Trip to Poovar

We signed up for a Club Mahindra membership last year, this gives us a week’s stay at any of the Club Mahindra resorts every year for the next 25 years. As part of the joining incentive, we got a 5 day free stay at a Club Mahindra resort and a 2 week free stay at any international resort. We used the Club Mahindra offer for a week’s stay at their resort at Poovar Kerala, which is near Trivandrum. The plan was to leave Bangalore on the 14th and return on the 21st of August and in the process celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary there. It didn’t exactly go to plan…

We’d decided to travel by train for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Nisha has never really experienced train travel and we wanted her to go on a longer train trip. Also, the train ticket cost me around 6K, whereas the cheapest flight tickets were almost 30K. As the train timings were extremely convenient, we decided that we can put the extra money to better use, like buying a new smartphoneJ

We set out on 14th evening, armed with umbrellas and raincoats, as we expected heavy rain in Kerala. As it turned out, the only rain that we saw was in Bangalore as we were waiting to board the train. For dinner, we finished off the delicious aloo paranthas that I’d ordered from our neighbourhood Punjabi dhaba. We reached Trivandrum right on time, around 12:00 pm and took a taxi to the resort, which was around 30 km away.

The resort is located on a river island right at the place where the river meets the Arabian sea, which meant that we had to take a boat to get to the resort. As we reached the resort, we passed the estuary where the river meets the sea. We also saw a few local boys swimming in the river, though none were doing so around the estuary, which we learnt was quite dangerous.

We had reservations for a floating cottage, which are built on a hollow concrete base and tethered to the shoreline. However, as these cottages were shutdown in the weeks prior to our arrival due to high tides and wind, they were not ready for occupation when we arrived. They put us up in a regular room, with a hammock in the balcony for a couple of days before we shifted to the floating cottage. In hindsight, that was a good break, as I was not very impressed with the cottage, which had quite a shabby feel to it. In contrast, the rooms were extremely impressive, spacious and neat.

We visited Kovalam beach on Sunday. It was a big letdown, the erosion was so bad that there was barely 20 feet of beach left and in many places, it was even less. The water was also quite rough and the lifeguards prevented anyone from venturing more than 10-15 feet into the water. We were hoping to have some bhelpuri or chaat items, but all the establishments at Kovalam seem to cater to the foreign tourist, all we could get was sandwiches. I am sure it is a much better place to visit during the season, but based on what I saw, I don’t see why it should deserve the fame that it has as one of the best beaches in India.

Other than the trip to Kovalam, we did not move out of the resort during our entire stay. Our usual routine was

- get up and have coffee
- have a heavy buffet breakfast
- relax for a couple of hours on the hammock
- Nisha an I would then hit the swimming pool for a couple of hours, while Vidya spent time reading
- Eat a heavy lunch
- Sleep for 2-3 hours
- Laze around till dinner
- Dinner was a light affair, we would typically order some phulkas and dal in the room
- Watch TV

With food and rest being the mainstay, it was no wonder that I found all my trousers getting much tighter when I returned back to Bangalore. The food was the typical resort food, a huge spread with many salads, curries and desserts. It would have been a dream 20 years back when I had an unlimited appetite, but times have changed and we tired of it in a couple of days. On the last day, it was a relief when we found that there was no buffet due to low occupancy.

The one major disappointment was the activity centre. On our previous stay at Coorg, the activity centre was bussing through the day with lot of things for children to do. Here, it was the exact opposite; it was a small dingy place where you were left to yourself. Luckily, the weather was glorious throughout and we could use the pool, or else Nisha would have been bored to death. In total, we spent almost 10 hours in the pool. She became great friends with a 8 year old girl Trisha from Mumbai, who took it upon herself to teach her to swim. Some progress was made, but there is still a long way to go.

By Monday, we had completely unwound and were really beginning to enjoy ourselves. However, it was not destined to last. There was a strike called by the left parties on the 20th, which was the day when we had to leave for Bangalore. The resort informed us that there would be no taxi service after 6 am on that day. So, we had a choice of waking up at 3:00 am and getting dropped to the station by 5:00 am or moving to Trivandrum the previous day and checking into a hotel near the station. The thought of waiting 7 hours in a station during a bandh was not very appealing, so we went for the latter option. We checked into the Comfort Inn Grand, which was around 2 km from the railway station, right on MG Road on the 19th. We left most of the luggage in the cloak room, the plan was that even if we don’t get transport to the station, we could always walk if we don’t have much stuff to carry.

The next morning, we woke up to the news trains were being stopped all over the state. We were in a quandary, do we check out, go to the station and find that our train was stopped, thus having a lengthy wait. Or do we wait it out at the hotel, thus running the risk of missing the train in case they started running again? We decided that I would go alone to the station at 10:00 to get a real assessment and depending on the situation, we would take a call. In the worst case, we’d just stay put for another day and take a flight to Bangalore on the 21st. On the way, I found that MG Road, which was choc-a-block with traffic the previous evening was completely free. At the station, the person at the information desk informed me that our train was running on schedule and was slated to leave on time. I hurried back to the hotel, hoping that they would be able to organize a private vehicle for us to get to the station. Unfortunately, they had no vehicles available or did not want to take a chance. So, now our only option was to walk. If I had not gone earlier, I would have just not taken the chance, but having seen that the police were out in force throughout our route to the station gave us the confidence to go ahead. We reached the station without incident after a 20 minute walk. By this time, the trains were running normally and our train departed on schedule at 12:55. We reached Bangalore right on schedule on 21st morning and got ready for the regular grind.