snippets from my life: Kerala 4: Places to visit: ernakulam, kochi, pothundi dam, nelliampathy , paniyeli poru

Three places are hugely advertised by the Kerala tourism in Palghat- silent valley which is actually at about 40 km distance from palghat, Malapuzham dam which is close to the palghat town and tipu’s fort which is apparently in the heart of the town.

only a limited number are allowed entry in silent valley everyday and thus we missed the bus by almost a month.

Pramod decided that we take a car and go to the less frequented Nelliampathy forest. It was lovely but forthe harrowing jeep ride on something which is not even an apology of a road. It can be back breaking and is an advertisement for Mahindra jeeps because they can survive several rides on that track. Once you go inside the trails at Nelliampathy forest you can be assured absolute solitude for the time your jeep driver allows you there but that limited time is really well spent and all the hard work is worth it. We missed the other three advertised places.

Enroute to Nelliampathy

View from Pothundi dam with our posing for the camera enroute to Nelliampathy, you can also see Pramod in the back ground trying to fix Allepey houseboat the next day which he tried the whole day and failed

At pothundi dam with Sunitha

A picture of the dam with my phone camera

Enroute to Nelliampathy

The next day we wanted to go to Allepey and spend a night on a houseboat but the prices at year end had hit the roof and bookings were difficult to come by. So we decided to go to Ernakulam which is the twin city of Kochi. you can stay at Ernakulam and keep going to kochi on the ferry which takes about 20 minutes and offers you some beautiful sights.

view from the ferry

We stayed at YMCA, the accommodation is modest but safe. The rooms are decent and clean. In any case we were not looking for any luxury here so this was okay. Also because it was very close to the heart of the Ernakulam town.

The next day we went to Paniyeli poru( around 40 km from ernakulam), not many people knew about it. This visit was a treat. We passed through many rubber and coconut plantations to hit the main entry of Paniyeli poru. Flowing water breaks into three streams creating an impression that they are in a conflict with eachother. The day we went it also rained so the air was slightly moist and had a different fresh feel to it- there was silence broken mostly only by the sound of the flowing water and birds. There was a trail into the forest and we followed it quite far. We hardly saw anyone here except for the forest guards.