At the confluence of the Arabic sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean (although technically not true, see wikipedia for the explanation), Kanyakumari is a place of many legends.
Trivandrum (also called Thiruvananthapuram) is the capital of Kerala. The main attraction we saw there was its Zoo. It was the most obvious way of seeing a tiger in India. The Trivandrum Zoo is said to be a source of inspiration for the Life of Pi novel (now also a movie).
The Lighthouse beach of Kovalam is a popular destination for tourist from Trivandrum (closer than Varkala). We used a Hindustan Ambassador taxi to go to Kovalam.
Arriving late in Trivandrum, we chose to use room service in the hotel. Sambharam seemed to be on the menu, some kind of salty lassi, so we ordered one.
Verdict: we didn’t finish and we won’t order it in the future. The recipe is: buttermilk, green chili, ginger, salt.
We took a local train from Varkala to Trivandrum. Our first experience with train in India, and it wasn’t too crowded.
Varkala and its beach and cliffs are a popular touristic destination of Kerala. The cliffs are surrounded by tourist shops, bars, restaurant and hotels/guest houses. We stayed there about two hours, mostly for lunch.
One of the highlights of Kerala are its backwaters and the house boats cruising in them. The backwaters are networks of lakes, rivers and canals (manmade or natural) that occupy a good portion of the Kerala west coast. Allepey is the main port for houseboats and the starting point for cruises. The most popular format for cruises is leaving at noon, cruise around until five, stop for the night, cruise back to starting point. And that’s what we did.
