Trip date: Christmas trip 2018. Used avenger motorcycle to do this trip. Flew from Hyderabad to Kochi
and from there rented the motorcycle. Personally I feel avenger is not good for long rides as the posture is not comfortable. As fort Kochi is pretty crowded to get out the city, once you are out the road is pretty good to visit various villages.
I travelled Fort Kochi, Vagamon, Kumily, Gavi, Alappuzha, Varkala Beach and back to Fort Kochi. Its around 650Kms ride and I missed my Porsche as the roads had proper banking so felt like racing on these roads.
Weather was awesome all through the trip and generally i got up at 6AM and walk around till 7PM and then start my ride. The fog around the hills reminded me of Switzerland as some of the houses are in the hills. Typically in villages you have people in one area, very close to each other however, in Kerala people have houses in the fields just like in Europe. And in some places you cannot see the house as well as they are tall trees and the house is far behind these trees.
Food in the villages are really good, I was not a big fan of kerala food in Bangalore however when i
visited the villages I changed my opinion. Beef biryani was excellent and they have lot of vegetable dishes and sea food. There were not strong spices like in Telangana but more of flavorful. I really liked those big planktons and various fruits you get in Kerala. Mostly banana chips are made out of these planktons and shipped all over India and I am sure over the world. I liked the mixed nuts Halwa also.Every morning i used to eat two of these planktons and that would fill my stomach for the lunch. These are chewy and very tasty, what I found out that the typical bananas you get in India are actually brought by British from West indies. These planktons are real native of India.
Vagamon is really small village and when I visited from Kochi it was bit cooler.
Kumily is nice especially it is in border with Tamil Nadu and there is Periyar river and national
forest area. I would definitely suggest taking a boat ride around the river as you spot some elephants, elks, deers and other wild animals.
You can see there are lot of spices being sold, bananas chips being made and huge amount of halwas. The guy in the photo is making banana chips and very much interested in taking selfie with me, hey why not :).
Gavi is another nice area to cover. It is part of national forest area, unfortunately I could not explore it as the government personal dont allow motorcycles. So either you have to have your own car or travel in their bus. Apparently there are cottages in the middle of the forest where you need to book in advance and to do elephant safaris, hiking, etc.
Alapuzha is where you have lot backwater boat rides. I like the place since I visited on christmas day
and the place is lit with lights. I took just a 5 hour boat ride and you should be careful not to get scammed for the boat ride price. It was fun ride however, there are lot of tourists boat so kind of spoiled the whole place. Nevertheless, you can do once.
The ride for Alapuzza to Varkala beach is really nice as i took the sea side road trip. This reminded me of Highway 1 california road trip. Lot of volley ball plays on the beach and they play loud music at the night. Varkala beach has a huge red cliff and beach less crowded. I would suggest to spend 2 days in the beach and explore the area.
The next day left to Fort Kochi, had a great sea food. One can buy various fishes and then take them to cook at the near by open restaurants. They charge 200Rs for each dish which is bit expensive I would say. The cafe's in Fort Kochi are nice where you can enjoy local art while having coffee or food at the same place.
One big caution I would suggest is NOT to go for Kochi Bennalle show where they try to shove communistic agenda like feminism and LGBTQ nonsensical dribble as contemporary art. It will totally drain your energy and also any little interest one has in art will be gone.
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