Last month, I planned a short trip to Thekkady with my family. Travelling from Delhi, we booked our trip with the help of the Antilog Vacations and they arranged for our hotels and commute in Thekkady. Here is my detailed experience of Thekkady visit & How Antilog did planned this trip in an amazing way at good rates
Thekkady is around 200 km from the Kochi Airport and is located on the Kerala – Tamil Nadu border. We left in a Toyota Innova, which was waiting for us at the airport. The driver was a local person and was a very knowledgeable man and more importantly knew English. So we managed to get many interesting tit-bits from him. He told that Thekkady is located near the border town of Kumily. Chellar Kovil, he suggested was a place we should check out as it was very close to Kumily (around 15-20 minutes) and more importantly as it was a haven for numerous waterfalls and cascades. He told that the not many people knew about the place and hence did not include in their itinerary. So we accepted his idea and visited the place. The place was indeed quite scenic and despite the gushing sounds of many waterfalls the place had a serene and calm feeling. The shutterbug in me had a field day and I had many lovely captures of the falls to show for my efforts.
We reached Thekkady after the visit to Chellar Kovil at around 4 pm and as per our bookings with Antilog Vacations the cab took us to the Abad Green Forest Resorts in Thekkady. The Green Forest is a really nice hotel perched amidst the green plantations all around, justifying its name. At the entrance of the hotel, there is a small open-walled room which acts as the concierge and the reception desk. There we were allotted the rooms. Having 6 members, we got 3 double bed rooms. Just beside the reception is the dining hall which has both interior and exterior seating arrangements. The swimming pool is located just beside the dining hall and before the rooms. It is well maintained with a person allocated exclusively for its cleanliness. The rooms are a bit far away from the dining hall and the butler negotiated us through the curvy path up to the rooms. This is something which the hotel authorities should work on as despite giving a nice jungle feel to the hotel it is highly difficult for the older persons to climb all the way to the top, especially multiple times in the course of a day. My grand-parents had a tough time coming down and going up every time we went out. Consequently they chose to skip a few places we visited the next day.
The rooms were really good, around 450 square feet in area and one could tell that it was a new hotel with plush brand new interiors. Each room has an adjoining balcony from which the entrance of the hotel and the swimming pool along with the evergreen plantations were clearly visible. The bathrooms were also very nicely made up with luxurious interiors and multiple choices of shampoos being available. The dinner was tasty at the Green Forest Restaurant with an eclectic spread of north, south and East Indian dishes. There was complimentary fresh lime soda from the house.
Next day we left early in the morning for the main attraction of Thekkady, the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, a very famous wildlife reserve located bordering a man-made lake, formed by the Mullaperiyar Dam across the Periyar River. Our cab halted around 1 km from the lake as no vehicles are allowed in that proximity. It was again an uphill task for my grand-parents to walk the entire stretch, but they somehow managed to ride over the adversities and reach the boat boarding point. Despite a long queue at the ticket counter, I managed to get the tickets as I had reached early. So we boarded a large double-decker ferry from the pickup point on the Periyar River and our wildlife sojourn started.
Keeping in mind the ghastly tragedy that had struck on these Periyar boats some years back; we were given life jackets each and advised not to venture towards the edges of the ferry. It had started raining by the time we boarded it and that was a disappointment as most animals had retreated because of the same. We saw many species of water birds though perched on the posts planted on the river, soaking in the rain. Some miles ahead we came across two herds of sambars and gaurs that were grazing merrily. People scurried to that particular side of the boat and the binoculars went overboard to catch a glimpse of these rare creatures. We also caught a glimpse of a pack of four elephants towards the end of the two hour ride. Tigers and lion-tailed macaques were the two main animals which did not give us a peek, but guess we could not have it all.
Next day we visited the Kerala Spice Garden, another famous specialty of Thekkady. The garden had a wide collection of different types of spices and medicinal plants. Another thing which struck us straight away upon our arrival was the fragrance emanating from the garden. Our trip of the garden started with the help of a guide who showed us the bayleaf tree, which was followed by the cinnamon and cloves trees. Thereafter there was a sort of a tree house which had the passage via an overhanging bridge. The tree house provided a bird’s eye view of the entire Garden and also of the Thekkady city as a whole. We saw the plants of green and black cardamom, aniseed, nutmeg, mace, asfoetida and numerous other spices names of some I don’t even recall now. After buying some of their most recommended stuff we headed back to our hotel.
The evening we watched a presentation of the famous dance form Kuchipudi in a nearby theatre. We were mesmerized by it and had never seen anything like that earlier. It was a followed by a local Auyervedic massage in the hotel spa. We were truly rejuvenated after the massage and felt quite refreshed. We checked out of the hotel early next day and reached the Kochi Airport at around 1 pm for our return journey back to Delhi. It was a very nice short trip and something which I will fondly recall in the days to come.
I sincerely feel that Antilog is one of the best travel agent in India . Their services for Kerala & in general are something really very good and they prove that they are indeed a company with a difference
Hats off to Puneet , Vishal & Antilog for making it a real good Kerala visit