‘Wayanad is a beautiful place’ would be an understatement to this rural district in north-east Kerala. This weekend (15-16 June), I spent my time gazing at the vast stretches of tea estates, trying not to get exhausted from travelling for long periods and eating a lot of Kerala food.

I travelled to Wayanad with a friend of mine, so there were two of us for the weekend. We had pre-booked a homestay with Green Garden Holiday Home Wayanad for Saturday night.

Travel

had a busy week and a long Friday at the office and I couldn’t find a bus that was later than 10PM so I had to look for a bus for Saturday morning. Quick tip, book the bus the same week as your trip weekend. Buses become available on the ticketing platforms just a week prior to their date of departure. I found a semi-sleeper AC bus at 4PM from kalasipalayam, Bangalore to Kalpetta, a town in the district of Wayanad. It was mentioned on RedBus that it takes 5 hours to reach kalpetta but it took us about 6 hours. It was a humid day with clouds. It had rained the previous night. We got off the bus, took an auto, costed us Rs.20/km (as quoted by the auto driver) for a journey of about 9Km and reached Green Garden holiday Home.

Stay

The homestay was as beautiful as we expected. A beautiful balcony opening to a vast expanse of tea estate, blue sky filled with big white and occasionally black clouds. We were expecting rains to bless us, but they didn’t bother much. We reached at the homestay at around 11AM, freshened up and ordered food. Usually the care takers of the homestay would also provide food at a minimum cost but they weren’t available for the afternoon, so we ordered from a place suggested by them. We ordered dinner (chicken curry thali) at the homestay. It was simple, sumptuous and delicious for a per plate cost of for Rs.200. A special shout out to the care takers of the property. Extremely sweet and helpful. I guess they were the sweetest hosts I’ve ever encountered. For the rest of the day, I read my book, strolled around the tea estate and saw the moon rise behind the hills.

Day 2

Keeping the first day for just resting, for me, was a great idea because we had to leave the room the next day at 10.30 AM and our bus back to Bangalore was at 11 PM. Meanwhile, we decided to visit some places after we checked-out. We hired a cab. The homestay had their own car which they also rented out for sight-seeing purposes. The cost for the cab was Rs.2000 for a day till 6 in the evening or for a maximum of 100km. All the major tourist spots also close by 6pm. We wanted to visit Chembra peak. It’s so high that we could see the peak from our homestay and observe the clouds hitting the peak. But the peak had been closed down by the government because of a forest fire that had occurred in the summers.

The other thing that was on our checklist was Tea tasting. The rest of the places we left to the driver to decide on.

Tea factory in Chellotte Estate

The first place that we visited was a tea factory owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calicut. The factories aren’t functional on Sundays but they are more than willing to turn on their machineries and give you a tour of the factory. They charge Rs.50/- per person for the tour. It’s interesting to see how tea is made inside a tin factory.

Tea leaves being withered

Pookode Lake

The next stop was Pookode Lake. It is a picnic spot for many people, not just the tourists but also the locals. It’s a big lake, no question. You can paddle around for a price of 230 for a boat. For no reason at all, we decided to Kayak in the lake. The view was nice when we stood still in the middle of the lake surrounded by hills on three sides.

Tea Museum

I had heard about the Tea museum before going there and I was so excited about this place. And I would say that it was worth it. It’s a moment in history[what moment?] that has been captured in those three floors of the building. Old tea brewing matching, Swiss watches, old calculators from the British era. The entry to the museum is Rs.50 per person. At the third floor of the building, you can go through tea-tasting session for Rs. 50 per person. They’ll explain you the different grades of tea, the process of making each grade and you can taste 5 types of tea. After that, you can spend some relaxing time in the tea bar they have on the third floor which is calm and the view of the tea estate in front of the museum just adds to the flavour.

Banasura Sagar Dam

The dam is India’s largest earth dam. It was our last spot for the day and we spent a lot of time here. There wasn’t much to see but the view was nice and the breeze was cool and we had a lot to talk about. Oh, they also charged us Rs.30 per person as the entry fee.

After that we stopped for food and that was pretty much the whole day. The next 2 hours I spent at a CCD, ordered a cup of coffee, had conversations, collected my memories and wrote this blog.

The whole trip cost me less than 5k. With Wayanad, I’ve added another page to my travel book. If nothing more, Wayanad is the perfect place to get tea, take out a book and spend your weekend finishing it and the trip would still be worth it.