After a hiatus we are back.Our family has got two cute little additions, Vihaan and Shloka, our two bundles of joy. So now we have graduated from a traveller couple to traveller parents and now most of our travel stays and places will be more of kids friendly type.So now when we travel we look forward for places that our children can also enjoy, hotels/airbnbs which are children friendly, have play areas and parks, chefs who can make customised food for children and pretty much everything focussed on them.
A lot of our Malayalee friends had suggested we visited Kerala during monsoons, so this time our initial plan of visiting Valparai changed to Kerala. We focussed on the following four places as part of our trip in the same order. It was a 7 nights 8 days trip :
2. Periyar National Park ( 1 night )
3. Munnar ( 3 nights )
4. Marayoor ( 1 night )
Our first destination was Cherai Beach. Cherai beach is one of the most popular beaches in Kerala because of its proximity to Kochi. One needs to reach Vypin Island to go to Cherai beach. Vypin Island is connected to the mainland by proper motorable roads and also by jetty. The beach is roughly 10 km long but because of erosion by sea waves, boulder walls have been made at many places which obstruct the sea view from the road.
Our initial plan of starting at 3 am from Bangalore, got delayed by an hour. Still we started when there was less traffic. The route we took to reach Cherai was:
Bangalore -> Hosur -> Krishnagiri -> Dharmapuri -> Salem -> Erode -> Tiruppur -> Palakkad -> Thissur -> Cherai
The road was good all along except for a few diversions, but the actual pain was the frequent tolls. This stretch of road had at least 6 toll booths and total toll amount we paid was atleast 350 if not more. Most of the tolls were in Tamil Nadu.
It took us 10 hours to reach. The road leading to Cherai beach from the mainland is very very beautiful. There is greenery all around, there are bridges from where we saw Chinese fishing nets, fishing boats, backwaters, coconut trees and everything looks like postcards. We were compelled to stop at places to take pictures.
We reached around 3 pm at our resort in Cherai. We had our bookings with Lighthouse Villa. It is a beautiful well maintained property with direct access to the beach. There are two bedrooms with attached toilets, a dining space and a kitchen.
After dumping our bags, we ran to the sea. Its a long stretch of sandy beach, very less crowd and mostly clean. The most amazing thing we saw was live sea snails! Dolphins can also be spotted in Cherai, only if you are lucky.We spend a good half an hour on the beach and then it started raining because of which we had to return back to our homestay. Our caretaker, 'chechi' was a very nice lady who stays just at the back of the building, made us some tea and snacks. We decided to enjoy the rest of the day at our homestay.
Day 2, it was still raining in the morning but Ankur had already decided the day before to visit the local market. How can the full spectrum of essence of a place be realised if someone does not get the sights , tastes and smells of the local market! After an amazing breakfast of appam, egg roast and tea prepared by chechi, Ankur went to the market and got the freshest possible backwater prawn, tilapia and anchovy fish.
Chechi prepared lunch for us. Rice, daal and the fishes in the perfect Kerala style. The fishes were so so tasty with a typical backwater sweetness.
During the day we visited two more beaches on Vypin Island, Ambedkar beach which is very close to Cherai beach and Kuzhuppilly beach which is a bit more happening place. All the 3 beaches kind of look similar since its the same shoreline.There were no shacks maybe because of post Covid situation; business was still down.The rain gods were a bit mischievous on the day and so we could not explore Munambam beach which is a bit far away.The best way to enjoy Cherai is to eat good food and just relax by the sea and I am so glad that we just did that.
The next day, chechi fed us puttu , kadala curry and tea for breakfast. We packed our bags and went to the sea for one more time and then headed to our next destination, Periyar National Park.
Important Information:
We stayed at Lighthouse Villa. It is a good property with excellent location.
Bangalore to Cherai is 523 km, takes approximately 10 to 11 hours to reach. Road conditions are good
but excessive tolls.
Popular restaurant for sea food is Shivettende Kada
