Passion for Travelling...

                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...

                While coming up with the destination as Dhanushkodi just the night before, I was not so sure about how the trip was gonna pan out. Our initial plan was a four-day road trip, which due to plenty of reasons had to be cut short to two days. This forced us to look for alternative destinations as well. Dhanushkodi was accepted by the rest of us, and we decided to go ahead with it, without  thinking  too much . The next afternoon we left Kazhakkoottam and started off towards Dhanushkodi, via the Thenmala - Shencotta - Courtallam - Tirunelveli -Tuticorin - Rameswaram route.  The route map                 It was almost 5 PM when we reached Thenmala. All the tourist spots there, the Thenmala Dam & ecotourism, Palaruvi falls etc were closed for the day by then, and we couldn't visit any of them. Still, the drive along this route itself was very enjoyable. The river flowing al...