The Kerala Trip Diary

The ICFAI National College’s first official trip was a tour to Kerala, often referred to as God’s own Country for its beautiful and exotic Scenery. The Tour after much effort on the part of the Students Ravi, Kushal & Vamsi with support from Mrs.Annapurna, Mr.Vittal & Other faculties after the green signal was given by the Principal finally became a reality. The Trip was officially announced on Feb 15th. After many struggles and deliberations associated with the first tour, 34 students comprising from Final Year Graduation registered themselves for the Tour.

Due to many people signing up at the very last moment, the tickets for the Travel had been scattered among the different sleeper coaches from S2 to S11. The train was to depart at 12.30 PM IST on Wednesday, 21 Feb. All the tour members including faculties Mrs.Annapurna & Mr.Vittal had gathered at the place by 12.15. The train booked for the travel was …………….. Express. The train as expected departed from the Secunderabad Station at 12.30 PM. It was going to be a 23 hour journey to Thrissur in Kerala. After much deliberation and discussion, we were allocated bulk of our seats in S2 and some of them in S11, making it a 5 min walking distance between the two coaches.

The train journey which was expected to be tiresome turned out to be exhilarating for most of us as we enjoyed the journey by playing Card Games, Antakshari, Chit Chat, etc,. and even having some good discussions with fellow passengers like a Malayalam Actor & an Army Guy. The train was an hour late but the most striking aspect about the Indian Railways was the great improvement in the basic amenities and even the constant supply of eateries and other refreshments being provided to the Passengers at minimal Costs, so everybody had their food in the train itself.

We reached the Thrissur Railway Station at 12.45 PM and a 40 Seater bus was ready for us to be taken to the nearby …………….. Hotel which was at a walk able distance. Four people were allocated a double bedroom each. It was decided to leave the Hotel to the Athirapally Waterfalls at 4 PM thereby giving a 150 min time for everyone to get refreshed. Everybody assembled at the exit by 4.30 and we began our sojourn to Athirapally Waterfalls, which is located at a distance of 63 km from Thrissur.

With a tipsy topsy Curvy road to lead us to the location, we reached Athirapally Waterfalls, located on the edge of the Sholayar Forest ranges at around 5.30 PM. These falls cascade down the rocks from a height of 80 feet. The pleasant scenery and the sound of the waters rushing over rocks created a wonderful ambiance. The waterfall with its cool, misty waters cascading down in the backdrop of the thick greenery of the forest and the Rocky terrains made it an exhilarating experience for all of us. It is sort of an Indian Niagara. You can look at it from the top and from the bottom as well. The path leading to the bottom of the actual waterfalls was a very narrow, treacherous and steep pathway. Everybody walked their way to the place from the entrance but almost everyone had a tough time walking their way back to the entrance through the steep pathway. The best part about it was that you were allowed to get to touching distance to the complete thing. Everybody had an amazing time just having a feel of the atmosphere and were busy taking pictures of themselves with the Waterfalls as the background.

At 7 PM, we setout towards the City of Munnar which was at a distance of around 250km from the Athirapally Waterfalls in the same bus which had been booked for us. On the way we had our food at the …….. Dhaba where we struggled with the tasteless, non-spicy food made of Coconut oil. We reached the Munnar Hill station at around 12.30 AM from where we had to take the help of the jeeps as the road leading to the Resort was too narrow for the bus to come. After a long wait in the simmering cold weather, we finally made our way to the Resort taking the help of four jeeps. The dinner was ready for us at the Resort and we had our go at it after freshening up ourselves. The food really deserved a mention. It was some of the spiciest food I ever came across with practically everybody suffering from running noses. Personally it was just the kind of food I really craved for after suffering from some of the most tasteless food I ever had.

The next morning we setout late at around 11 AM after having our breakfast at the resort itself, towards the Mattupetti Dam which was 13 kms away from the Munnar Hill Station. The place is just developing as a tourist destination. To our surprise, we found a lot of Hyderabadis at the place who we later found out to be Christ College students on a tour like us. The dam had beautiful scenary with boating and horse-riding options available to the Visitors. The place even had a power generation project with the Turbines in place. We all started our customary shopping from this place itself with the Munnar Tea packets being the most popular choice. Many of us tried out the Horse-Riding, interacted with the Foreign Tourists with regards to their travel experiences and after some sight seeing & photo sessions headed towards the boating place.

The boat could only accommodate 25 people at a time and so the rest of us who were not interested in boating decided to head towards the place which resembled sort of an island with narrow pathway stretching deep into the river. The place was a bit risky with snake pits all over the place and with land eroding at the edges, towards the river. But the place really had amazing scenary and Sameer, Prashant, Mukul, Varma & Ramaraju wanted to have a Rang-De-Basanti style photo of their group in the air. After some retakes, their photo came out really well in the end. After soaking in the scenary and photo-session, we headed back to the place as the boat had completed its journey.

Then we headed towards Echo Point, which turned out to be our final sightseeing spot in Munnar. The place like every other place we had been to so far, was very scenic but the most striking aspect for me was that the opposite hill has been stripped almost entirely. Although everybody tried their best to echo their voice but to no avail. But the only thing that echoed for much longer time in me was all the chopped woods thrown into the river that reminded the visitors of the recent plunder. Anyways the place had lots of stalls for Shoppers though the items were quite expensive. There were ayurvedic and acupressure rollers, cup-stands, religious idols, kitchen utensils made of wood, jewelry-boxes and such categories. There was a place for Shooting with five attempts for just Rs 10. I had a good time at it by having 40% accuracy on my attempts. I was quite pleased with my efforts and flattered myself with the opinion that I could reach atleast the level of my so called relative whom I am compared with quite often for bashing, if not to Rathore’s level. After everybody had their bit of shopping, we started our return journey to the Resort.

At the Resort, we had the Camp Fire awaiting us for which most of the students were eagerly waiting for. The people had a gala time dancing to the tunes of popular Telugu and Hindi Numbers. ,The people to watch out for were Sameer & Varma who surprised people like us with their dancing talents. After a couple of hours of fun with the camp fire, it was time for dinner and to rest for the day.


The next day due to sluggishness on the part of everyone, we started out very late to the Alleppey Backwaters. It was going to be a six hour journey on the same bus which we had been using for travel all along. All of us had a great time in the bus by dancing to popular numbers, shouting slogans ranging from topics as weird as actor Balakrishna to the Telengana Movement..

Finally we reached the place of Alleppey at around 3 PM It took more than an hour for us to get the boat booked and ready. What was going to await us was breath-taking. The backwaters had amazing scenary as was expected and lots of places to take pictures. We had our food in the same boat and just basically soaked in the atmosphere. With it being a large boat the rivers and canals we navigated were rather wide but you could still get a good sense of the lives of people living around the backwaters. Workers in
the rice fields , washer women, fishermen/women school children taking a swim, taxi boats amongst others. As it was turning dark, Cochin beach was not feasible and so the Alleppey beach was the place decided.,
By the time we reached Alleppey beach, it was already dark and so we decided to play Kabaddi on the beach. Two teams were made with Ravi & Vamsi as captains. Ravi’s team won handsomely in the end. But it was all a great fun as Kabaddi was a first time for many of us and that too on the beach, made it all into an enjoyable event. This match brought Kiran’s attacking skills as a Kabaddi player to the fore.

It was time to bid adieu to the beach and head towards Cochin to our Hotel and basically wrap up the trip. The ……. Hotel was a very good one with good facilities.

The next day, some of us went towards the Cochin Beach as it was such a popular destination for the tourists and we also did some last minute shopping at the MG Road. We also got to see the Shipyard on the beach and it was a nice experience for us to see the pace at which the work takes place in the area. The surrounding areas were flooded with Sea Shells, Handicrafts, etc,. basically things which are unique to Kerala and so it was worth the visit to lay our hands on some of those things as either Gifts or for Remembrance. We even got to lay our hands on Tehelka, the newspaper famous for sting operations, which is so difficult to find in Hyderabad.

We were supposed to report at the Hotel by 10.45 AM but due to some delays everybody turned up late resulting in some frantic situations where we had to go to the North station instead of the South, so that we could catch the train at the second station as we were already late. But the train was also late and so it all turned out to be comfortable. This time also the tickets were scattered among two coaches S2 & S5.

The return train journey turned out to be as good as the first with everyone having a great time playing Card Games, Discussions, etc,. The next event to add flavour on the Train was the birthday of Prashant, which was enjoyed to a certain extent and we basically had a good time with all things associated with a birthday.

The train reached Secunderabad Train Station on Time and there ended our sojourn which was enjoyed by everyone.