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You wish to go to a relatively unknown place; beautiful and with all facilities? Good weather and not so difficult to access? Nestling in the Western Ghats, a small town called Kumily is just the right place for a dream holiday. Surrounded by cardamom fields with a temperature that does not rise about 30º C, there is small pitter-patter every now and then, as though in conversation with you. Suddenly everything around you dives into the unknown as a cloud settles down just in front of you. The town is spread across 600-1200 metres from the mean sea level. Lying just across the Tamil Nadu border, Kumily is about an hour’s drive from Cumbum and about three hours from Madurai. On the way be sure to stop at Suruli falls. Ideally, your holiday should begin now. It will be a good idea to pack breakfast and have a picnic there. We even saw a family cooking atop the hill from which water was gushing down. The falls is surrounded by mountains on all four sides. Though tourist brochures tell you that you will have a wonderful view from the top, the exhilaration of being on top there and letting your feet sway in the cold forceful waters, is more than the pleasure offered by the view. Once in Kumily, you need
to go nowhere, just book a room in one of the many well-serviced
hotels there and you can spend the day sipping into chukku coffee
(coffee and dried ginger) and watching nature. The hospitality
industry in Kumily knows how to pamper you and every hotel has its own
ayurvedic massage centre and spas in addition to swimming pools and
they serve you almost any kind of food from the typical Kerala menu to
continental. When your bones have had their fill of rest, get up.
Close to where you are visiting is the Periyar Tiger Reserve. A steamer with many seats in two-tiers is ready to take you on a ride through the Periyar lake. Sit on top, in the first floor of the boat. The lucky ones are those who see the elephant family coming down to the lake for a drink. If you take the early morning ride or the late evening ride, they say the chances of sighting animals in this picturesque drive are much greater. There are also many kinds of birds. The ride is an experience that is a must. It is beautiful to see the forest spilling into the waters. In the middle of the lake is Lake Palace. If you stay there, you can go on early morning treks. The only thing that is not nice about the whole trip is that you have to wear a life-jacket provided by the transporters.The steamer ride is for about an hour. It is a good idea to carry with you a pair of binoculars. If you do not wish to go by boat, and that would be silly of you if you wished so, you may trek into the forest. Trekking can be an add-on. All the hotels offer daily treks, the minimum duration of which is an hour and a half. Day-long treks are also available. It can be slushy because the weather is always kind of wet. So if you want to do that trek, go well-equipped with the right shoes, some mosquito sprays and a backpack. Another enjoyable experience is a visit to the cardamom plantations. Kumily is the major producer of cardamoms. It will be amazing to see the fields. The cardamom plant itself is somewhat like a sugar cane plant to see. At the base of the plant just above the roots and the ground, small tendril-like structures shoot out and have small green fruits like nodules on them. There are as many as 15-20 on each tendril and there can be any number of tendrils per plant. These small fruits ripen at different times, that is to say all the fruits on one tendril do not ripe together. So just as there are tea-pluckers in tea plantations, there are cardamom-pluckers, mainly women. They know instinctively which to pluck. You can see the lithesome pepper creeper with green peppers hanging down so lusciously. Of course then you should buy cardamoms and pepper. Do not forget to buy honey for many of the plantations also breed bees. The honey is pure and truly sweet. You can buy all the spices, but what is interesting is that you get some wonderful bath soaps and loofahs that you cannot get anywhere else. The market is small and the products limited so it should not be a problem to buy them. The special thing about them is that they are all made of herbs and ayurvedic ingredients. For the city bred, there are two more attractions: excellent designer restaurants for ice-creams, deserts and Italian pastas dot the sleep town of Kumily! Homemade chocolates are also very good. And so rested and fed you will come back truly refreshed, if a little overweight. Fact file How to reach: Kumily is a three-hour drive from Madurai, which is well-connected by train or air or Cochin, which is also about three hours and well-connected. Best time to visit: All through the year. Where to stay: Kumily has many hotels, three-star and below. Cardamom Palace and Lake Palace are some of the good places to stay with room tariff being about Rs 6000-Rs 8,000 per night. There are more modest hotels with an average tariff of Rs 2000 per night. Shopping: Spices are a must buy. Vijayawada also has showrooms presenting Tiupur hosiery at throwaway prices.
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