I recently travelled to Kerala. And must admit I came back pretty impressed. Its a nice place by all means. The God's Own Country.
Interesting things:
- Amazingly green. It’s like a carpet of Green color, with few concrete dots here and there to enable human livings and no its not only coconut trees it's, Paddy , Tea and lot more
- Honest: Seriously being born and bought up in northern part of India , this is un-digestible. Even auto wallahs don’t cheat
- Lotteries: Ohh yes this came as shock, its legal there
- Language barrier: You don’t know Malayalam, that's OK. Try English and it will work. ( Talk about 90%+ literacy)
- Food: The chicken biryani was "richer"
then the one I ever ate in Lucknow or Hyderabad. Even a 70/- Rs kerala thali is
mouth watering
Few Dampeners
- The tourist information bureaus are just for formality. I did not saw any of them open/Functional.
- The one at the Cochin airport was operational but was not able to provide any required info or brochure
- Be ready for black money. None of the places/hotels I visited were willing to take money via card or gave me a proper receipt with taxes paid
I Tried these following places:
Cochin:
-
Not a tourist destination per se, but since it has airport you can’t avoid it.
- There is a Dutch palace, avoid if you can
- There is a beach, which looks like a cemetery for sea weeds. ( But you can see Chinese fishing nets in operation)
- There’s a Mall named "Lulu'. Try that. They have built a whole amusement park on 3rd floor.
Munnar:
-
Wowwww. Dark green, Light green, Tall green, short green. All shades of greenery are there.
- You will take at least 1.5 - 2 days to cover up everything.
- Nothing out of ordinary but don’t miss the Elephant Rides, Tea Museum.
- Tip: Take the hotel in the main munnar town itself. ( Though there are few in the core town but it will make your travel and evenings easier)
Allepy:
- No its not Allepy. It's actually Alappuzha
- This is the home to famed back waters of Kerala and houseboats
- Its like roads replaced with water, 4 wheelers with house boats and 2 wheelers with shikaras. ( And yeah No red lights)
- Make sure you take a shikara, because being small it can actually cover the real back waters. ( If you are observant enough, you can see what’s cooking in other people kitchens)
- TiP: there is a small chance of being cheated here. They will insist on 100% advance payment and by the time you will actually "see" the houseboat it will be too late to change. They won’t be half as good as shown in pics. We had a major disappointment there
- A 2 room houseboat will cost you anywhere between 10 - 15K for 24 hours
Warkala:
- If I can re-do the planning, ( which actually we never did) I would love to stuck it off from plan
- It has a major religious significance but not an "actual" tourist destination
- It mainly has just one beach which is too dangerous for 6 - 8 months of the year
- But yeah all the main hotels etc are on a cliff which gives you a different view all together.
All in all for sure it's a one time visit. Definitely one of the best tourist destination you will come across.
