It was yet another marriage and this time it was one of our ex staff. The function was at nooranad off pandalam. Everything went smoother and we had the sadya much early than expected. All had full stomach as we had to have 2 sets of food within a couple of hours. Now we were free to roam around and see some places. But the native Abhilash told us that there is not much to see close by. We had the only option of Pandalam palace, which turned out to be an old place where the current generation of the royal family now reside. One old grand mother was there to tell us about the place and from the way she carried herself around i guess she was the eldest of the royal family. There was nothing much to see other than the architecture, the temple near by, the old manuscripts locked and being worshiped inside the palace and pampa river. We had hired a tavera and traveled 3hours and we had to go some place to make it all count, well more than the marriage. So the idea popped up to go to Kumarakom. Although i had been to this place with some unforgettable memories, i supported the idea as i thought there may be other things to see which i had missed out.
It turned out that i had missed nothing. The main attractions of the place is its scenic back waters offering house boats and stay in some expensive resorts. Another specialty was the bird sanctuary, food and some massage. Well we opted for the package offered at the bird sanctuary. Rs 275 for boating for us all for half an hour. We could buy beer also to drink in the boat. Now that was a pleasure as all were thirsty and the occasion was really nice. It was a small boat which accommodated about 12-15 ppl max. We were 7 and all cooperated with finishing of the beer bottles. Eldhose and devraj had the opinion that the beer was quite ordinary without any effect at all. Sometimes i also think that the beers offered at KTDC are a little too mild.
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| From Kumarakom |
Anyways the trip was soothing and we got to see some 5 different migratory birds including the pelican. We also saw some resorts facing the backwaters and also some huge houseboats with many modern amenities. For a couple 1 day cost around 7000rupees on a house boat. For the resort where individual cottage was worth 15000 per day, you get an individual pool to bath in. Now that was interesting. The boatman offered and extension of this trip to another half hour for double pay which was turned down by us. We needed to have a walk to digest all that we had taken and then after that we planned for some great fooding.
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| From Kumarakom |
We started out trip down the lane towards the forest. All the guards pointed out that there wont be any birds at this time. After the trip when we look back i realize that all the birds can be seen on the boat trip and none were seen during the walk in the sanctuary. The walk was along the back water with the forest to our other side.
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| From Kumarakom |
At the end of the lane we reached the backwater channel which connected the different jettys. There was a sign board which detailed the distance to important places near by. We could see the resort to the other side of the back waters. We spent some time relaxing and talking and then decided to return. One the way we saw an ‘Udunbu’ which is an ant eater. This one was really huge but we could only get a glimpse of it as it vanished into the forest. On our way back we decided to have food from a toddy shop. We got one offering all kinds of exotic curries just close by.
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| From Kumarakom |
The food consisted of ‘Kappa’(Cooked tapioca),’Appam’, ‘Meen curry gravy’(Fish curry gravy), ‘Pallathy Porichathu’(Fish fry), ‘Njandu’(crab curry), ‘Koonthal curry’,”Chemmen fry’(Prawns fry) and some exotic ‘Mundiri Kallu’ (Grape Toddy). It was a feast and all were filled up as we started our trip back.
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[...] The place has some unforgettable memories for me and this time around it was no less. Here is the post on the earlier one. This time it was a houseboat trip arranged by Arun George for his marriage. [...]