Passion for Travelling...

                         It was long time since we went for a trip as a family, since all four of us were in different parts of the world since 2008, for different reasons. Now that all of us are back together after a long time, I wanted to do a family trip - a perfect one. I wanted it to be just the four of us in our own space, close to nature, completely detached from all the routine chaos and free from all the responsibilities, without any tension in the back of our minds. I started hunting for a budget but decent resort for the 15 th and 16 th of that June. After considering a lot of places I finally decided to go with Vagamon, the hill station known for its lush green meadows and the misty cool weather. After searching a lot in the internet, I found a resort which has its own lake and tea plantations within the premises, also with separate cottage facility for families. Winter Vale , it looked perfect for my plan ...

                It took no time for me to finalize our destination for the one-day leave in the middle of the week; May 1, was a Tuesday this year. We’d already covered almost all the nearby beaches, hill stations, waterfalls etc., near Trivandrum. But one place which was always there in the initial rounds of discussion in every trip plan, but somehow failed to make it into the final itinerary was Munroethuruth , a beautiful inland island just around 80 kms away from the capital city of Kerala. I brought up the idea of cruising through the narrow canals around this alluring piece of land in local canoes, and was easily acceptable for all in the group. There are a lot of local canoe operators in this island, and we short listed “ Munroe Island Canoe Tours with Vishnu ”, based on the reviews it had. The deal was made for a sum of 1500 rupees for a 2-hours long ferrying through the green labyrinth of narrow canals in this beautiful group of 8 island...

                                 I was a bit confused initially, whether I should write about this trip which was filled with plenty of disappointments. However, decided to go on with the blog trying to focus just on the positives of the trip. This trip was done after meticulous planning a month before; finalized the destination, decided the routes, booked stays., more importantly finalized members as well. In all the planned trips so far, at least one of the members pulling out in the last minute has become a norm. This didn’t happen for us this time, but we never knew a number of unpleasant surprises were waiting us on the way. Let’s talk as we travel... A bike ride to Munnar was always one of the top priorities in my bucket list. So this place was the obvious choice for the bike trip in January, and was quite acceptable for the other members too. Finally, at the very early morning on that R...