Varkala – Paradise in God’s Own Country

We left Alleppey around 10 am after our breakfast in Alleppey and headed through the potholed roads, southwards. The roads are extremely bad and the monsoon performed its part. During traffic hours, it gets worse. The 104 kms stretch approximately took us 4 hours to reach, because of the road condition. Finally, with a number of tea/coffee breaks, we reached varkala at 3pm. The moment we reached, the view and the sound of the wild sea  from the cliff brought back all our energies. We walked past the cliff lined with all the cafe, eateries and stay places.

   

Varkala is very similar to any other seabeach in India, the shops with dokra, cheap clothes, small artifacts and traditional Indian shops. There are huge number of Kerala Ayurvedic Massage centres which offers a good range of massages in a very good price. The places to stay on the cliff overlooking the sea are expensive one, but as we take the by lane, there are a large number of places to stay, comfortable and affordable.

As I always go by the Tripadvisor and Lonely Planet, I kept looking at the ones that are recommended. in one of the by lanes, we found Mummy’s Bamboo House, a small yet sparkling clean place. We got our rooms in the ground floor at a price as low as Rs.400/- per day. The room is spacious and a big washroom. The building looks as good as new. The Best part are the hammocks outside the rooms. When I spoke to the host, Rani, she said that it was 9 years old. Wow!! What a beautifully maintained place. Rani had been by far, the best host we have come across. Warm and smiling. She gave us amazing tea/coffee and great Kerala lunch and coconut pancake in the later day. The surprisingly best part of Varkala is that every place is Wi-fi enabled.

Once we got the place to stay, we headed out for lunch. The Little Tibet caught our sight among all the Casa Del Sol, German Bakery, Buddha Cafe and the others. We ordered Thupka, Mutton Momo, pancake and Sizzlers. The food tastes amazing here. The prices are relatively low. The a little time the took to serve us was because the food is fresh and steaming.We hanged around in cliff that day for sometimes and went back to our den. We rested the early evening in the hammocks and finally decided to retire fast that day after our dinner in another hangout called Caffe Italiano. A good looking attractive place that looks like a library and is filled with artificially woven cobwebs. The ambiance is beautiful. The Food was not upto the mark. The cocktails served were good, but the pasta was sauce less and dry, food had no taste at all and the seafood was extremely expensive for a sea side.

The next day was the day to look around the varkala town after our English breakfast and pancake time at Casa Del Mar, We visited a Vishnu temple, a Sivagiri Maath and the Kappil Beach outlined with the backwaters. The Kappil Beach is the flat beach with a tremendously rough sea and beautiful backwaters. Its and experience. We spent about 2-3 hours there and got back to Cliff. After freshening up for the evening, we spent time, shopping and walking by the cliff. Post that, we went for the most recommended Kerala Ayurveda Massage. A good 60 minutes relaxation was really good.

We had our dinner in a place called Sky Lounge. The food was great there and extremely inexpensive. The pepper chicken, Thukpa and the Pancake was amazing and the cocktails again were the best. We also ordered steak in pepper sauce and that too tasted great.

 

The next day was our day to depart from Varkala. We limited our breakfast to our B&B menu of appam and curry from a place round the corner from Mummy’s Bamboo house. Our Lunch was the definitely no to miss Kerala meal and coconut Pancake.

As we packed up, we saw the Anchuthengu Fort,the Varkala Lighthouse and the Varkala Tunnel.

Drive to Alleppey – Venice of the East !!

10/08 we started from: BANGALORE for our most awaited Kerala Tour.

Our first destination is the Venice of the East, ALLEPPEY.

We started late at 6pm from Bangalore and hit the Mysore road to stop for a fishy dinner at Pujari-Fishland around 10 pm. As always, it is my dream fish place to hog and hog and start for the journey. We crossed our planned 37 kms to Nanjangudu and then to Gundlupet. We halted, took a coffee break and fooled around for sometimes to wail off time as much as possible.

Around 1 am, we reached before the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary at Sultan Bathery, the forest remains closed from 9pm to 6am. There were about 150-200 cars waiting for the check post get to open. We waited for about 3-4 hours and greeted daybreak and sunrise in the forest. A pitch dark night by the forest is definitely an experience to enjoy. We had read a lot of reviews of the different routes to Alleppey from Bangalore, we avoided the coimbatore road to ignore the forever bad 80 kms from Palakkad to thrissur. This route had nowhere been mentioned and hence we took the road not taken and ended up spending a night by the forest, an experience to be cherished.

We took the Kozhikode-Mysore-Kollegal Hwy/NH 212 and headed in Kerala. The road remained green and winding all throughout with a stretch of 20kms downhill that was bad due to rain and thick vegetation. The natural beauty left us awestruck and we photographed our way to our destination.

At about 12pm, we reached SH 71/State Highway 71 at Manjeri and stopped for a long break of lunch and relaxation.  Our lunch consisted of Kerala paratha and curry with biryani and kerala style chicken kabab. Once done, we walked around for a while and then started our drive.

Post 12 kms, we took the Palakkad Ponnani Rd/Shornur – Perinthalmanna Road, saw the beautiful OttuPara Juma Masjid and got into the Salem-Kanyakumari Hwy with an entry toll of Rs. 3/-. Funny it was for all of us. As we kept going further  we passed Thrissur and the Cochin- Ernakulam through a beautiful stretch of urban kerala that looked more like one of the Middle-East towns.

Post this stretch started the horribly potholed 30 kms road to Alleppey. This was the unavoidable stretch of the last few lapse of the journey and was extremely frustrating. Finally around 7 pm, we reached the backwaters of Alleppey.

Tired as we were, we were warmly greeted by the houseboat owner. Our car was parked in a safe household for an amount of Rs.100 for the next 2 days. Coffee and Banana pakora was served to us as a welcome drink and snacks.

As we settled to freshen up in the splashy and swanky air-conditioned bedrooms, the boat started to take us into the darkness of the backwater. After an hour, it stopped by a small island rowed with other houseboat like a queue. We had a quick dinner of Kerala food and enjoyed the ripple of the water till we went back into the cosy blankets.

At 7am, it was the knock for the morning tea/coffee. I woke up at daybreak with the sound of rain. I slided the window and moved the curtains to see the dark sky and rain lashing on the water. What a beauty, I told myself. We sat in the common area for breakfast around 9am for the hot steaming dosa, idli and appam. The houseboat kept rowing it way through the vicinity of small villages where the daily mode of transport are the small boats.

People ferried their way to work in passenger boats, students went to school in school boats, milkman rowed his boat to stop by every household to deliver milk, the vegetable seller stopped by every house to sell the vegetables. What a wonderful like Alleppey had. Every household had a boat shed to garage their personal boats, like we have our car parks in the cities.                                                         

The cook and the helper caught fishes from the back water and fried it for us.

At 1 pm, the houseboat stationed by a stretch of land. We were served our lunch and post lunch, we got down to take a walk around, had tender coconut water and stopped for some banana chips and soft drinks.

The boat started to row again and as we passed other houseboats, we clicked photographs and waved out to them. The rain kept showering on and off. We had our share of sunshine as well. At 5 pm, we were served with snack and tea and coffee post which, we settled for some beer and the hot fried fishes. The rain lashed again on the houseboat and it was amazing.  We continued to enjoy the scenic sunset on the water and enjoy the evening. The houseboat was again stationed by a small island for the night with the others. At about 9pm, dinner was served. Post dinner, we played some card, sang some songs, talked for awhile and finally it was a birthday party on the houseboat. After wishing Vinay a very memorable birthday on the houseboat and raising a toast, we retired for the day at about 2am.

Next morning, at around 8am, we were served with our breakfast as we headed to the shore where we started from. Our Houseboat experience finally came to an end. The feeling was lovely, will be cherished for sometimes other than the time bound routine that we were tied up into after a very long time. Convent life flashed back into my memories in the houseboat and all my hostel matrons revisited me in Alleppey.

On the whole, it was a good memory.