-country scenery. This lake is a watering hole for the animals that lived in the forests the lake washed up to.

Soon, though, the show ended and we reached a small town called Poopara, from where the road became mostly level. Still it was one of the typical Kerala roads that have hundreds of bends. Since the road quality here is really one of the best in the country, the cars generally drive at a good speed. Feeling nauseated during these drives is a common phenomenon and we had to tell the enthusiastic Mr. Pillai to slow down. If Munnar was the land of tea-plantations, Thekkady was spice country. The gradual change of scenery from tea-plantation to spice gardens was clearly visible as we were refreshed with heavenly aroma of cardamom and cloves.
Thekkady is home to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The unique combination of climate, soil and terrain here, makes this one of the few places where so many varieties of spices can be grown. We found pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, to name a few. The tea and coffee plantations add to the scent in the cool air. A walk through the plantations is a fascinating experience as you learn the peculiarities and special needs of the plants. Our stay in Thekkady was in ‘Aranya Nivas’ which was a KTDC resort inside the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. We reached ‘Aranya Nivas’ by 3:30 pm and were told that the late-afternoon safari cruise though the Periyar Lake had just left for the day. This meant that we could take the river cruise only the next day in the early morning.

Since we had few hours at our disposal we decided to go for the much-advertised ‘elephant-ride’ through spice plantations in Kumily which is around 4 km from Thekkady. On the hindsight I must admit that this was the only unsatisfactory part of our entire tour as the so called ‘spice-plantation’ where we were taken was a very small place with hardly any space for an animal like elephant to maneuver. The garden was in a very bad shape and the ride that was to last for 30 min was done in 18 min. We realized this particular activity of elephant-ride through spice-plantations was mainly a tourist gimmick and a good means of making easy money. We were a little upset with the overall experience and decided to go to the actual spice gardens for buying some spice. Though the price was not very cheap the spices available there was fresh and of a high quality and we got a good deal.

After returning to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, we enjoyed the evening near the lake. This was a beautiful experience and since we were staying inside the sanctuary we were allowed to spend time near the lake that is restricted to outsiders after 5 pm. In the far distance, on the lake shore, we stared at a moving black dot for quite some time, before, gazing through my husband’s telephoto lens, we found it to be bison drinking water. We walked back to our resort at 8:00 pm and settled for an early dinner. One advantage, in terms of food, of visiting Kerala is that the cuisine and staple food is quite similar to that of Bengal. The food is not too spicy, there was a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes and my parents thoroughly enjoyed the spread provided by all the resorts. Being inside the sanctuary, we were told of and expected a large number of night sounds of animals and birds, but the night was strangely quiet.

Day 4:

Our day started early and we were all geared up for the safari-cruise and assembled near the Periyar Lake. The Periyar National Park is around the 5500-hectare Periyar Lake formed by the construction of a dam on the Periyar River in 1895. The unique feature of this artificial lake is that the dam as well as a fire had submerged the low lying forest, the dead and burnt out tree trunks of which still jut out of water making it a strange backdrop to the marshland and dense forests around the lake. Our cruise started sharp at 7:30 am. There was a major accident during one of these cruises in 2009 which resulted in 30 tourists drowning in the lake. Since then Kerala Tourism has taken safety of travelers a little seriously and we were provided with life jackets. The boats though are still not in the best of condition but the life jackets did provide some comfort.

The morning cruise is of two hours and takes the peripheral route of the lake such that the tourists can get a view of the animals that come to drink water at the lake. The Periyar Wild Life Sanctuary boasts of quite rich and diverse flora and fauna. This place is one of the richest habitats of mammals as it provides both excellent cover and nourishment in the form of shoots and grass. Here it is possible to see herds of elephants, bysons, wild-boars and Nilgiri Langurs to name a few. We were not so fortunate to see elephants, though each of us almost sprained our necks and hurt our eyes trying our best to locate them. However we did see bysons, wild boars, deer and the Nilgiri Langur.

The safari cruise lasted till 9:30 am and by the time we returned we were famished. We quickly finished our breakfast as that day we were to start for Kumarakom.
We were ready at 10:30 am for a 4 hour journey to the backwaters of Kerala – Kumarakom. The journey from Thekkady to Kumarakom is a total of 128 km of which mostly takes us amidst spice plantations, some tea gardens and then reaches the plains. On our way, we visited a beautiful church amidst tea-gardens. The church and its surroundings were so serene and picturesque that we took a break and spent some time there. As we approached the plains we could distinctively feel difference in temperature, and the hot and sultry climate welcomed us back as we first admired the view of backwaters.

Kumarakom is set in the backdrop of Vembanad Lake which is the largest fresh water lake in Kerala. Fishing, tourism and agriculture are its main occupation and the tropical climate makes it conducive for all tropical fruits, coconut plants and paddy field. The typical picture of Kerala seen in most tourism sites with water, boats and coconut trees all around is a common site here.Tourism of Kumarakom mainly revolves around the Vembanad lake and there is a wide variety of houseboats available for the tourists along with several resorts lined up the shores of the lake. Our resort ‘Waterscapes’, also of KTDC, was right on the bank of the lake and really offered a wonderful water-front view all around.

That evening we spent a quiet, peaceful time watching the sun set on the Vembanad lake. The calm, rippling golden water with beautiful houseboats gracefully floating by and the chirping of the birds returning to their nest was a moment that I will cherish for a long time.




Kumarakom also has a bird sanctuary which can be visited by canoe arranged by local fisherman at the entrance of the sanctuary. We however decided against it and spend our time near the lake inside the resort. At dinner, we relished the local delicacies. After a walk inside the resort, we called it a day and went off to our wooden cottages. The resort only had all-wood cottages and each cottage had a big bedroom and balcony very tastily done. True to the backwater tradition, the cottages were elevated on wooden pillars and there were canals of water all around the cottages giving a unique feel.

Day 5:

This was our last day in Kerala and though a little sad we went for early boating in Vembanad Lake. The boat was a typical fishing boat with wooden oars and the ride through the lake was a beautiful one. We watched the traditional fishermen with their boats in the lake throwing their nets in the water, waiting patiently, then gathering up the net and repeating the entire process again. We watched various birds flying all around the lake looking for fish. After enjoying one hour of boat ride we returned to our resort. All that was left after that was packing, finishing breakfast, once again admiring the lake and the beautiful resort and then, with a heavy heart, leave for the airport. This wasn’t the first time I was coming to Kerala, but this was the best Kerala trip I have ever had.

P.S: Photographs by Nilangsu Mahanty