Situated around 60 kilometres from city of Kochi and lying in the district of Kottayam is one of the most beautiful backwater lake of India known as as Kumarakom. Kumarakom also boasts a beautiful bird sanctuary which spreads over land and sea where various migratory birds flock during winter from north. Though I am no expert on birds but various types of water birds can be found sitting in flocks and enjoying the sun.
The journey to Kumarakom from Kochi originated at 0830 morning with 5 peoples on 3 bikes. Bikes are in many ways better to cover short distances. It is easier to manoeuvre, can simply glide through traffic blocks and provides ease of taking breaks at will. Anyways, Google maps working like an expert guide provided the details of the route to the best possible description both pictorially as well as in words. With a break for breakfast and travelling for few kilometres on a wrong roads, everything went well and we were at Kumarakom in little more than 2 and half hours.
Unlike other tourists with fat wallets, we can’t think of hiring a houseboat so we went for a boat ride through canals of Kumarakom village with houses lined on the both sides of the canal and low height bridges connecting both sides of the canal providing lots of scenic feast for eyes. About 45 minutes through the canals we finally reached the lake which provided another level of scenic beauty. Long spread lightly visible lake banks, Flocks of birds swimming in lake and napping in hedges and low lying trees on the banks, lines of palm and coconut trees make a ideal ride in the lake. And enjoying these sceneries we came back in an hour and half back to our starting point.
The return journey was spontaneously planned through a road which runs very near to Arabian sea coast en-route Alleppey ( Alappuzha ) to Fort Kochi. We tried to follow the route from Chertala and finally ended up on a beach which welcomed us with stinking smell of drying fishing nets and rotting fishes but once get across the road and come to the beach, the smell disappears. The spectacular view of the virgin unspoiled beach with no tourists, no shops for tourists and no disturbance in natures creation took away all the tiredness and invigorated all with a warmth and contentment to the heart. Spending sometime enjoying this beauty and again clicking photos we moved back to Kochi and the ride of 40+ kilometres through the narrow but well made road connecting Chertala and Fort Kochi.
The journey ended by 1800 hours totally almost 10 hours including getting stuck in traffic block and search for correct way to destination but a journey worth 10 hours of life.
In the end, what I like most in the journey? It is the unknown beach which provides all the natural beauty, unspoiled by man, neither flocked by tourists nor by vendors and shopkeepers but only true beauty.
If you are a friend of mine, I will soon put few snaps of the journey and the destinations in my orkut account . Well that is all for now, will try to write soon another blog entry on some thing else.