We went for this trip last December during the Christmas holidays. With all the flight tickets and hotel reservations done, we embarked on the journey. All the accommodation that we had booked was under 4K per night. On 23rd evening three of us from Delhi flew down to Chennai since a friend was to join us from there. We had our flight to Coimbatore from Chennai on 25th morning. We were to cover Munnar, Cochin, Varkala and Allepey in a weeks' time. The recommended route is to start from Cochin, however, since Zoomcar was available only in Coimbatore so, had decided otherwise. Zoomcar is the cheapest compared to the local taxi services if you don't have your own vehicle. It had costed us a total of about eight thousand bucks for seven days. We took an early morning flight to Coimbatore, picked up the car from Zoomcar outlet and started for our first destination which was Munnar. We had lunch at a local restaurant by the name Shakti hotel at Pollachi, it was a recommended one and the fish they served was really good. It's a decent drive of about six hours from Coimbatore to Munnar. A big portion of the highway has windmills on both the sides which is a sight to remember. We reached Munnar late evening during the sunset and were welcomed by the sprawling tea gardens and crisp evening breeze. Since, we had got late in doing our hotel reservation, and most of the places in our budget were sold out due to the peak season, we could only manage to get a room at a small BnB. Luckily or unluckily it was only the three of us since our friend from Chennai could not make it. The care taker of the place was an elderly man by the name Babu. It was a small house with only five rooms but the rooms and the bathrooms were neat and clean. When we asked him for tea, he told us that there was no milk at the place and he won't be able to serve dinner. So we decided to freshen up and head out for a meal. At a walking distance from the BnB, there was a hotel. We had nice buffet dinner there and came back. Next day post breakfast, we headed out for sight seeing to the tea gardens. We had lunch at a local restaurant in the main market. Stick to simple food here since the non veg is not great. For the evening, we had booked the tickets for Kathakali and Kalarippayattu show at Punarjani Traditional Village. There isn't much to do at Munnar, so this would be a recommended activity. The Kathakali performance was especially good. We had dinner at another new property and called it a day. Next day after having some amazing home made idlis at Babu's for breakfast, we started for Cochin. A friend had recommend a visit to Athirappilly waterfalls on the way. So, we took a little detour. The drive was amazing covered with lush old giant trees. We were following the GPS and it took us via a huge rubber plantation. You read about it all the time in books as a kid, how rubber plantation is done and here we were in the midst of may be one of the biggest plantations. We stopped to take some pictures and started towards the falls. One needs to park the car and do a little trek to the falls. However there wasn't much water at the falls since it was way past the monsoons. FYI, the waterfalls are known as the Niagara falls of India. Since it was really hot, the water had dried up, it was a huge disappointment. We had lunch at a fast food restaurant nearby which had the view of the falls. A bigger disappoinment, though the food was decent. We started for Cochin, however, this time we took a different route not passing through the plantation. By the time we entered Cochin city it was around a little after 5pm. The GPS had directed us to the location from where one needs to board a ferry. However, there was a huge que in waiting so we asked a local fellow for an alternate route which was a little longer but we decided to go for it rather than waiting for the ferry. By the time we again entered the city it was around seven and we were welcomed with Christmas lighting all around. Cochin is a nice bustling city, famous for its local bakeries. We had booked our accommodation at a BnB by the name Tag Und Nacht at fort Cochin. To our horror, first the owner did not even let us enter the reception area saying that he had no booking in our name. We called up the customer care of Stayzilla and asked them to sort it out. The owner argued with them as well and started passing racist comments on North Indians to top it all. It seemed as if he did not want any Indian guests at his property. We had an argument with customer care team as well and a little while later the owner agreed to the fact that he had the booking and would give us a room but will not provide anything else. Hearing this, we decided to look for an alternate option and frantically started calling up other places nearby. Since stayzilla people told us that all the other places on their website were sold out and they can either have us stay at this place for the night or refund our money. After a couple of calls came to our rescue ATS Wellingdon Hotel at Willingdon island. It was the nearest from fort Cochin. The staff not only shared the hotel wifi password with us so as to allow us to do the hotel booking online to avail the discount but also served us chilled beer at the family restaurant. It was a huge relief after the torture we went through and the highlight of the night was the gobi manchurian at the dinner table. We were really lucky to get the accommodation at the nth hour since it was amongst the last two available rooms at the property. We had an amazing breakfast at the hotel the next morning and went for city tour. We decided to start from the Dutch cemetery, however, it was locked so we could only take a sneak peek at it from the gates. Next we went to the Nicobar house where there was a small art gallery on display. From there we went to St. Francis church and the Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica (a must visit, beautiful architecture), you would just fall in love with this church. All these places are at a walking distance at Fort Cochin. We had lunch at Malabar Junction, the food here is awesome, we had the traditional thali which was superb and so was the dessert, highly recommended. Post lunch we went to see the Chinese fishing nets and the Aspinwall House, a large sea-facing heritage property in Fort Kochi, it was the major venue of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale international art exhibit hosting the works of numerous artists from India and abroad. We had dinner at a local restaurant facing the sea. Next morning, post breakfast we started for Varkala. We had booked the stay at Black Beach resort at the cliff. The drive to the place is the most amazing drive which has the sea on one side and the back waters on the other. It is simply breathtaking!! Varkala is amongst the top beaches in the south and has lovely cliff clad beaches. The beaches are down the cliff and there are restaurants and hotels on top of the cliff. The resort was a newly acquired property, ensure that you get a room on the first floor since it'll have the sea view. The staff is hospitable. We had lunch at the hotel restaurant which wasn't great. We complained about it to the guy managing the restaurant. Anyways, post a short nap we went to the beach for the sunset. We had dinner at the Abba restaurant. The majority of the tourist population at Varkala was that of the foreigners. It's a really nice place, has really clean and not so crowded beaches. One can easily spend 2-3 days to a week here. Here the hotels run yoga courses as well. When we returned to the hotel, the guy at the restaurant offered us dessert and did not charge anything for it saying that this was to make for up for the lunch that we did not like. Next day early morning we went to the beach for a stroll. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant and asked for the bill. The guy refused to take anything for the lunch from the previous day and in fact made us speak to the kitchen in-charge about the bad food. All in all, I would say we had a good stay at Varkala and in fact should have stayed here for atleast two days rather than at Cochin. We started for our last stop which was Allepey. We were to stay at this small Ayurvedic health resort called Keraleeyam which turned out to be the greatest find of the entire trip. It's located right at the backwaters. We got talking to a gentleman at the reception who kinda helped us in planning our day and suggested what we should have for lunch at the resort. Later we got to know that he was the owner of the place. We had a sumptuous meal and got our boat ride arranged for the evening. It costed us 1400 bucks for a four hour ride. And it was worth it!! We had the entire boat to us. The experience of the backwaters can not be described in words!! You have to be there and experience it for yourself. After seeing the backwaters you can really relate to the title 'God's Own Country' which has been given to Kerala. Coz it really does justice to the place!! We went up to the sunset point... yes!! Even at the backwaters there was a sunset point which was close to the area where the backwaters merged into the sea. The boat ride at the backwaters was the highlight of the entire trip and an apt end to the journey. At Allepey also one can easily spend 2-3 days, relax and soak in the calmness of the place. We had dinner at the resort and slept early since we had to start our journey back to Coimbatore early morning. Following morning we started at around five, had breakfast at an Indian Coffee house outlet on the highway. We reached Coimbatore by early noon, returned the car at Zoomcar, had lunch and boarded the return flight to Chennai.
