Kerala Part II - Waterscapes, Kumarakom

Entry to the Resort

So after the one night stand in a boat house at Allepy, we took a cab to Kumarakom. Normally, you could ask your boat to drop you off at Kumarakom, but due to the weather, we had to take the 45 minute cab ride to Waterscapes, our resort. Now, there are some wonderful properties at Kumarakom, but none can parallel the Waterscapes resort, because it captures the essence of Kumarakom beautifully. It is not a fancy cement resort, but a rustic, beautiful and luxurious one! Rooms are built over small backwater canals and most rooms have a couple of hammocks below them as the rooms are all on stilts. Its green green and green all over, sorry, green, brown and blue all around. I am going to let the pictures do the talking for a bit!

There is nothing to do in Kumarakom, really. And therefore a trip to Kumarakom must be to unwind and not to have hectic day trips. A book, some music or just lazing around the pool with food and Ayurvedic Spa is what this place is all about. On the first day, we did nothing much - we went to Taj Kumrakom, right next door for a late lunch and just lazed around in the pool and came back to the room. I love their room service, so we got ourselves some fish n chips and karimeen polichadhu for dinner!

Walk to the bird sanctuary!

Enroute the bird sanctuary!

The next morning, we took a walk to the bird sanctuary, which is located within the campus, but a 40 minute walk right into the forest (forest like, but no animals). The walk is so amazing and green with streams flowing by the side. We had a good mind to hire a local boat and enjoy the streams, but there was a warning against hiring local boats, so we decided to skip it. The bird sanctuary is not as dense as Vedanthangal, but, that takes away nothing! 6 am is the time to go, so we left our room at about 530 and reached the view point at about 615, so we were able to catch the early morning bird viewing.

We came back at about 830 and went for the breakfast - not a big spread, but it had a few Kerala specialties like puttu with kadala curry, fried banana, etc. After breakfast, it was time to catch up with some lost sleep, we we hit the bed and slept till about 11 am and were woken up by a reminder call for our spa appointment at 1130. The spa is a no frills Ayurvedic spa and the Abhyangam (Ayurvedic word for massage) was super nice and relaxing and the steam with the head outside the chamber was quite rustic and enjoyable. After a bath, we had lunch and then at about 530, hit the pool again and came back to the room and yes, room service again.

We had to attend a wedding the next day at Coimbatore, so we took a cab early morning and left Kumarakom, but normally, I would have stayed back and taken the evening train from Kottayam to Chennai! If I was to go to Kumarakom, I would not even consider staying at the fancy places - you can stay at Taj and Zuri in other places, but at Kumarakom, it has to be at Waterscapes.

The damages - the rack rates at Waterscapes are priced between Rs 5500(for the canal view rooms) and Rs 8500 (for the lake view rooms) for a stay in summer and include breakfast. I booked via makemytrip and paid Rs 3300 per night including breakfast for a canal view room as the others were sold out. If you like to have the buffet dinners everyday, then you might as well get the plan with breakfast and lunch/dinner. Taj Kumarakom is right next door and you could have a fancy dinner if you please.