Did roadtrip across Kerala from Bengaluru: Route taken & places visited

Trip to Trivandrum was also interesting since we had to drive most of the distance on NH66 which is under construction.

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After we were through with our short year-end home vacation, we set out for a little longer route to return to Bangalore. We took the Ashtamudi-Jatayu Earth Center-Varkala-Trivandrum-Kanyakumari-Uvari-Manapad-Tiruchendur-Tuticorin-Ramanathapuram-Trichy route to get back.

Ashtamudi was a nice calming break where we stayed with Club Mahindra Resorts by the side of the lake.

Even during the last week of December the weather was quite warm to hot. We took a Shikara boat cruise + Canoe ride through the lake to the Munroe Islands. The canoe ride was amazing with the boat man taking us through narrow pathways canopied by the mangroves. We could see many houses abandoned by residents due to rising water levels. Many new developments, supposed to be for resorts also could be seen.

We made a day drive to Jatayu Earth Center and Varkala Beach. Driving through Kerala is always a pain, though the routes are very scenic and enjoyable. Roads are narrow and overflowing with traffic. State/private buses and unruly local traffic makes the experience something you don’t want to look forward to.

Jatayu Earth Center was so overcrowded, probably due to holidays. Interestingly, most of the crowd were non-Malayali, speaking most of the other Indian languages. Did not give a feel of being in Kerala. We had to park way far from the attraction, outside, by the roadside. The queue for the cable car ride was quite long. Apart from the ticket counter queue there are further queues before we can get into the cable car. So, after waiting for more than half hour we decided to take the walking ticket. There are around 826 steps and close to a kilometer of climb. Not a very hard climb, but if you’re not in good health, it may turn out to be difficult. There are a lot of resting places and tree shades on the way. We managed to do this in around 45 minutes. The views from the top were brilliant. It was slightly cloudy and drizzling at times, making the experience a little bit surreal.

We further drove to Varkala Cliff View Point. Here too the story was no different. Overcrowded by vehicles and people. Police blocked beach entry roads and asked us to park by the roadside almost a kilometer away from the beach. People were flocking in large numbers. Sunset view from the Cliff area was breathtaking. The sandy beach was so clean, though it was packed with milling crowds.

Trip to Trivandrum was also interesting since we had to drive most of the distance on NH66 which is under construction, with a lot of diversions and with occasional good stretches of tarmac.

We stayed at KTDC’s Mascot International Heritage Hotel in the city. Our experience with KTDC has always been great. Very impressive properties, very friendly and courteous staff and extremely delectable food. They managed to give us three seats for their New Year Eve dinner, which was quite a nice spread with live music and a good hip crowd showing up.

We walked down to the beautifully lit and decorated Palayam St Joseph’s Cathedral for the New Year midnight Mass. The New Year vibe in Trivandrum was nothing compared to what we typically see in Bangalore. But then, Trivandrum has its own way of looking at things. While we were in Trivandrum we visited the Kuthiramalika Palace which is a great heritage place and worth every penny and time you spent there. We also took KSRTC’s double decker City Tour. I would not call it something very great, but it was worth the money and an hour and forty five minutes when the Bus took us around the city with a guided commentary of major attractions in the capital city of Kerala.

We drove from Trivandrum via Vettucaud visiting the famous, beautiful and large Vettucaud Church, formally named as Madre De Deus Church, Vettucaud. Its location near the beach with a large front yard gives it a majestic look.

Our ride from Vettucaud to Kanyakumari was an excellent one till the Kazhakuttom-Karode bypass ends near the Tamil Nadu border. Excellent four-lane road with sparse traffic and a very scenic route. Beyond that we were back in to the grind with narrow roads, bad stretches with potholes, and mostly heavy traffic.

If tourist places in Kerala were overcrowded, Kanyakumari was beyond our imagination. People and vehicles were just flowing though the roads. Had to wait a really long time to enter the parking area. We had lunch from the TTDC Hotel Tamil Nadu restaurant. The ferry to the Memorials was suspended for the day due to heavy winds. The ferry was not operating the previous day too due to CM Stalin’s visit to inaugurate the glass bridge between Vivekanda Rock and Thiruvalluvar Statue. The guard at the Ferry compound mentioned that the next day's ferry operating decision will be taken only the next morning at 8am.

We checked into our hotel, Hotel Sea Land on East Car street. We took this place since we missed a reservation at TTDC’s property. If you want to visit Kanyakumari and want to have good accommodation, do not look beyond TTDC Hotel Tamil Nadu. There is nothing much to write home about Sea Land. I’ve put a Google review of the place.

Looking at the traffic conditions outside, in the evening we took an Autorickshaw to go to Sunset point. The auto driver asked for Rs. 150 to drive us a 3km distance. Even the auto could not pass through the traffic and had to drop us somewhere on the way from where we had to walk/trek down to the Sunset point. Due to cloudy skies there was no visible sunset, though. We walked back to the town via the Beach Road which was dotted with various types of shops selling curios to food to blankets to toys to anything you can imagine. As we approached the Gandhi Mandapam, the crowd had increased filling the wide road and it was practically hard to move as per our wish and ability, but follow the flow. The seashore beyond the parking area was so windy in the night and it was very hard to stand there for more than a few minutes.

We didn’t have to go anywhere to watch Sunrise the next morning, but to our hotel terrace. That is one big advantage of this hotel. The morning sky too was cloudy.

Later we came to know the the Ferry is suspected for that day too due to windy weather.

We decided to leave and set out on the coastal drive. We got onto NH-44 at its starting point in the South. We took a turn off the NH at Anjugramam to follow the ECR on our journey ahead.

ECR all through till Ramanathapuram was a pleasure to drive with great tarmac except in very few stretches, very sparse traffic expect near towns,very scenic with various cultivations, coconut farms, cotton patches, windmill farms, many a times Bay of Bengal in the vicinity, providing ample detours for the traveler to get closer to the sea and take a breather and mull over the purpose of his sojourns. ECR in this stretch is dotted with beautiful old Churches and poignant and traditional temples, calm fishing hamlets and very friendly people.

We stopped at places like Uvari, Manapad, Tiruchendur and Tuticorin, visiting beaches, Churches, Salt Pans, etc. Weather was hot at times, but considering normal Tamil Nadu coastal weather, it was pleasant. Manapad is worthy of special mention for its beautiful and colonial time Churches, an operating lighthouse, a cave where St Francis Xavier lived for sometime and pristine beaches. Driving up to the Holy Cross Shrine and then walking around the tip of the land to visit the cave and the beach are not to be missed.

Towards Tuticorin, Google Maps took us away from ECR without us really noticing it. So, we have to get back to ECR and retract to visit Salt Pans without knowing the fact that a good stretch from Tuticorin to Ramanathapuram is full of Salt Panson both sides of the road. We hit Ramanthapuram a little after sunset. After having some snacks from one of the buzzing restaurants at the intersection between ECR and Kochi-Dhanushkodi NH, we drove up to Trichy, through mostly two lane roads with no median, but with a good surface. Had to be very very alert considering sparse but speeding buses and local traffic.

Stayed at SRM Hotel Trichy and drove down to Bangalore next morning. SRM Hotel Trichy is one of its kind places for a comfortable and peaceful halt with a huge compound on Race Course road with pretty good restaurants and very courteous staff.

So, we completed the remaining stretch of our TN Coastal road trip, which we could not do last year due to the cyclones.

Coastal drives are a pleasure to embark upon for roads, views, food and people. Only pain point, if you can’t handle it, is the weather, year round. Sans the weather, the coasts are calling, again.

Summary on ECR stretch between Kanyakumari and Ramanathapuram:

• Most part of the road is decent to excellent
• Lot of fuel stations all through, primarily IOCL and HP
• There are deserted stretches on this route, but pretty safe if done in daylight
• Not a lot of eateries/rest areas except in towns (there too hard to find 'good ones' to the expectation of big-city folks)

Overall, pretty safe and doable on any kind of vehicles by any kind of travelers.

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