Kerala Trip

11th Aug 2009 to 15th Aug 2009

Kerala: is a state in the south-western part of India. It is bordered by Karnataka to the north, Tamil Nadu to the south and the east and the Lakshadweep Sea towards the west. Thiruvananthapuram is the capital and largest city of Kerala. Kochi and Kozhikode are other major cities.

Kerala is a popular tourist destination famous for its backwaters, Ayurvedic treatments and tropical greenery. The state has a literacy rate of 94.59 percent, the highest in India.

Malayalam is the language spoken in Kerala, it’s a combination of two words, Mala meaning mountain and alam meaning the land or locality (which lays along side the mountain).

Day 01: 11-Aug-2009

We had train (Name: garibh rath) to Cochin at 8PM from yashvanthpur Railway station. Train started at 8:30PM. It was an overnight journey to kerala.

Day 02 : Date : 12-Aug-2009

Aleepy beach

We reached Ernakulam Railway Station at 9AM. Chauffeur - Mr Omanakuttan was waiting for us in the Station. Alleppy boat house was our first place to visit. It is around 2 hours drive from Cochin.

Alleppy is also known as Alappuzha. It is a beautiful town in Kerala which is well knows for its mesmerizing backwaters, arresting beaches, lush green paddy fields, houseboats and snake boat race.

We reached Alleppy beach at 11AM. In its peaceful ambiance all you can hear is the melody of the unfathomable waves at the shore. We had a very good time playing in water.

House Boat

We headed towards Alleppy boat house and checked in to houseboat at 12PM The houseboats are provided with all modern amenities, open sit out, sunbath deck, specious living area, kitchen, bath attached bedrooms with T.V, DVD and other entertainment.

Aleppy Backwater

After little refreshment started cruising in the houseboat of Kerala which is locally called Kettuvallam. It is also a perfect option for accommodation. Kuttanad is a land of lush paddy fields and stretches for 75 Km sandwiched between the sea and the hills.


Overnight stay in houseboat….Some might get bored to stay one whole day in houseboat…but for us it was nice for relaxing whole day as we had overnight journey in train.


Day 03 : Date : 13-Aug-2009

After breakfast in boat house, we headed towards munnar, which is 180km.

Munnar : is a town located in the Idduki district of India's Kerala state. The name Munnar is derived from the Malayalam words Munu (three) and aaru (river), referring to the town's strategic location at the confluence of the Muthirappuzha, Nallathanni and Kundaly rivers.

It was 5hr journey and on the way we had been to kuthumkal waterfalls.

Misty Moutain resort

Mist near the resort

The room was booked in Misty mountain resort  (http://www.mistymountainresort.in/) … We reached Misty mountain Resort around 2:30PM. It is located only minutes from Munnar town. The resort is surrounded by mist all the time. Climate is too good. Thought of visiting market place in the evening…..but it started raining at 4-30PM..so did not go anywhere. Evening we had a stroll in the tea estates near to our resort.

Day 04 : Date : 14-Aug-2009

This was a busy day, so many places to visit and too many snaps to take.

Photo point

we started at 9AM……visited photo point( nice view of tea estate)…went to horse riding….next went to elephant riding place….there was a big queue for that…so just took some snaps and headed towards next place.

Mettupetty Dam

Next visited Mettupetty River and dam : The beautiful hill station of Mettupetty is a 13 km drive away from Munnar. The panoramic view of the dam surrounded by wooden hills and tea plantations. Boating is a popular activity here. The DTPC (District Tourism Promotion Council) Idukki has good facility for boating and has a fleet of speed boats, row boats and pedal boats.

As it was crowded we did not go for boating here. Here we bought a bunch of carrot and had that throughout the journey…

Echo point

Next place is Echo point….the best scenic place…..as the name says…if you shout at this place …u can hear the echo…. Here also there is a boating facility available. We headed towards next place called kundalam dam.. here we went for peddle boating ,had a good time there……then it started drizzling. so headed back…

Kundalam Dam

Came to munnar town and had dinner in some hotel….Driver suggested that was the only pure vegetarian hotel forgot the name though….lunch was ok…..but lot of varieties in lunch….then headed towards eravikulam National Park ….Here need to go in national park bus for 4 KM….and need to go by walk for 1 KM….everyone say it is a home ofNilgiri tahr..animal of goat family (http://www.eravikulam.org/ ) But again it started drizzling….We could not find any animal over there…Headed back to hotel and reached hotel at 5 PM…took rest…

Day 05 : Date : 15-Aug-2009

As per the package plan…today there was not much to see…it was only travelling back to Cochin and visit some churches in Cochin and drop in railway station….so we decided to pay extra money and visit some other place on that day…

Athirapally water falls

Before going to trip…. We had a research on other places to see in kerala and we found some nice waterfall called Athirapally Waterfall (http://www.keralagreenery.org/athirapally-vazhachal-waterfalls.html)

. It is around 92 KM from cochin….We paid the cab driver some extra money and asked him to take us to this water fall…we started munnar at 10AM…on the mid way he took some deviation and took us to Athirapally waterfalls at around 2 PM….It was a nice waterfall….you need to go by walk for around 1 KM to see this falls…..Again need to go 1KM trek to see full view of falls…..It was holiday(15th aug) so it was heavily crowded…but it is a must see place in Kerala.

Again headed back to Cochin at around 3-30 PM…..reached Cochin at 5 PM. We had train at 8-30 PM…what to do till then?….so went to Oberon shopping mall in cochin…did window shopping….spent one hour there and reached railway station at 6-30 PM.

Preview

Train came half an hour late (9PM) and reached Bangalore at around 9AM on 16th Morning.

Mysore-Coorg Trip

Date: 25^h Dec 2008 to 27^th Dec 2008

As we had holiday for Christmas on Thursday 25^th Dec 2008 we took leave on Friday 26^th Dec 2008 and decided to go for coorg trip.

We reached Mysore on 24^th night itself and stayed in akka’s house.

25^th Dec 2008.

We did not plan in ahead anything for 25^th dec. On 25^th morning after breakfast visited Mysore palace and came back to akka’s house and took rest. Evening we had been to Dasara Exhibition along with akka and sachin (my nephew). It was a pleasant evening without rain so sachin was able to play some games and we roamed in the exhibition for around two to three hours.

My Brother-in-law booked the cab for us for two days (26^th and 27^th dec).

26^th Dec 2008.

Bandipur

            Our cab came at 7AM to pick us, we had breakfast and were ready by that time. We headed towards coorg. On the way to coorg we could able to see some deers and elephants in bandipur Natinal Park. We did not go for any safari there and headed towards coorg. At around 10AM he took us to Irpu falls. It was a nice falls and we were able to go near the falls and play in water in the water.

We had a nice time till 12 PM. Next

Irpu falls

Abbhi falls

 we asked cab driver to take us to Thalacauveri (Birth place of river cauvery) It was bit far from coog may be around 60 to 70 KM from coorg city. We reached there at around 2 PM. We visited temple and saw the cauveri river “ugama stanam”. There was a small hill with steps we climbed that hill and had nice scenic view of nature. We headed towards Coorg and reached coorg at around 5-30 PM. We went to one more falls called abbhi falls.  It is a nice falls in the centre of some tea garden, but unlike iruppu falls we can not get in to the water we can view the falls from some distance. We took some snaps 

Coorg halli mane

and headed to-wards Kushalnagar where we booked the hotel. We had booked the Coorg halli mane in kushalnagar. We reached that hotel at around 7-30 PM.

It was a small resort kind of thing with around 10 to 12 rooms. The Rooms were neat and were happy for the room what we had booked. We had dinner in the resort and slept.

  

27^th Dec 2008

Dubare

We got up early and went to Dubare Elephent camp. We had breakfast on the way and reached the elephant camp at around 8 AM. It is good place in coorg, we can easily spend half day there. We were able to see 10 to 20 elephants, we went in small boat to cross the stream and reached the elephant camp. We get in to the water and took some snaps with elephant; we went for elephant ride and feed the elephant. While coming back we came by walking across the stream. It was a nice experience and we had a greate time in water out there.

Dubare

Kaveri nisarga dhama

Golden Temple

Next we went to one more place in kushlnagar called Kaveri nisarga dhama. We had our lunch in that place stroll in that place for a while. It is like Small Island and the cauveri river stream is running around this place. We got a chance to get in to small stream there and hada nice time there till evening. Next we headed to one more place called Golden temple situated in Tibetian colony in kushalnagar. It was a good place and very calm place. We had a nice tiem there till 4PM.

We headed towards Mysore at 4-30PM and reached Mysore at 6-30 PM.

The Next day 28^th December we came back to Bangalore from Mysore.

This concludes our memorable trip to coorg.

Pondicherry Trip : second anniversary

Date: 11th June 2010 to 13th June 2010


11Th June:

It was our second anniversary on 12th, so we decided to go for a trip. First planned for any near by resort but after searching so many things for the availability we decided to go for Pondicherry trip. As our car was new and we are new to driving, we do not want to take risk of driving in the night. We booked the sharma travels from Bangalore to Pondicherry and SRS travels from Pondicherry to Bangalore for 13th night.

The Bus from kalasipalya was supposed to start at 10 PM, but it started at 10-30. We had a sleeper seat booked in sharma travels, Thought it is sleeper coach, we did not have a pleasant journey as the seats were wet and was difficult to sleep( one was better). The Bus reached Pondicherry at 7 AM on 12th June.It was supposed to reach at 5AM but two hours late we reached Pondicherry.

12th June:

Kailash Beach resort

We had booked the Kailash beach resort in Pondicherry for 12th and 13th, the resort is about 10 KM from the Bus stand and the cab from resort was waiting for us near the bus stop. The cab driver escorted us from the bus stand to resort. We reached resort at around 7-30 AM. It was a Eco friendly resort, the rooms are pretty decent. There was no TV or refrigerator in the room as it was Eco friendly resort.

We freshen up and get ready by 9-30 AM. We were hungry as we had
dinner in Bangalore on 11th night at 8PM. After getting ready first we headed towards restaurant and asked for the menu. He said juice, fruits and bread- jam is available for breakfast. We did not see many families not sure why (may be because it was Saturday early morning). We had a breakfast and stroll for a while in the resort.

There was a private beach in the resort just around 200 metres from the room what we were staying. It was very sunny morning so we thought of having a look at the beach once and headed towards that. We did not get in to the water as it was very sunny morning. We came back from beach and booked the cab for half day sightseeing. We had lunch in the resort and the cab came to resort at around 2PM. We booked the cab for next day also and there were not many places in Pondicherry so driver said leisurely we can visit the places.

Auroville matri mandir

First he took us to the place called Auroville. There is a mediation hall
called matri mandir in auroville. It is a great place to see as the  architecture of that building fascinated us to visit that place. We reached auroville at around 3PM, They showed the video in the reception
and we were excited to see that matri mandir. On the way to that driver told us that we can not directly go to matri mandir as it needs prior appointment to enter that building. We enquired in the reception bout that. For our bad luck there was no appointment possible for next two days. Just we can see from outside. It is around 1 to 1.5 KM from the reception, we started walking towards that. The rain

Big banyan tree

started when we were half way. There was a big banyan tree in the same way. We were struck in the rain and waited near the banyan tree for half an hour for rain to stop. We reached that matri mandir at around 4PM. It was great place, very neat and great architecture. We took some snaps from outside and headed back to the place. There were some shops near the reception, we did just window shopping as the things in the shop was not interesting.

The driver took us to the vinayaka temple in the city. After the temple visited aurobindo ashram. Those two places were small but it was good. Driver took us to Bazaar Street and we just roamed in the bazaar for a while.
We came back to resort at around 6-30PM.

After the dinner at 8-30 in the resort, we had a small walk in the resort to feel the

glimpse of the resort in the night.



13th June:

Shubha in relaxing mood in resort private beach

We got up late, late means it was late only for me not for shubha as it was around 7AM. We went to the resort beach and had a nice time over there till 9 AM. It was a neat beach and not much crowded as it was a private beach. But
our phone, in fact shubha’s phone was damaged in the beach as beach wave hit the shore and salt water enter in to the mobile. We played in the water till 9 AM and came back to resort. We had a bath and went for a breakfast. Surprisingly unlike yesterday there were many people in
the resort and even the breakfast was good. After breakfast we came back to room and started packing up as we decided to check out the resort at 12PM.

The cab was booked from 12Pm to 9 PM for that day.

Boat House, Chunnambar

we headed towards the place called Boat House, Chunnambar. It was a nice place. We need to go in boat in the backwaters of the beach. The boat will take us to the island place, where we can see the beach and play around. As it was Sunday it was crowded in that place. But we had a great time there till 2-30 PM.

Sandy Beach

Next driver took us to one nice hotel in Pondicherry town for lunch. We had a lunch there and headed towards one more beach called sandy beach.On the way to that beach we visited Barathi Memorial Museum. We had a nice time in sandy beach and on the way back visited tow more temples. Then we went to one more beach called Stone beach. Here we can not get in to
the water but nice place to sit and chat. We were there in that place till 8-30 PM. This place is like a normal Adda for the locals and hundreds of locals were sitting on the shore till late night.

The driver dropped us to the bus stand at around 9 PM. We had a dinner in the near by hotel. We had a SRS travels booked for the journey from Pondicherry to Bangalore. The bus started at around 10-30 and reached Bangalore on 14th June at around 5-20 AM.

This concluded the memorable trip to Pondicherry.