Bunnygoespop in Kerala

Jan 11-20, 2017

Bunnies were recently spotted popping around in the coconut capital of India, Kerala. This is how:

Day 1:  Kochi

We woke up at Kochi airport all groggy, having spent a night out in Mumbai, gorging on some gorgeous butter chicken in Chota Punjab in Bandra and some very meh lemon tarts in the Taj Mahal hotel. Kochi airport is kinda small and pales infront of the very jazzy Chatrapati Shivaji international airport terminal in Mumbai. But it is solar powered, so Kochi wins. No silly, of course Indore always wins.

We stayed at the Ramada which was far far away from the airport. The views were amazing and a hotel waiter proudly told us they had the longest pool in Kerela (woot) but otherwise the place was no big deal. 2.5 carrots no more. Here’s a pic from the hotel room.

Next I had the most expensive dinner I have ever had in India at Trilogi (USD40 pp), but definitely not the best (though the sea food was very good). A bunny will give it 3.5 carrots. Tip: Fort Kochi is not special at all at night, just replete with mosquitoes and fish odor. But later in our trip, we found out it’s actually quite nice in the evening, with little European style streets with as many Caucasians and a great sunset view point at the Mahatma Gandhi beach.

Day 2: After a quick dip in their very long pool at Ramada, we headed to Allepey and began our houseboat tour at around 1 pm (usual starting time is earlier). 

The scenery is beautiful all along from the start, lined with paddy fields and coconut trees until the stopping point for the night (530 pm) next to a very rustic village where the boat pilot’s family happened to live. 

People were selling ice creams on little boats in the middle of the lake, people were collecting toddy from the palm trees, and children were going to school in school boats. How cool!

Some fishermen in action.

The food served on the boat was amazing especially their masala fried fish. One can also buy super good and expensive fresh sea food and ask the cooks to cook it for them. But we had no cash, hence no fancy fish. (Nobody in Kerala seems to accept cards/ mobile payments, low GDP is your own problem).

Sunset at the village.

The only sad part in the whole trip was that there were some canals full of floating hyacinths and littered with plasticy stuff. 😦 otherwise, the houseboat gets 4 carrots. 

Day 3: Thekkady for Periyar tiger reserve

We had our doubts regarding going to Thekkady but it turned out to be super cool! We strolled into the national park around 4 pm and immediately came across two deers hanging out, black monkeys, regular monkeys, and giant squirrels in the wild.

Plenty of monkey business.

The great Indian dream (below).

That evening we went for a jungle night safari and it was AWESOME. It was just freaking amazing to walk in a jungle in complete darkness other than the full moon light. We saw beastly big bisons not even 5 mt away and I could almost hear a tinge of fear in our ranger’s voice when he told us to run in different directions if the bisons attacked. There were scurrying porcupines, more bisons, some night birds, and samba deer, brown deer and even mouse deer which are an extremely rare sighting! Ok we didn’t see any big cats (tigers or leopards) but they live in the core protected area (925 km2) of the forest. Oh and we also saw a humongous fig tree which was completely hollow from inside. The ranger also poked an elephant dung and saw plastic in it- so so sad! 

Just this picture from the night:

Here. Periyar you get your 5 carrots. 

Day 4: we did a half day walking+bamboo rafting tour and saw and heard many different kinds of birds including the great Indian hornbill. Overall a nice walk but no land animals seen (only their sometimes very fresh poo poo), perhaps because of the loud French girl in our tour. 3 carrots for this trip, no carrots for the French girl.

Our bamboo rafting lake where animals hangout in the dry season.

Later that evening we saw a kathakali (a form of Indian classical dance drama) show which I found to be very amusing.

Restaurant tip: Ambadi is better than Grandma’s. Try the fish fry at A.

Day 5: elephant ride and bathing

We were staying at elephant route hotel which was next to an elephant farm. First we sat on an elephant and went around their estate which was full of spice trees and shrubs. And later we bathed an elephant! 

And then the elephant bathed us!

So much fun! The elephant looks happy too. 

Day 5 afternoon: arrive in Munnar

The route from Thekkady to Munnar was beautiful, lined with brightly colored houses (mostly pink) and cardamom and pepper plantations.

The long leaved shrubs are cardamom.

On the way we also stopped at Rammakalmedu (mostly for an icecream) which was nothing special.

Other than this view and this random statue.

At Munnar, we first stayed at the Leaf Munnar which was just Ok, plus far far away from anything. We walked around the hotel and ate there. Everything was pretty average apart from the great chocolate Ice-cream.

Day 6: sightseeing in Munnar- so beautiful but so much litter!

It was a Monday and yet there were sooooo many tourists! We stopped at all the tourist points such as Mattupetty dam and the top station but the best part of the trip was sitting next to a small temple in between Mattupetty and top station with tea gardens up and down, left and right, with a brilliant green color. So so beautiful.

Mattupetty dam lake minus the crowds 

Green beautiful munnar 

Day 7: Sunrise at Kolukkumalai tea estate

We woke up at 330am to reach Kolukkumalai, the highest tea estate in the world at 2160 m above sea level, before the sunrise. The last part of the road (cough) is super bouldery and bumpy and one can go up there only with a jeep. Somewhat like this picture:

And our jeep broke down in the middle of it! We decided to walk up to the tea estate and it was my most beautiful hike ever- the mountains looked like a dark shadow against a beautiful moonlit sky with hundreds of stars and almost no light pollution. 

We made it to the top before sunrise and found that it was already full of activity (but nowhere as bad as Top station). After watching the sun pop up from the sea of clouds, we walked down to the tea factory. It was all just so beautiful.

Our rendition of the wanderer above the sea of clouds painting.

More clouds and mountain combos

At the tea factory they explained how tea is collected and processed. Super interesting! They pick tea leaves every 14 days and cut down the whole plant once every five years (fun fact a tea plant is an evergreen shrub and can grow till a 100 yrs). So essentially tea plants in the plantations were like little 0-5 yr old bonsai. 

Overall a bunny will give it 4.5 carrots (because the bunny is still shaken by the jumpy jeep ride down). 

If you have one day in Munnar, spend it here.

The bumpy ride was worth it. 

Restaurant tip: Sarvana bhavan is awesome – very no nonsense eat good food and go attitude. T&U food was also very good but slightly pricey.  

Day 8: Kumarakom

 The way from Munnar to Kumarakom was lined with gum trees and pineapple fields and was pretty in general but a Bunny is a car sick animal. 

Kumarakom is another backwaters village and a bird lovers paradise. We spotted a brahmani kite among so many other birds. 

We stayed in a houseboat again and I made this ugly painting:

But on a positive note we had these amazing masala prawns from the lake (this time we had cash thanks to the 10000 withdrawal rule; obviously their card machine was broken).

And we saw this beautiful sunset.

 But overall Allepey houseboating was more scenic than Kumarakom and the bird sanctuary seemed to have fewer birds than we saw on the lake.

And as a final picture which candidly summarizes Kerela:

Disclaimer: Almost all the pics were taken by another very talented bunny, just being humble. 

Next pop: Lakshadweep (a 100,000 islands). pop pop plop