Wayanad

We ended up going to Wayanad mainly because its location was convenient for the other places we wanted to go. There wasn’t masses to do but with a national park with tigers we were keen to see some nature and it made the ideal place to stop for a night.

Located in the hills the views from surrounding areas are beautiful and on our drive in through the national park we were lucky enough to spot some wild elephants!

Where to stay

Accommodation was a little pricier here than other places we went to and there weren’t hostels. We stayed in hotel mintflower where we got a double room for 863 rupees. It was a very average room with some strange mould marks in the bathroom and was generally a bit grotty, but did the job just fine. It had a restaurant attached and a little bakery and the reception staff were helpful

What to do

National park safari- We reaaaally wanted to see a wild tiger so went for the 7am safari through the national park. This involves a 5am wake up and a local bus for about 40 minutes and then a never ending queue for a Jeep. We had to pay significantly more for a tourist ticket and then for the jeep but it was a nice tour. Sadly we didn’t see any tigers or even elephants but we saw a couple of mongeese, lots of deer and some tiger tracks. The tour was about an hour and worth it even though we didn’t get to see a tiger

Tour- We found a tuk tuk driver and asked if we could do a tour of some of the local sights which ended up being perfect- we didn’t pay much each and it filled most of a day

Chembra peak- this is supposedly a big attraction in Wayanad which many tourists hike to. It was closed due to being monsoon season when we were there but this seemed to be in every blog post/list of things to do that we saw

Edakkal caves- this was the first stop on our tour and by far my favourite. When we were told there were some caves to see I wasn’t that impressed, but it turned out to be a steep upward hike with a lot of steps to get to the caves. The views were AMAZING! It was strange seeing entire extended families climbing; from grandparents to toddlers and it was definitely not easy in the heat! It was worth it and the caves themselves were cool as they are where the first human life in Kerala lived, but I was much more interested in the view 

Waterfalls- this was a nice stop and really busy as it was a public holiday that day. Unfortunately we did this near the end of our tour and were both really tired so didn’t swim, though the rocks were quite slippy to get in and out of the water so this was probably a good idea.

Heritage museum- The driver was keen for us to visit the heritage museum on our tour which was quite an average experience. It was very cheap and cool to see some old pots/pans etc. but was a very small museum and if it hadn’t been on the way probably would have given it a miss.

Viewpoint- We stopped at this amazing view point/rock formation which had views over the whole area. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere and required us to slide behind a fence so would be hard to find with your own transport

Food

This was the first place where I actually found it hard to find food I wanted. I love Indian food and will eat at some questionable looking places, but when we asked if we could stop for food on our tour the only place our driver could find was a very local place serving only one dish which was a banana leaf with rice and curry. I’d eaten so many snacks by this point that I gave it a miss but meg got some. The curries weren’t very nice and more like the pickles that come with a thali but it was super cheap.

Hotel Mintflower- we went to the restaurant at our hotel which was nice. The roti was super cheap as was the vegetable curry which was a good dinner before our night bus.

Getting to/from

From Wayanad we took a night bus to Alleppey. It was supposed to get there are 2am so we booked a hostel for the night, but it ended up arriving at a petrol station which was our drop off point after 4. From there we were lucky enough to find a tuk tuk driver filling up at the station and got a good price to the hostel. This was definitely not the most pleasant journey of my life but fine and the bus had A/C and WiFi

Laura x