According to an article I read on Business Today, Indians are one of the most vacation deprived beings in this planet. And this bit of news for me did not come as a surprise. Since our last backpacking trip to Austria in 2018, my wife & I had hardly gotten a chance to plan a proper vacation.
So we decided we cannot allow 2020 to be as depressing as the one before and made it our new year's resolution to make sure we have at least one good vacation this year. And voila..!! Unlike most of our other resolutions, this one did turn out to be true & right in the month of January we set out for our road trip to Kerala.
There are two routes you can take to get to Kerala - either take the beautiful but longer Konkan coastal route via Goa or take the faster route via Bangalore. Since we had more time to kill & our agenda was more to get away from the city life, we decided to plan our trip via the beautiful western coast of the country.
Since we were travelling in January, we were lucky enough to not find many tourists at most of the destinations & the pleasant weather gave us good company. We decided to start our trip on a Sunday, so it gave us enough time to prepare & pack and relax the day before.
We hit the road at 5.30am from Panvel, Navi Mumbai and decided to have our breakfast from the global fast meal counter (Mc Donalds). A quick stop there & we moved again trying to ensure we reach Kolhapur by lunch time. This city is famous for a lot of cuisines & mutton curry is what we had in our mind. A quick google search told us Hotel Padma had decent reviews & that's where we decided to lunch.
The drive overall was very relaxing with good roads & low traffic, probably because we were travelling post the peak touristy season. We always try to stay in the budget traveler category & the best way to save some money is on your accommodation. India has slowly started getting some good hostels chains, so we decided to crash at Hosteller, Anjuna for the night. They charged us 1,500 for the night's stay in a 6-bed room.
Caution - If you are driving to Hosteller, the parking space is really very tight. We drove a Hyundai i20, which barely managed to get through. Any car wider than this, would have had to find parking somewhere outside.
Good part about the stay - It's very close to Curlies & Shiva Cafe. So if you want to party all night & don't want to stress a lot about finding your way back home, this is pretty convenient.
North Goa being our usual highlights of every Goa trip, we decided to spend more time down South. So we had to start early in the morning in order to reach Canacona by sunset & also give us enough time to visit all must-dos en-route. We stopped by at Artjuna for a nice breakfast and then began moving down south.
Houses of Goa, unfortunately was shut since it was a Monday. But definitely would want to go back & visit the next time. Architects especially should love this place.
Like I said, the best part of travelling in your own vehicle and making your plans is the flexibility it gives you. We were supposed to stay back at Canacona for 3 nights, but a wonderful post on Instagram by another blogger on phytoplankton at Paradise Beach, Gokarna made us think again.
It's a natural phenomenon which if seen in the right conditions can get you to see the beach glowing due to its bioluminescent nature. There aren't too many beaches in the world where you can see this & hence the trip made all the more sense to us.
Trippr Hostel, Gokarna was offering a nice package with a night trek to Paradise Beach. So we quickly packed our bags & left for Gokarna a day before our schedule.
The hostel offers parking right outside the beach (its not run by them, but we found no one collecting money for parking charges). The beach at Gokarna has deep sand & hence remember, your luggage wheels will be ineffective there. It's atleast a 500mtrs walk from the parking zone to the hostel. The beach otherwise has very limited options in terms of restaurants or water sports. We decided to lunch at Chez Christophe, a restaurant managed by a French guy on the recommendation of our good friends at Trippr. Will highly recommend this place.
The next day we packed our bags to move further south to a city that surprised us the most, Malpe. On our way, we made a quick stop at Murudeshwar, but the place did not give us great vibes from the moment we got there. We could be totally wrong about the place considering the amount of time we spent there, but it seemed more of a religious destination, something that we wanted to avoid. So we decided to make sure we get more time at Malpe instead.
One thing that we noticed the most while driving in Karnataka was people are just habituated to drive on the wrong side of the road, no matter how wide & excellent the roads were. Also, we hardly got any toll booths on our way, making our drive in the state very cheap.
Malpe is a quaint port town in the Udupi district. The best part of this place was it's lack of tourists but that doesn't mean there isn't much to explore here. We did not have much idea about how good Malpe will turn out to be & hence had not planned enough time. We definitely plan to come back & stay for a couple of days.
These places must surely be in your check-list when you are at Malpe - Kemmannu Hanging/Suspension Bridge, Kodi Bengre Delta Point, Hoode Beach. We unfortunately did not find time to see any further, but were told there's much more that you can see.
We stayed back at a Airbnb accommodation at Aryaan Resort & were surprised by the facilities provided at such cheap rates. We were charged less than 1,500 INR for a night for a 1BHK centralized air-conditioned service apartment. The restaurant at the resort was also inexpensive. Malpe is best explored on a 2-wheeler & hence we suggest you hire one. The resort also offers support on this front.
The hostel was much cleaner compared to Hosteller at Goa. However, considering there are less options to eat, we would have preferred better food options at their in house canteen.
The trek to Paradise Beach started with a bus journey to Om Beach and then a half hour trek. The sighting of phytoplankton was less considering there was decent moon light. However, I believe even on the best of days, it will be no match to the highly edited images you see on Google.. ;)
For the last leg of our trip, we decided to stop over in the beautiful Kerala district of Wayanad. The other important reason apart from the scenic drive towards Wayanad was if one were to enter Kerala via Kannur route, the roads are quite narrow making it a tiresome journey. Our final destination was at Palakkad which more or less had an almost similar travel time via either of the routes.
We took the left diversion from Mangalore towards the beautiful town of Coorg. Less than a hour's drive from Mangalore, the drive was one of my favorites that I've experienced in India. Beautiful flowers & trees on either side of the empty highway, made me want this drive to never end.
Canacona-Palolem has become my favorite beach in Goa post this trip. The lost stretch of firm sand & non-touristy beach has a different vibe that caught my attention. If you are into water sports, the beach also offers a lot of options. There are plenty of beautiful accommodation/tents available right on the beach. Though they looked a tad expensive, definitely worth trying it out.
Caution - There is no ATM in the nearby vicinity. So better to carry enough cash or confirm with the restaurants if their card machines are working.
On our way, with a small detour, we decided to explore the Tibetan Monastery, Namdroling. We were awed by the tranquility of the place & to find such a monastery in the southern part of our country really came as a big surprise to us. Commonly also known as the Golden Temple, it is the largest teaching institute in the world for Nyingmapa - a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
Post a nice lunch break at the monastery, we continued our way towards Zostel Wayanad. We had to pass via Nagarhole National Park & Tiger Reserve. We had heard stories of wild elephants taking this route for their evening stroll through some locals. This made us a tad bit nervous when we entered the forest area, but needless to say, once we go onto to the well laid out forest highway, we forgot all our worries & just took in all the nature's beauty ahead of us.
We have been big fans of Zostel for the facilities they provide & always had memorable trips to the ones we have been to. But Zostel Wayanad has to be one of the best hostels in terms of location. Spread over 700 acres of land, right in the middle of tea plantations, it is located near Chembra peak & is a good number of sight-seeing places in Wayanad fall at a close range from here.
We made it just after sunset & after a long 10+ hours of driving, all we wanted to do was have a quick dinner & call it a day. A special call out to the amazing non-veg dinner served that night. The hostel was once a hospital & were surprised how the architecture was retained in converting this to a fun & vibrant place to stay.
We had planned to stay back at Zostel for 2 nights, but decided not to go out & do any touristy activities on the last day of our trip. Instead, we made a good day spending time reading books out near the hammock, went for a short stroll near the hostel exploring the area around & playing games.
By evening, we were joined by new set of fellow travelers mostly from Bangalore, who were out to enjoy a mini vacation. By the end of the night, we made quite a lot of friends & the bonfire with music made the perfect end to our much needed trip.
The next day, we bid goodbye to our fellow travelers & headed for Palakkad, where we had to attend a wedding (this whole plan started because of my cousin deciding to get married, so a big shout out to her :D).
This trip reminded me how precious vacations are & the tons of little stories that we gather along with it. Every little detail right from the time you begin planning your trip to the new bunch of people you get to interact with, makes the trip worthwhile.
I write this blog when we all are confined to our homes, at this time of global crisis of Corona pandemic & that's when reliving these little memories gives you a million reasons to smile. :)