Kerala Travel Mart 2012 (KTM) is being planned at Le Meridien Convention Centre from September 27 to 30. KTM expects to host close to 900+ delegates from all across the world. This is the seventh year and it includes from 50 countries. Kerala Travel Mart is a biennial event that showcases Kerala, Asia’s new age destination and India’s most popular tourism brand.

Alleppey, popularly known as Venice of the East, is the place of immense natural beauty with lakes , lagoons and fresh water rivers and a houseboat day cruise or an over night stay is a must if you visit tourist places in Alleppey. In any houseboat cruise food is also a icnluded as a part of the price the guests pay and complete breakfast along with lunch,dinner and evening snacks is provided on board of a houseboat in Kerala. Though based on the tradition of fish and vegetables, in keeping with the demands of a cosmopolitan clientele, the cuisine served aboard on houseboats in Kerala vary depending on the clients requirements.

When guests can check in at 12:00 hrs, they will be welcomed with fresh tender coconut water or juices.Once the house boat cruise starts the guests will relax and enjoy the canals and backwaters. Toddy can be bought from toddy shops on shore and it is a soft liquor made from Coconut it is safe pure and sweet. At around 13:00 hrs houseboats will stop for lunch either in the middle of the backwaters or at shore as per the request of the guest and a with lavish menu of traditional Kerala cuisine is served on board.The food is cooked inside the boat by a chef and guests can visit the kitchen to checkout the food preparation and the Kerala houseboat menu.Normally traditional kerala food is served with rice, sambar, vegetarian dishes, fish fry, pickles, papad , salads and sweets . The food is cooked from fresh and seasonal vegetables and fish and chicken are purchased just before the cruise starts. In case any of the guests are successful in catching some fish on board it will be cooked as well . Guests can also buy crab , fish or lobsters from shores and request the chef to cook the same on board for lunch or dinner in the houseboat and just imagine the taste of bug tiger prawns or lobsters cooked on the boat on your request.

Houseboats crew will provide guests with evening coffee/ tea with traditional kerala style snacks like Banana fry or Finger Chips or Tapioca Chips at around 16:30 and the boat will anchor on shore at 17:30. The boats will anchor on shore at 17:30 and guests can get a chance to go out and walk along the riverside or villages or go for canoeing by renting out a canoe and come back. When guests come back in the evening, they can enjoy the dinner in houseboat freshly cooked by the guest.

Early morning at around 6:30 hrs Bed tea / Coffee will be provided sipping which you can enjoy the sunrise in backwaters. Before checking out breakfast will be served at around at 8:00 hrs which will include either the option of Bread+ butter + Jam + omelets or an option with South Indian food items like dosa, idly with sambar and chutney , tea /coffee.

If guests request the menu can be changed and guests can avail continental menu or north Indian menu chilli chicken, ginger chicken chilly fish , dal fry, alu gobi, gobi manchurian etc and food can be prepared according to their taste buds and preferences, and foreign guest can get food specially made with less spice or without spice etc.Most houseboats also have trained staff with valid licenses for cooking the food and serving it fresh and tasty giving importance to hygiene.

An indicative Kerala Houseboat menu is shown below which is usually served in houseboats in Kerala

If you are interested in enjoying this menu and booking a Kerala houseboat cruise, check out our kerala houseboat packages

Kerala has a a reliable transportation system and a tourism network which makes easy for a traveler to move around while on a holiday in Kerala. One of the boons of tourist destinations in Kerala is the unmatched services of efficient and Multi language speaking drivers with good knowledge of local tourist places who excels in their service to visitors of Gods own country. Here is a list of five common questions that guest ask us when they want to book a holiday in Kerala.

If you are coming for a holiday to Kerala and is planning to travel for more than two days, then it is better to hire a car in Kerala as it will work out cheaper for you at the end. Moreover it is much more safe and comfortable to travel with a single driver for the entire trip rather than depending on total strangers that you meet on the way.

The tour cost quoted by most tour operators is inclusive of Fuel, Parking ,Toll, Driver Allowance etc for a blocked distance in kilometers.Service tax will be additional.However please do make sure that you know how many kilometers have been blocked for you at the beginning of the trip.

If you are coming as a couple as in the couple who want to do one of those famous Kerala Honeymoon Packages, then it is better to opt for an A/C TATA Indica. If you are coming with a group of more than three people then you should either opt for a Toyota Innova or Chevrolet Tavera.

If you plan to travel is a single vehicle for the complete itinerary then the distances between destinations wont matter as the sum total of all destinations mostly work out to less than what has been blocked for you by the tour operator.

Nice has a good network of public transport, both in town and around is a specialty of Kerala. However when on a vacation in Kerala we would recommend using the same only if you are on a tight budget and cant afford a car. Simply because you will waste a lot of time running around and waiting for buses and other modes of public transport and unlike a rental car , the buses and other public transport may not go till the entrance of the hotel where you want to stay which means spending extra for local transport.

Hope these helps to hiring the right car and planning for the right experience in Kerala. If you have any mroe queries, please feel free to contact us.

We are happy to launch a new luxury houseboat in kerala backwaters for our Kerala Luxury Houseboat Package. This is a high end luxury single bed room houseboat which ensures complete privacy and where guests can experience a lavish cruise in these the placid backwaters enjoying the scenes in the country side of Alleppey.With its plush interiors, aesthetically done up modern design , quieter engines, huge lounge with glass windows and spacious room with a backwater view from the bed, a cruise in our single bed room luxury houseboat ensures a cosy getaway for anyone who wants to book one of our Kerala Honeymoon Packages .

The bedroom has wide glass windows on one side of the wall that extends down to ensure the guests an uninterrupted view of the backwaters even while lying on the bed. This single bedroom houseboat is fully air-conditioned and will provide 24 hour A/C and has quieter engines, prerequisites for a better sleep and overnight stay.

The attached toliet has a jacuzzi from where you can enjoy uninterrupted backwater view and has a rich wooden ceiling with stone plastered walls that adds up to its chic ambience. Single bedroom in the Luxury A/c Houseboat has all the modern conveniences including dressing mirror and wardrobe. The attached bathrooms are fitted with state of the art fittings, closed glass walled shower and amenities to cater to the standards of international tourists seeking luxury in backwaters. Furnished with the choicest linen and luxuriant queen size poster bed, these houseboats could well be termed as the last words in comfort.

Kerala Houseboat Menu is well known for fried fish and vegetables. However the new luxury houseboat has a full time chef and in keeping with the demands of a cosmopolitan clientele, the cuisine served aboard our new luxury houseboat will vary depending on the clients requirements. Complete breakfast along with lunch,dinner and evening snacks is provided on board the houseboat.

The houseboat also has uniformed crew ensuring the highest standards of service and lifesavers and safety jackets are also available on board. The kitchenette at the back end of the boat is replete with all modern equipments including a fridge. The guests are free to use the kitchen for themselves if they so choose with the assistance from chef.

When you book this luxury houseboat with us, what you are going to enjoy is the feeling of being in the midst of all the comforts, though you are disconnected from the city.

As part of the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival, Kochiites can have midnight shopping experience in Cochin till the eve of Christmas. Cochin Night Shopping, is a  unique event will add more colour to the spirit of tourists and shoppers who are planning to celebrate New Year 2012   in Kerala .

Elaborate arrangements have been made for the festival and all the shops in the city will remain open till 12 in the night and will serve its customers from all across the country and the world from 20th December, 2011 till 02nd January, 2012,. Shoppers can roam around the city and shop.

The KSRTC has arranged special bus services for night shoppers. Pre-paid taxi and auto counters have also been arranged at many locations in the city so that commuters will find it easy while shopping. Police have been deployed in different parts of the city for the safety of tourists. Added to it, the city will see many colourful events and moments filled with fun and excitement. During this period, there will be entertainment shows and cultural programs held every night at certain main locations. The state-wide shopping festival is being promoted by the Department of Tourism.

If you have are panning to celebrate new year in Kochi or experience Cochin Night Shopping, Please feel free to share the same in our facebook page

In India, the road to paradise is generally a bumpy one. And so it was when we stumbled on Bekal, a two-hour drive from Mangalore airport. Unhurried and virtually un-trodden, this North Kerala destination is mantled in an air of delicious seclusion and is an ideal spot for Kerala Honeymoon Packages. When we were there in the rains, Bekal oozed lashings of romance; there was a sense of abundant time, lazily ticking away amid lush nature. At present, the destination has just one uber luxe hotel — The Lalit Resort and Spa to showcase its pristine pleasures.

We drove into the Lalit Resort which unfolded like an arresting narrative. Water is a recurring motif there with lagoons (which double up as rain water harvesting pools) sparkling amid sloping-roof villas and the Nombili river encircling it on three sides. In the distance, the sea, fringed by a skein of pearl-white sand, crashed on breakers, sounding like the cymbals of a symphony orchestra. We sipped our welcome drink — coconut water from the resort’s own trees (there are reportedly 2,800), in the spacious wood-beamed lobby. We asked politely if sugar had been added for we had never tasted such sweet coconut water before. The sweetness comes from the fertile soil, we were told.

The Lalit brand of understated elegance builds on the premise that space and tranquillity are the 21st century’s concept of ultimate luxury. The 37 villas spread languidly on 26 acres and all the spacious artfully decorated rooms come with private Jacuzzis and other amenities amid the encircling green. (There’s even a kettuvallom or traditional houseboat for a holiday with an aquatic feel.) Every morning we would awake to the chirping of birds and enjoy our morning cuppa on our private patio.

Our personal butler who was quaintly called a “holiday host” was always at hand to take us to the Nombili Restaurant in a golf cart or to the meditation pagoda, the spa or even the bird watching point located amid a dreamscape of rockeries and curved wood bridges, dense coconut groves and flowers that were as colourful as a child’s Christmas card.

Over the next few days, we watched Brahminy kites revel in aerial calisthenics above the resort and glittering kingfishers poised to catch the tiny fish that leapt in and out of the river; skimmed the river in a kayak and reached the sea bordered by a palm-lined beach.

Round the year

One can vacation in Bekal any time of the year, dance in the rains Bollywood style, cuddle in the winter, enjoy the sun in summer… The Lalit Resort provides another incentive — get away for a spa-cum-leisure holiday. The resort’s 20,000 sq.ft. Rejuve spa with 13 treatment rooms, relaxation lounge, a pool is agleam with the promise of creating a new “you.”

There’s state-of-the-art medical equipment, while an Ayurvedic doctor, yoga instructor, dietician and therapists, trained in Ayurveda and international spa therapies, are in attendance for guests looking to lose weight, detox or rejuvenate. We tried the signature massage which combined the long swooping strokes of traditional Ayurveda with the deeper ones of Swedish massage. Soon we emerged with skin as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

The massages, wraps and scrubs are complemented with flavourful spa cuisine… Ever tried a Caesar’s salad embellished with grilled fish mantled in Kerala spices? Or the local nutritious njavara rice with Kerala fish curry presented like a work of art? We savoured delectable meals in romantic locations, under a flowing canopy near the helipad, on the houseboat and in the gazebo of the meditation pagoda. A romantic table for two in the restaurant and even a traditional sadya (a multi-course vegetarian feast) was served on special request.

Yes, a holiday in Bekal can be multi-faceted — we adopted a beachcomber pace, indulged in the zen of doing nothing and marvelled how the colour green has been redefined in these parts. On our last but one day we headed out of the resort for a spell of sightseeing, drove past sun-dappled woods and palm tree-etched beaches where birds called from unseen depths and the rays of a sleepy sun warmed us after a rain-lashed day.

Crocodile tale

Thirty kilometres away from the resort is the charming Ananthapuram Lake temple, a tiered roof temple seemingly adrift in the middle of a lake. Here myth, mystique and legend intertwined, the seven idols are made of 64 Ayurvedic ingredients, the priest related. Men have to enter bare-chested and all devotees must remove their footwear. Outside the temple, it was painful to walk on pebbly terrain but we went in search of Babiya, a vegetarian crocodile with a passion for rice balls.

When its predecessor was shot dead by a British soldier in 1945, Babiya mysteriously appeared the next day, even though the dead reptile had never had a mate. Babiya did not grace us with a darshan and continued to loll discreetly in the water.

The next day we left the Edensque corner of Kerala, having glimpsed a world that might never come back. As we flew back to Mumbai, we wondered if we really wanted to tell people about this one-of-a-kind haven or jealously guard the secret to ourselves!

What is Grand Kerala Shopping Festival?
Grand Kerala Shopping Festival is billed as a unique shopping fiesta that redefines the very essence and enjoyment of shopping. Participating shops throughout the state of Kerala will display signage, posters, or danglers to notify shoppers about the shopping festival.Grand Kerala Shopping Festival 2012 is the fifth edition and 2012 will commence at the port city of Kochi (Cochin).

What is in in for Kerala and Kerala Tourism department ?
The aim is to promote and develop commerce, trade and industrial sector of Kerala using the brand value of Kerala Tourism. The objective of the festival is to make the state an International shopping destination and to promote tourism and traditional products of Kerala. Grand Kerala Shopping Festival 2012 is managed by the Kerala Tourism Department and aims to promote tourism among the visitors who will be thronging Kerala for New Year 2012 celebrations all over Kerala.

What is in it for a guest visiting Kerala?
This is an ideal way to do some great shopping in Kochi and win some cool prizes. The shopping extravaganza promises discounted prices for exquisite handicraft items, garments, jewelry and more drew more than 650,000 international travelers in 2010. Contributing to the excitement of great prices during the 2011-2012 season are the even better prizes. The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival is offering guaranteed prizes for each and every single purchase in the form of scratch and win coupons and gift vouchers. There will also be weekly drawings for further prizes along with the event mega prize of up to 101 kg of gold. Shoppers from outside Kerala will also shop tax free as GKSF is providing 100% VAT refunds.

What are the Dates of Grand Kerala Shopping Festival 2012?
The Grand Kerala Shopping Festival will run from December 1, 2011 to January 15, 2012.

If you are planning for your X’masand New Year 2012 Celebrations in Kerala, here are some tips from us on how best to make this new year a memorable day.

Varkala, Kovalam or Fort Kochi will be among the best places  to spend the New Years Eve 2012 in Kerala. However if you ask us to pick one place we would surely pick Fort Kochi, simply because of the carnival celebrations on the day of new year 2012.

Cochin Carnival is hosted every year in the last week of December and it runs with the New year and ends with a massive procession on New Year’s Day through Fort Kochi. The highlight of the carnival is the massive procession on the New Year”s Day. Led by an embellished elephant and accompanied by drums and music, the carnival is a moment to behold and stays with you….well….until the next year! There is also staging of different South and North Indian folk dances during the festivity. Preparations begin months in advance for hosting the carnival games, fairs and partying. Dressed up in fancy costumes, everyone including the children are seen bursting with enthusiasm and unbridled energy. The available space on the streets host impromptu competitions and multifaceted celebrations. Kalam Vara (floor drawing), tug-of-war, bicycle race, swimming in the sea, beach volleyball are some of the programs that take place during the Carnival.

If you are not in Cochin, don’t worry. Most hotels in Kerala have grand New Year parties with live band and DJs. If you are already booked with  a hotel , check the rates to see whether the Grand New Year Ball rates are included with the room rates. It is a compulsory inclusion in most New Year itineraries. However be forewarned that tickets will be expensive to get into any new year ball and stags are not allowed.

Wherever you are , whatever you do. Enjoy the New year in 2012 . Every one at Iris Holidays wish you a very Happy New Year 2012

On a bend in the road, just before the hairpin drop into the Koottickal Valley, we stop to admire the view. Aside from the pink tip of a church tower poking through the trees, all we can see is lush, tropical greenery: betel nut, coconut and banana palms; forests of rubber creeping out of the valley and up the slopes of the Peermade Hills.

Whisps of cloud hang in the folds of the distant Vagamon Mountains. Two gaudy butterflies dance past. I can hear the whoop-whoop of a crow pheasant. After the steamy heat of Kerala’s crowded plains, it feels amazingly fresh.

The Koottickal Valley is at the heart of Kerala’s rubber belt. In the foothills of the Western Ghats (the vast mountainous ridge down the spine of south India), the belt is a wide band of plantations; not just rubber but food – vanilla, pepper, pineapples and tapioca – and teak. It’s an area often overlooked by tourists. On the well-trodden “KK” Road, which heads uphill from Kumarakom Backwaters on the coastal backwaters to Kumily, the gateway to Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, they often just pass through, sometimes by the coachload. I have done it myself but I’ve since found a dozen good reasons to stick around.

One is the weather. Rubber thrives in mid-range temperatures: cooler than the plains but warmer and drier than the high-range tea plantations. Another is the beauty of the green hills, steep gradients, white morning mists rising from river valleys. I like the ordinary, everyday towns (Pala, Kanjirapally, Mundakayam) and the madly ornate Catholic churches with their icing-sugar bell towers.

Thanks to a growing number of rubber-belt guesthouses, I’ve also developed a taste for plantation life: best summed up by sultry evenings spent chewing the fat on the verandah of a vintage bungalow. This is the life that was pioneered by British planters a century or so ago.

In the Koottickal Valley, my husband and I stay with fourth-generation Keralan planter George Abraham Pottamkulam and his wife, Anju, daughter Rose and baby Aby. Their house on the 20-hectare Evergreen Estate, which peeps at the Urumbi Hills through slender rubber trees, is a flat-roofed, modern bungalow – all cubes, curves, louvred windows and a Miami-style carport – built by Pottamkulam’s father in 1955.

As we sip cold Kingfisher beer on his shady verandah, he tells of the colonial farmers and missionaries (the Bakers, Vincents, and Murphys) who helped establish Kerala’s first rubber estates; about the Syrian Christian families (the Kurians, Pottamkulams, Kottukapallys) who now own most of them; and about his grandfather, who once bought a Studebaker with leopard-skin seats (“real leopard skin – can you believe it?”).

A lot of what you see in a Kerala Homestay like  here is standard Keralan fare: flat-roofed, concrete houses painted in vivid shades of candy and citrus, creaking rust-bucket buses, crowds of schoolchildren in uniform, lines of washing strung across front doors and roadside advertisements for silks, cement and – this being the new India – hedge funds. However, some attractions are far from typical.

On a guided plantation tour, we hike along red-earth paths through industrial-size forests of rubber, where each tall, spindly tree is skirted with a polythene tutu to protect the latex, which drips into a cup strapped to the trunk. Get up before dawn and you can see the “tappers”, torches strapped to their heads, carefully cutting thin strips of bark to release the milky fluid. If you’re really keen you can visit a rubber factory (ah, the sweet smell of coagulating latex and formic acid).

At Bharananganam – a name that encapsulates the timbre of the local Malayalam language – you can visit the tomb of St Alphonsa, India’s first and only female saint, canonised in 2008. Join the crowds of silent pilgrims and pick up a kitsch light-up Alphonsa figurine from a convent-run kiosk of church souvenirs.

With Pottamkulam, we visit the final resting place of John Joseph “JJ” Murphy, who founded India’s first commercial rubber plantation in 1902. He is buried near Koottickal in an overgrown, middle-of-nowhere cemetery, close to the hilltop plantation he used to own. “We’ve a lot to thank him for,” Pottamkulam says as he stands over the Irishman’s grave. Murphy died in 1957 but his portrait hangs above the bar of the once very British Mundakayam Club, where a new generation of planters sips pegs of whisky under ceiling fans. It’s another of Pottamkulam’s recommendations. The club was founded in 1912 and preparations for its centenary celebrations are under way.

For me, though, the joy lies in the simple pleasures of staying at a family-run plantation guesthouse (“the testimony to glorious yesteryears,” Pottamkulam says). And the food is good: Keralan-style, Syrian Christian meatball curries, rice-flour chappatis, appams (rice flour and toddy pancakes), coconutty fish curries with tapioca. We are even treated to a nazarani sadhya feast – 30 tiny spicy dishes served on a banana leaf.

I do love the region’s lush landscapes and tourist-free towns (nobody tries to sell you anything, not even a tuk-tuk ride) but I would travel a long way for one of Anju Abraham’s banana-flower patties.

Ramakkalmedu is a beautiful view spot in Tamil Nadu-Kerala border, giving breathtaking views of Kombai villages in TamilNadu on one side and the villages around Nedumkandom in Kerala on the other side and is an ideal stop over during a Munnar Thekkady package

A gentle slope leads to Kuruvan mount at Ramakkalmedu. The climb is easy. On a sunny bright day vehicles can go up further, the driver says. Half way through the climb (not more than 200 metres) a shape materializes from what seems to be the other side of the hillock. And then suddenly there is a huge sculpture, in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. Step in front for a closer inspection and on of the most memorable views during a holiday in Kerala !

Ramakkalmedu View Point

Welcome to Ramakkalmedu, Kerala’s ‘cradle of wind’. The name suggests a legend and the sculptures another. The obvious one is to do with the Ramayana. There are a couple of versions of it. One says Rama came here looking for Sita, and is said to have set foot on the tallest rock (‘kal’ is stone or rock in Malayalam). Another is that Rama and Sita came there during their exile and rested on the said rock. The Kuruvan and the Ramakkal mounts face each other.

Now about story behind the sculptures or rather the couple depicted in the sculpture: the sculpture is of a Kuruvan and Kuruvathi (tribal or hill folk) and is of very recent origin, 2005 actually. Fatumma (or Fatima), who is employed at Ramakkalmedu to pick up plastic bottles and other garbage left behind by visitors, enlightens the interested tourist. “The Kuruvan and Kuruvathi showed the British the site for the Idukki dam. And then when the dam didn’t ‘sit’ properly,” she lowers her voice by several notches and whispers, “they were sacrificed. And the dam ‘sat’. This ‘statue’ is for them.” The sculpture has a tribal couple and child looking at the plains of Tamil Nadu. The sculptures look pensive and sad – or is it the effect of Fatumma’s story?

More than legends or the stories, it is the view that is amazingly wow-inspiring. Ramakkalmedu is on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. On one side you can see Theni and the windmills beyond it; on a clear day with binoculars maybe the Vaigai dam and Madurai. On the other side there is Cumbam. It is a place to feel ‘on top of the world’. Although folks recommend Ramakkalmedu on a bright and sunny day, getting there on a day of moderate rain is recommended. You can see the mist rolling in, literally. It gets misty but wait a while and it clears up quick (on a day of moderate rain, not when it pours). One minute you see everything and the next you may well be the only person on earth!

There are a couple of shelters, ostensibly to take shelter from the rain. The shelters are like mantapams, open on all sides except the roof. Ramakkalmedu is a place which has winds blowing at around 25-30 kmph – constantly. So even if there is a drizzle you get wet, shelter or no shelter. Look right from Kuruvan mount and it looks like Tamil Nadu has a farm of windmills, look left and on the Kerala side too there are wind mills. Atop hills and lush green forests they stand, majestically going round and round.

Ramakkal mount is for the adventurous. You can trek up the hillock: the climb won’t be more than a kilometre or so, but worth your while. Fatumma calls out to a couple of youngsters and warns, “Be careful. If you fall off from there, neither will we get you nor will Tamil Nadu.” The view from Ramakkalmedu at night is like standing above the sky and looking down on the shimmering sky. City lights twinkle like stars on a clear sky.

Fortunately, unlike other ‘hill stations’ there are practically no shops here, which is why the place is clean. Fatumma and her assistant keep an eye on visitors and any waste they might leave behind. It seems like a good time to declare the area a plastic-free zone, considering what plastic has done in other places.

Getting there

Ramakkalmedu is around 45 km from Thekkady and 80 km from Munnar. The nearest railway station is Kottayam (140 km). The nearest airport is at Kochi (190 km). There is a hotel at Ramakkalmedu. You can also stay at either Kattapana (20 km) or Idukki and drive up to Ramakkalmedu.