Kuruva Island in Wayanad

Kuruva Island in Wayanad

The evergreen forested Kuruva island (Called Kuruvadweep locally)  lying in one of the tributaries of Kabini river in Wayanad seems a popular picnic spot. Rightfully so.
A cluster of islands that emerge or submerge with water levels, and home to a variety of birds, butterflies and orchids, you can choose to be with the crowds or find your own solitude.
Spread over 950 acres, only 65 acres are open to public access.

Paddle boats and bamboo rafts pulled by a rope are used to ferry people across with a warning that the latter are not safety certified and people use at their own risk. Right, don’t do anything about enforcing standards and absolve yourself with this warning.

Boat crossing to get to Kuruva Island in Wayanad, Kerala

We hiked in extreme humidity on a warm, sunny day through rice fields and forests to eventually reach the temple – very serene setting, and the simplicity of the temples is what attracts you. This is where you should meditate to connect to whoever you believe in up there.

Kozhikode Beach

Kozhikode, the most important region of Malabar. Early years, Malabar was the capital of the powerful Zamorins and also a prominent trade and commerce center. It was here at Kappad that Vasco Da Gama landed in his search for the spices of the Orient. Today the serene beaches, lush green countryside, historic sites, all combine to make this a popular tourist destination filled with a warm ambience.

Kozhikode Beach is a favourite haunt of sunset viewers. Its natural beauty and old world charm makes it a dreamy place to visit.  Children can be entertained at the Lions Park and the Marine Water Aquarium. Should you be able to drag yourself away from the beach the city of Calicut or Kozhikode awaits you with its unique culture and other treasures.This is one of the best beach for relaxation

Paithalmala-Kannur

Paithalmala

Hide It!!!

Paithalmala, the highest hill in Kannur, stands close to the Karnataka border and is very rich in flora and fauna.

Paithalmala is an ideal location for trekking. One has to trek 6 km from Kudiyanmala nearby Thalipparamba to reach the hill top, which is 4500 ft. above the sea level. The panoramic view of the plains below is an amazing sight. From one corner of the hill one could even see the Arabian Sea far away.
The hill station is 65 km away from Kannur town.

Soojipara Water falls in Wayaand

Soojipara Water falls in Wayaand

Beypore Port and Pulimuttu

A humble unassuming port-town, located around 10 kilometres south of Kozhikode city (North Kerala), that's Beypore for the new generations. But it was much more than that... In an era before Europeans set foot in India, when Arabs, Jews and Chinese were the major trading partners with India's port cities, Beypore was a name to reckon with! In fact, more famous than Kozhikode or any other ports in Malabar. A port city, commercial / trade center, fishing harbour and maritime hub... all rolled into one, Beypore was like a ‘city state' during its golden years. It was at Beypore that traditional ship / boat building flourished, before any other port centres in Kerala (An indigenous technology that continues to this day)!

However, changing times which saw the emergence of other ports (like Kochi) and the unification of Malabar, Kochi and Travancore to form Kerala state... all resulted in Beypore becoming a shadow of its former self. Afterwards it was reduced to more of a fishing center with occasional demands for its boat-building sector. With tourism gaining a new facelift in Malabar region, Beypore slowly started gaining attention too.

Though not in limelight for long, Beypore always retained its lovely landscapes and seashore. Now people are gradually flocking to watch Beypore's charm. Its timeworn assets like the 'sea-pier', beach, ... are renovated and the traditional boat-building industry also started improving. It seems the ancient port-town slowly regains its past legacy.

Muzhappilangad beach -Kannur Kerala

Muzhappilangad beach of Kannur is one of the longest beaches of Kerala. It is situated at a distance of 15 kilometers from Kannur. The Muzhapilangad beach is the only drive-in beach of India. This is what makes it unique among all other beaches of not only Kerala but also India. The long stretch, which measures around 4 kilometers, is the ideal place to laze around or go for a drive. The beach is clean and well maintained and is one of the best laces to hang around when in Kannur.

The shores of the Muzhappilangad beach are lined with black boulders, which protects the shores from the lashing waves and also make a natural shallow place. One can easily swim in this natural shallow pool of water without having to fear the powerful currents. One can soak up the sun while lying lazily on the rocks. It is a beach lover's paradise. The calm yet enthralling ambience of the beach is what makes it a popular getaway for tourists.

The lovely Dharmadam Island is located over here, just a few meters from the shore. The island and the beach look absolutely beautiful and should be visited if you want to experience the true beauty of untouched nature.

Kottakunnu at Malappuram

Kottakunnu

Kottakunnu is the large table land above the hills in Malappuram district, Kerala. It is a beautiful hangout spot for family and friends

Kotta Kunnu means Fort Hill or hill which had a fort before or look like a fort. It was an inhabited place few years back, there used to be a well with a tunnel built within. This tunnel believed to be connected with another well in the near by district head quarters, very close to a river. It is also believed to be constructed by an ancient South Indian king.

Later, this place was used by British (during their rule in India) and Indian police force for their training and law & order keeping activities.

It was a popular spot where kids used climb up to play and was used for political gathering of mass meetings.

Recently, tourism department has developed this place with necessary facilities like a buildings, stalls, pathways, parking, helipad, etc., made a picnic spot and weekend getaway for locals and visitors. The place also provides an open air auditorium where you can host beautiful functions.

There are a long jogging and walk ways perfect for evening strolling with the love ones.

The large lawns on the hill are great for picnic, sitting and letting the children run and rollover.

The fantastic and astounding 360 degree view of nearby vallies and mountains (coconut trees everywhere) is the obvious main attraction of Kottakunnu. There were movies shot against the beautiful sceneries up on this hill. Many young love birds came for marriage photography usually hanging in the calm and romantic corners.

The local munchies and ice-cream are undeniable good. I love grilled corn with spices and lime and the kids would always go for cold fresh juice and ice- cream.

Just down the hill, there is the Water Park, perfect for the hot day. It is always crowded by innocent little children and families.

I love when the sun is about to set and everyone’s minds occupied by the suiting shade of red placid across the sky. The sun dims itself down allow the tiny stars and the moon to shine away. The surrounding hills and mountain become darken and they too, are glittered by the neon lights and people homes’ lights which were hidden in the thick blankets of coconut trees. It is so peaceful and mesmerizing at the same time.

Kappad Beach

For the people of Kozhikode, this pleasant stretch of rock studded beach is Kappakkadavu. To the tourist it is one of the most charming of Kerala's beaches. Kappad finds mention in history and geography texts as the gateway to the Malabar coast. Here, 501 years ago, 170 men led by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (1460-1524) sailed in and stepped into Kerala to create a new chapter in history. The story of a long and tumultuous socio-political relationship between India and Europe. It was the spices and wealth of Malabar that first brought the Arabs, the Phoenicans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English to Kerala. Kappad has witnessed many such landings.

Kozhikode was then the most important trade centre of the Malabar region and the Zamorins who ruled this mighty land were powerful and shrewd. Though the Portuguese were welcomed in Kozhikode they were not too well encouraged or entertained for long by the Zamorins, which might be the reason they shifted their base to Kochi and Kollam down south. Today only a little stone monument is left at the Kappad beach to speak of its great historic importance. On the rocks nearby is a temple believed to be 800 years old

To the tourist, however, this little sea faring town is a heaven. The best route to Kappad is along the backwaters. Unspoilt and uncrowded, the picturesque backwaters of Kozhikode offers a bewitching experience. A ride down the backwaters through the Korappuzha river brings you to the beach.

Thusharagiri

Snuggled cosily in the Western Ghats, are the gurgling waterfalls of Thusharagiri in Calicut District Kerala. Meaning the snow capped mountains; Thushargiri exhibits a unique kinship between the land and water. The three waterfalls on the backdrop of the Western Ghats provide an exhilarating and spellbinding sight to the visitor.

Of the three, the highest waterfall is the Thenpara that falls from an altitude of 75 metres. Situated at Kodencherry in Kozhikode district, the plantation destination that abounds in rubber, arecanut, pepper, ginger and spices is also a trekker's delight. Trekker's start early morning from the second waterfalls at the hills and climb up through the pristine dense evergreen forests teeming with exotic birds and animals to reach Vythiri and Waynad district by evening. There is a dam located around 45 km from Calicut. 

The place offers challenging trekking and rock-climbing through river path and numerous waterfalls. There is another dam at 60 km from Calicut. It is a place of beauty, calm, and serenity. The place has a crocodile farm run by the state forest department

Soojipara

The Soochippara waterfalls are situated near Meppadi and are real treasures of nature. The waterfall ranged from 100 to 300 feet in height and is a luxury to the eyes. This is a prominent place for leisurely destination. This place is a blessed place as its divinity is obvious in the beauty of the nature. The pool sited below the falls offer a great opportunity for swimming, bathing, water rafting, etc. another attraction is the tree top huts presenting a distinct vies of the western ghat valleys and the shining shallow waters of the spring. Such a scenic beauty cannot be ignored. Swimming is advisable.

Edakkal Caves

Edakkal Caves is a famous tourist place in Wayanad.

Thousands of years ago in a rock shelter at Edakkal, stone age people recorded their disquiet and anxiety at the social changes brought about by Iron Age technology. In 1910 an amateur archaeologist rediscovered their work and sought to bring it to the attention of professional colleagues and the general public. What makes the Edakkal caves important today.

For most visitors the opportunity to see for oneself something as rare and special as the Edakkal carvings is reason enough to visit the cave site. And these carvings are certainly noteworthy for their rarity alone as there are very few places in India at which prehistoric drawings in stone have been found. It is not only their rarity, however, that makes the Edakkal carvings so important, but their quality and quantity which is also quite remarkable.

The walls on both sides of the Edakkal rock shelter are embroidered up to a height of over four meters, and down below the present floor level of the cave with deeply carved motifs and signs which look particularly dramatic in the cool, mellow sheen of the damp interior. The rock surface is chock-full of linear motifs most of which form a vertically carved jumble of deep incisions so congested that they are uncountable, a baffling magic of lines in the midst of which many weird-shaped figures seem to be emerging and disappearing, their forms melding and changing in different lights. We can identify crosses, triangles and tridents; squares, some with inner crosses, and a rectangle divided into nine square-shaped chambers; stars, wheels and quatrefoils; spirals, whorls and volutes; plant motifs, pot-shaped items; various animals including ones resembling foxes, dogs and dear; and the unmistakable outline of an elephant.

There are many human figures. A good number of the men have raised hair, of these the most elegant is the figure of a man whose left hand is unnaturally long and reaching his feet. He holds an angular object in his right hand and seems to be wearing a tight garment that reveals an hour-glass torso. Another man has a square-shaped head and spiral belly. Some of the figures are wearing masks and heavy garments. The figure of a woman is easily recognizable, her head is simplified into a cross, and another cross is marked on her hips, there is another, nicely drawn figure of a woman shown standing on a platform. The most eye-catching and somewhat formidable human figure is a life-size male shown standing in frontal pose with raised arms and hair. His face, probably masked, is at a height of the eye-level of the viewer, thus it seems as if he is hindering the entry of outsiders. We know from photographs taken just 100 years ago that the present floor of the cave is some 40 centimetres higher it used to be, thus the man below his knees is today buried in the soil, and his face which is now at eye-level, once looked down on the viewer. These are just some examples of the many forms and figures that decorate the Edakkal cave. As far as we can tell, they were probably created during the Neolithic period of the Late Stone Age and date from about 1000BC. In addition to the pictorial carvings, five ancient inscriptions have been identified of which two have been deciphered.

Wayanad

Wayanad, the green paradise is nestled among the mountains of the Western Ghats, forming the border world of the greener part of Kerala. Clean and pristine, enchanting and hypnotizing, this land is filled with history and culture. Located at a distance of 76 km. from the sea shores of Kozhikode, this verdant hill station is full of plantations, forests and wildlife. Wayanad hills are contiguous to Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu and Bandhipur in Karnataka, thus forming a vast land mass for the wild life to move about in their most natural abode.

Regarding geographical location, Wayanad district stands on the southern top of the Deccan plateau and its chief glory is the majestic Western Ghats with lofty ridges and rugged terrain interspersed with dense forest, tangled jungles and deep valleys. The place also enjoys a strategic location as the leading tourist centres of South India like Ooty, Mysore, Bangalore, Coorg and Kannur are situated around this region.

Covering an area of 2132 km ², with a density of population at 369 people/km² within a population of 780,619 people (2001 census), Wayanad consists of 3 taluks - Mananthavady, Sulthan Bathery and Vythiri. The district headquarters is located at Kalpetta municipality with a population of 29,602 as per 2001 census.

Wayanad enjoys a salubrious climate throughout the year. The mean average rain fall in this district is 2322 m.m. Lakkidi, Vythiri and Meppadi are the high rainfall areas in Wayanad. Annual rain fall in these high rain fall areas ranges from 3,000 to 4,000m.m. High velocity winds are common during the south west monsoon and dry winds blow in March-April. High altitude regions experience severe cold. At Ambalavayal in Wayanad, the mean maximum and minimum temperature for the last five years were 29oC and 18oC respectively. This place experiences a high relative humidity which goes even up to 95 percent during the south west monsoon period. Generally, the year is classifed into four seasons, namely, cold weather (December-February), hot weather (March-May), south west monsoon (June-September) and north east monsoon(October-November). The dale Lakkidi, nestled among the hills of Vythiri taluk, has the highest average rainfall in Kerala.
The misty environs of Wayanad offer a wide range of trekking opportunities, plantation visits and wildlife tours.

It was at Mananthavady (35km N) that Lord Arthur Wellesley fought a guerilla war with the Pazhassi Raja and British supremacy marked the region for two centuries. When the state of Kerala was created in 1956; the southern region of Wayanad which was part of Cannannoor district was attached to Calicut district. In 1980 the Wayanad region was amalgamated out of the districts of Kannur and Kozhikode and comprised the three taluks of Mananthavady, Sultan Bathery and Vythiry.

Kalpetta, the region's district headquarters (15 km N), used to be a major Jain centre. Lakkidi, its gateway town, is popular for its plantation homestays. Tipu Sultan, the legendary ruler of Mysore who valiantly opposed the British, built a fort at Sultan Bathery 10 km away, in the 18th century.

Established in 1973, the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary is contiguous to the protected area network of Nagarhole and Bandipur of Karnataka on the north-east and Mudimalai of Tamil Nadu on the south-east. Rich in bio-diversity, the sanctuary is an integral part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Which has been established with the specific objective of conservating the biological heritage of the region. Consisting entirely of notified reserve, the sanctuary is very rich in fauna and flora. The management of the sanctuary lays emphasis on scientific conservation with due consideration to the general lifestyle of the tribals and others who live on the fringes of the forest .

Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Chethalayam Waterfall, Sri Mahaganapathy Temple at Thiruvangoor, Pazhassi Raja Museum, Pookote Lake and Edakkal Caves are the prime tourist attractions of Wayanad. Beisdes, Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary, Tholpetty, Karappuzha Dam, Jain Temple at Sultan Bathery, Tiger Valley, Meenmutty Falls, Soochippara Waterfalls, Chembra Hills, Bird Sanctuary in north Wayanad, Thirunelly Temple and Kuruva Islands are the other nearby tourist destinations in and around Wayanad.
Wayanad is unique in that it is situated in an elevated picturesque mountainous plateau in the Western Ghats. The vast stretches of mist - capped mountains, green meadows of valleys, white water springs, blue water lakes and wild forests express the splendid natural beauty of Wayanad. Its pretty image not withstanding, perhaps what the visitor finds most endearing about this quaint little hill station is its large tribal population of about fifty-strong tribes and their fascinating lifestyle. Travellers can stay at the tree top houses and mud huts and enjoy the thrills of jungle life.
 

Malabar

Malabar consists of six northern district of Kerala in India. Vasco De Gama lanaded at Calicut in Malabar He came to India in search of spices.All major spices are grown in Malabar In places like Wayanad plantation crops are widely cultivated.Crops like Tea Coffee Ginger etc are cultivated in Wayand District Wayanad Dsitcit is now famous as the premier tourist point in Malabar. There are locations like Soojipara, Edakkal Caves, Kanthanpara, Chembra Peak Karapara, Kuruva Island, Bhanasura Dam etc...which are famous tourist spots for the natives as well as foreigners.