Thenmala

Thenmala ecotourism

Date : 13-14. 02.2016

Team : Neethu and myself

Vehicle : Renault Duster


We, me and my wife were planning to have a weekend cum valentines day outing which was a quick planned trip to Thenmala.

Thenmala ('Then' meaning honey, 'mala' meaning hills) honey hills is an ecotourism destination located in kollam district near Punalur. It is the first planned Ecotourism in India. It is located in the Schendurini wildlife sanctuary.

We started from Pala by around 7.30 am and it was a stretch of 125 kms hassle free drive through manimala, ranni, punalur  Pathanapuram route and near punalur on the way we can see a beautiful check dam across kallada river with a view tower near the road.The view from the tower is very sceninc and can spend evenings there chit chatting. if you are interested you can go down near the dam either by walking or by car and can have a bath there.

Check dam across kallada river near punalur

We plan to visit Palaruvi water falls first then go back to Thenmala.

Palaruvi waterfalls

Palaruvi meaning stream of milk, which got its name as it looks like milk flowing during monsoon season.it is located in kallada river and has a height  of  91 meters and is 32^nd highest water falls in India.
We reached there at 11.30 am and we took entry and parking ticket from vanasamrakshana samithi office and they warned that water level is too low now. We drive towards waterfall , road is very narrow and there is decent parking arranged there. It is really a picturesque horse tail type water fall and there was decent croud enjoying the view . They have arranged separate bathing and dress changing area for men and women. The water was too cold and we didn’t took bath because of the croud , took some snaps of the scene and returned.

Palaruvi water falls

Palaruvi

Aryankavu pathimoonnu kannara bridge (13 arch bridge)

On the way from Palaruvi to Thenmala  in Kollam Senkottai national highway there is a railway bridge with 13 arches showing a curve with length of 102m and height of 5.2 m which is visual fete for the travellers. It was made more that 100 yrs back and stands as a testimony to British architectural skills having no signs of deterioration even now. The southern railway stopped the meter gauge train through this route one year back and as apart of renovation they tried to demolish this bridge but was strong enough to resist this so the railway plan to retain this with cement plastering for the upcoming broad gauge train service.
This was the oldest rail in Travancore commissioned in 1904, once the major trade route between Kollam and Chennai .We stopped there and went to the top of the bridge and it is again a beautiful view.

Pathimoonnu kannara bridge @ Aryankavu

Thenmala Ecotourism centre

We then drive straight to Thenmala ecotourism centre and checked in by 1.30 pm . We had booked an overnight stay in jungle camping ( The cocoon) over phone. The cocoon even though called jungle camping was just near the office in the vicinity of an artificial so called jungle. The room was clean with bare minimum facilities ( already mentioned at time of booking).We enjoyed the stay there but to be honest it was not exciting and not worth money we spend.There are several other types of accomodation as well but none i found so good.

The Thenmala ecotourism project as a whole is part of Shenduruni sanctuary and has 4 separate zones spread over an area as part of ecotourism.

Ø  The ecotourism office

Ø  The leisure zone

Ø  The adventure zone

Ø  The deer park

The staff at information centre is good in explaining things but they discourage us going for trecking and they never mentioned about timings of various activities in advance.The facilities and ideology are all good but ill maintained.  There are two options to visit the place one is a day plan other is overnight stay. We opted to stay there, but we didn’t book any packages.

3.00pm :The deer park

We first went to deer park which is around 1.5 km away from the office, there is nothing much to see except the three types of deer kept inside a boundary. It may be attractive to children who can see them very close and may try feeding them. There is a huge scope of improvement as the place is beautiful located in the banks of kallar river .

Barking dear

Spotted dear

4.30 PM : The Leisure zone

Then we went to the leisure zone , which is located  on one side of Thenmala dam. We can spend around 2-3 hours leisurely there. The major attractions are the Sculpture park, Walk ways, the view of Thenmala dam , Walk through the side of river and the Hanging bridge across the river. There were several album and marriage video shooting groups in the area at that time. This is the area of the whole project which is maintained at least to the minimum expected level as the major attraction here is the nature itself.

View of Thenmala Dam and power project

       

Hanging bridge at Leisure zone at Thenmala

7.00PM : Musical Fountain

Then we went to the tent had a good bath and got ready for the musical fountain at 7 pm. This was the best programme of the whole trip. It was mind blowing for half an hour and the whole theatre was house full.

Musical fountain at Thenmala Ecotourism

It lack professionalism at some part but as a whole we enjoyed it thoroughly and that was end of the day.

Restaurants in and around  - There is an in house restaurant where we have to pre order food, and the same team has a hotel green outside the office. The quality and cost of food is decent. There are two icecream parlour cum juice shops outside which is also good. We had dinner from green restaurant and went back to cocoon and had a good sleep.

14.02.16

8am : Children's Park and Nakshathra vanam

Our plan was to visit butterfly park in morning but to our surprise they told us that it is a  guided programme and it will be only at 3 pm  about which they never mentioned the previous day so we were not able o go there though we took a full package. so we went for a quick tour of childrens park , Nakshathra vanam which shows 27 trees associated with 27 birth stars as per Indian astrology.The Childrens park is maintained at a very bad shape.

9am: Kallada Dam (Thenmala Dam)

We then went to see the Kallada dam and irrigation project which is the second largest irrigation project of Kerala. The view of the dam is very beautiful  and photography is prohibited though not as strict as in other dams. The sun was very hot so we quickly returned from there as we want to enter adventure zone early.

10AM : The Adventure zone :

This is the most exciting zone for those who have good health and interested in some active tourism. its really enjoyable for about 2 hours.  We enter the adventure zone through an elevated walkway through the top of trees and then entering the old Thiruvananthapuram  Shenkottai road, and then  walk down to the banks of an artificial lake where these activities are done.

Elevated walk way

The lake has lot of colourfull fishes and has coracle ride ( not functional, didn’t do because of wind), and Pedal boating (not much exciting) .

 The other activities starts with  Burma bridge which needs balancing with leg and hand, Commando net etc. 

Lake crossing over a rope with support of another rope above and another way of crossing with lying parallel and pulling with hand is also worth doing. There is flying fox or zip line from the hill top across the lake which is very good.

There is short range shooting, three shots per person, Trampoline , Rotating ball, Net climbing etc which adds to the adventures of the zone.

we thoroughly enjoyed the full activities at adventure zone but the things damaged at the area like cycles for mountain biking, Archery equipments, mountain climbing etc are kept unrepaired .

After this we went back to the cocoon and vacated the room. On the way we just stopped at Punalur.

Punalur suspension bridge

This is a very historical bridge built way back in 1877 in the banks of kallada river in punalur town  ('punal'  meaning water and 'ooru' meaning town) by a Scottish engineer Albert Henry. The engineering technology used behind this bridge is still unknown. It is built by suspending this bridge with rods connected to the clips in the four wells under the river 100 feet depth and which are inter connected. It was built for movements of vehicles and to prevent animals from entering the human settlements of punalur. As animals enter the bridge it will start shaking so they will be frightened and goes back. Another story is that the people were afraid to walk through the bridge initially so the engineer with his family went beneath the bridge in a country boat and 6 elephants were made to walk through the bridge.

It was opened recently for public after reconstruction and is a real beautiful view and make us wonder about the engineering skills of the past.

Punalur suspension bridge

Thus we end the trip by returning home.



For more details Visit www.thenmalaecotourism.com or contact Thenmala ecotourism promotion society 0475-2344800,2344855, 9496344800

Also visit www.shendurney.com, contact 8547567935, 8547602931, 8547602930 for camping inside forest, jungle safari and Trecking and can be booked online.

Distance from Thenmala
Trivandrum  72 km            Munnar    227 km
Kollam        66 km            Palaruvi    17 km
Cochin        200 km          Shenkotta 32km
Thekkady    176 km         Madurai    185km