Bus to Sabarimala-Cochin-Guruvayur-Kalady

Guys ,

Last weekend 20th March – 23rd March I traveled to interior Kerala. I will be blogging of the life and try to give a detailed insight of the places that I covered during this trip.

The trip started on Thursday 20th March at 2 Pm where I took a flight from Hyderabad to Cochin; southern coastal city of Kerala State (India). Landed at 5PM at Cochin International Airport which is approximately 35 mins from Cochin City.

First place on my list was Sabarimala which is ~200kms(125 miles) from Cochin. I was traveling alone this time and decided to stretch myself and try travel as many places as possible. During the journey to Pamba; I totally traveled by 5 buses from Angamali-Thrippunithura-Kottayam-Pathanamthitta-Ranni-Pamba; and there was no gap in between the bus journeys. The best part of kerala is the nature and its green all surrounding; where there are all coconut, palm trees on either side of the road. It was around 2AM by the time I reached Pamba; and its raining all the day right from Cochin to Pamba. Pamba is a small city located in northern kerala about 1650 mts altitude on the western ghats. The city name is named after the river Pamba.

I was accompanied by some localities who are also visiting sabarimala. So after an hour gap at 3:30 AM we all started to Sabarimala; which is on a hill about 1260 mts/4135 fts stretch from Pamba. Its a hilly route which has a very dense forest on both sides of the route; the whole stretch is about 6.5kms(4miles). Well never in my life I did any mountain trekking; so climbing about 7kms was really a daunting task for me that too bare footed. And it took approximately 90mins for me to reach the top of the hill. Wow what a feeling after reaching the tip of the mountain; it was really amazing experience for me for a moment I thought of being on top of the world 🙂 .

Now its around 5:30 AM and coincidentally today(21th March) is the birthday of Lord Ayyappa; so the crowd was very huge than I expected. Immediately I rushed into the holy temple and it took 90 mins to complete the darshan. After a very short break I decided to come back to Pamba from hilly Sabarimala. Ufff how difficult it was walking down bare foot from hill for about 4 miles. And its hard & sharp rocks all the place and to make it even worse its raining cats & dogs very heavily. Well this time it took 120 mins for me to reach safely to Pamba; but I was totally tired. Nevertheless its been an exciting & tiring experience in my life. Thankfully there was a Bus waiting to take us to Pathanamthitta from Pamba. Now routed from Pathanamthitta-Kottayam-Thrippunithura-Ernakulam(Cochin) and total journey is 7 hours. I reached Cochin at 4:30PM and immediately rushed to a hotel named Yuvarani which is in MG Road. The hotel was really good and staff was very cooperative.

Visit to Guruvayur and Kalady:

Next day I started to Guruvayur which is approximately 150kms from Cochin and Guruvayur is famous for Krishna Temple. Guruvayur is located in south west Kerala. The temple was really great and it is one of most sophisticated temples that I have seen in south india. The art, sculptures on the walls and roof are amazing; there is also a pond in front of the temple. I took lot of photographs here and covered most of places. It took 2 hours for me to cover each of the places and after a quick lunch I did some shopping. Now I am done with my trip to Guruvayur and so started back to Angamaly(1.5 mile from Kalady) which is approximately 120kms from Guruvayur. Kalady is birth place of great Adi Shakara and Sringeri Math has constructed a muth along with a temple at the birth place. The city is very old and it still resembles the old culture. These are many good places in Kalady like Adi Shakara big Pillar, Ramakrisha Math, Kanchi Math, Adi shankara birth place temple and Sri Krishna Temple. The Adi Shankara temple is located on the banks of the river Periyar. Wow what a place it is and its absolutely silent & lonely. Well you can here your breath and there are rooms for visitors at Sringeri Muth & there is a vedic college on the banks of the river. Inside temple is really amazing and exciting; I for a while felt like walking with great Adi Shakara. Thats the greatness of the place and while starting back I purchased some books at Sringeri library.

I took a flight from Cochin to Hyderabad on 23rd March at 3PM. Herez the end of my trip to Kerala.