I with my college friend Piyali decided to visit Kerala this June 2022. Our another friend Suparna lives in Trivandrum, it was actually her insistence for quite a long period made it happen ultimately!
On 09th June we took flight at noon and reached Trivandrum by evening after a change of flight at Bangalore. Suparna came to the airport to receive us. Just outside the TRV airport we stopped at the beautiful sea , Sanmugham Beach side to take some snaps quickly and then proceeded to a cafe for coffee and light snacks. Next day after lunch we went to much heard and awaited visit to Kovalam beach! Phew, it was a complete anticlimax to my expectations. Twice my trips to this part of Kerala were cancelled with full bookings and I was so keen to see this famous and much sought after sea beach but it was such a disappointment ultimately! There is hardly anything remarkable about the beach either in its vastness, sand colour or anything else. I was absolutely disappointed. But insistence of my friend's husband to go up to the light house point ultimately made it a nice memory when we discovered with some tips from another tourist that we can actually go up the light house since there's an elevator! This was a sweet surprise and naturally the view from atop was quite breath taking and amazing.
Arabian sea outside the airport...lovely view!
We returned to our Trivandrum friend's home after having our dinner in one of the good South Indian eateries with masala dosa and their typical filter coffee! Next we were scheduled to go to the estuary area at Poovar which has both golden sand beach as well as back water! We started early and had our branch at one of the good eateries at the outskirt of Trivandrum near the Lulu mall! We ate uttapam, puri sabji, fruits, eggs with mashed potatoes and sautéed vegetables with coffee! The food was really good. Next we progressed towards Poovar which is on the way to Kanyakumari. We reached at around noon. The resort is Estaury Sarovar Portico Hotel, Poovar. The property is a really wonderful gate away with huge sprawling compound with beautiful lawns large trees, mango, jamun, coconut, jack fruits and other trees along with many varieties of flowering trees and plants. The whole campus is wonderfully naturally decorated and maintained. The staying cottages have huge rooms and comfortable staying options. There are swimming pools, gym, playing arena and on the top of it, it's absolutely on the back water estuary where just sitting under the coconut tree shade or while dinning or swimming you can enjoy the view of the back water as well as sea waves breaking on the golden sand beach! It's mind blowing view and ultimate relaxations. A picture perfect holiday destination. After resting for sometime and having tea with some snacks we proceeded to sea beach. The hotel provides free boat service to go to the sea beach since the space in between sea and the hotel is completely filled with back water. So a short boat ride takes you to the golden sea beach. You have to get down in water from the boat to reach the beach. The sea is quite rough at that time and the life savers were not allowing anyone to take bath in the sea since it may turn out to be dangerous! There was high current in the waves and water. We frolicked by wetting our feet in the sea and then walked along the beach to watch the beauty of the sea. There were lots of small crabs quickly vanishing in their holes as soon as you try to go near them. Since I could not get down with my shoes on from the boat as we had to get down in more than ankle deep water I had to leave my shoes in the boat and took the boatman's mobile number so that we can go back with him! It's difficult to walk bare foot on the golden sand beach and there were lots of single pair of sandals of different sizes and shapes strewn all over the beach which must have been first lost by tourists and then again sea must have returned those not in pairs of course, I was able to collect one black and other white pair of rubber sandals for left and right foot! That was too much fun and we all four enjoyed it a lot. We had our wonderful dinner with appam and mutton stew! It was heavenly good in taste and after roaming around the swimming pool and the beautiful gardens ultimately retired for the day.
Beautiful, huge compound of the resort
Golden sand beach and sea
Left hand side is the estuary back water & right hand side is the sea
Back water boating
Hawk Eagle, a lot of these birds were seen here
Stork at back water inside the resort compound
Next morning we got up early to go around the sprawling complex of the resort. They have wonderful gardens of spices, flowers and big trees of jackfruits, mangoes, coconut and many more! There is a full fledged Ayurvedic treatment center along with massage and such other such luxury corners. Many people including foreigners come here for treatment from all over India or other part of the World to stay for long periods to get Ayurvedic treatments! Because of covid pandemic presently the treatment centre is not working properly right now! Just outside the reception but still inside the resort complex you will find a beautiful bridge on the back water creek. We saw lots of storks and other birds there. There's a boat jetty as well. Actually previously the resort has the wonderful arrangement of bringing all the tourists by boat only through these water bodies. But now that arrangement is also discontinued which my Trivandrum friend Suparna dissented much. She told them repeatedly that they are wrong in discontinuing that wonderful arrangement! After some obligatory photo shoots all around the compound we returned to our room to get ready for our back water ride for one and half hours. This again was a memorable journey where we could see lots of birds like stork billed kingfisher, common kingfisher, various kinds of herons, stork, cormorant, darters, hawk eagles and various other birds. Foliage also is wonderful. All over the trip was enjoyable.
We went straight to the dinning hall after embarking from the boat since by this time we were pretty hungry! It was a lavish spread of buffet breakfast with all sorts of possible things on offer. We devoured a lot as if we were starving for sometime! Sometime later we left the resort to return to Trivandrum after an extremely satisfying leisure trip. On the way we stopped at Lulu mall for sometime.
Our next destination in this tour was Kanyakumari. The next morning we got up early and got ready quickly as our train was at around 9 am. It reaches Kanyakumari at around noon. The train came slightly late but the journey was pleasant with absolutely empty AC 3 tier coach, we three just relaxed in whole berths. We had booked TTDC lodge there and the place was quite near the station and beside the sea. Our twin cottage rooms with individual balconies have wonderful view of the sea. The lodge premises is quite sprawling and lots of peacocks were roaming around! We had our lunch in the lodge itself and took vegetarian thali with delicious fried Kind fish of huge size each. After taking a little rest we proceeded for the embarkment point to go to Vivekananda rock since we knew the boat service will stop at 4pm. Since we will be staying here just one night and our return train is scheduled to leave at around 10 am, there was no way to miss it this afternoon itself. It was close by the vessel embarkment point, we got into one of vessel and reached the Vivekananda rock. It was thrilling to think you are even down the Southern most tip of India and looking at the huge land from deep sea. Its a thrilling experience to feel that you are amidst three seas...Indian ocean in front of you...Bay of Bengal in left whereas Arabian Sea is in the right. We soaked into the beauty and uniqueness of the place for quite some time and then took the ferry at around 5 pm to return to mainland! Then went for darshan to Kanyakumari Temple and lastly went to the sun set point. But since right now the sun is at it's Northern most point in mid June sun set is happening on land only. I think from September to March-April it will set in the Arabian sea! The unique place where you can watch both sun rise and set. We went to bed early that night after dinner since we want to watch the sun rise at 6 am and would like to reach the sunrise point a 5-6 minutes walk from the TTDC lodge. There was one watch tower on the sea shore just beside TTDC lodge but it needed you to go up the stairs. Because of our knee problem we preferred to go to the Sun rise point behind the temple.
view from TTDC reception
At Vivekananda Rock
The first peep drew a huge encore from the gathered watchers along with conch shell blow for 1 full minute from the Authorities, the surrounding and ambience was electric
After watching the awesome sunrise we strolled back to lodge from the other direction and had our sumptuous breakfast with dosa, idli, vada, upma, coffee etc we relaxed sometime at our room. After taking the bath we went to the station to catch our return train to Trivandum.
I'm finishing the first part of the Kerala Travelogue here.
