Hyderabad - Bangalore - Madurai - Kovalam - Madurai - Bangalore – Hyderabad
Trip Summary:
Day 1: Hyderabad (Home) to Bangalore
Distance: 581 km
Time: 5-30 am to 1 pm (7 hr 30 min)
Toll: Rs. 940
Overnight Stay: Taj MG Road
Day 2: Bangalore to Madurai
Distance: 422 km
Time: 8-40 am to 3 pm (6 hr 20 min)
Toll: Rs. 520
Overnight Stay: Taj Gateway Madurai
Day 3: Madurai to Kovalam
Distance: 294 km
Time: 8-30 am to 1-05 pm (4 hr 35 min)
Toll: Rs. 470
Stay at Taj Green Cove Kovalam for 3 nights and 4 days
Day 4: Kovalam local sightseeing
Day 5: Kovalam local sightseeing
Day 6: Kovalam to Madurai
Distance: 295 km
Time: 9-50 am to 2-05 pm (4 hr 15 min)
Toll: Rs. 470
Overnight Stay: Taj Gateway Madurai
Day 7: Madurai to Bangalore
Distance: 422 km
Time: 8-15 am to 2-50 pm (6 hr 35 min)
Toll: Rs. 520
Overnight Stay: Taj MG Road
Day 8: Bangalore to Hyderabad (Home)
Distance: 580 km
Time: 8-50 am to 3-50 pm (7 hours)
Toll: Rs. 945
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| Complete Trip Report |
Day 1:
On all previous occasions whenever I took a pit stop in Bangalore, I preferred to stay at Taj Bangalore Airport. This time however I tried to stay at Taj MG Road because next morning I had to go through Hosur road and Taj MG Road was nearer to that compared to Taj Bangalore Airport. However, I must say that Taj MG Road has a big parking problem. If you are comfortable giving your car to Valet, then there shouldn’t be any issue, however for all self driven cars, if one wishes to do self parking, that is a nightmare in Taj MG Road.
Day 2:
Next morning exit from Bangalore was a pain, the hosur road of Bangalore exit is filled with traffic and it takes more than a couple of hours to actually get the real highway driving experience. Until then it is all maneuvering through the crazy office going banglorians. We left Bangalore after breakfast so could not avoid the office going crowd, reached Madurai a little late too for lunch, however the in-room dining options in Taj Gateway Madurai was decent enough. After lunch, I just stepped out a bit to see the beautiful hotel property, carried my camera along just in case I get lucky with some birds. There were a lot of rufous treepie, goldenback, jungle babblers but the highlight of that hotel is of course the Peacocks. The hotel staff leaves rice and other stuff for the peacocks to feed and that actually drives them in packs feeding all though various locations in the property. Over the time period they have grown quite tolerant to human presence and sometimes can come really close. So close even, that it was actually too close for my 400mm lens.
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| View of Meenakshi Temple from Taj Gateway Madurai |
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| Lesser Goldenback female |
Day 3:
Started our onward journey towards Kovalam after a wonderful breakfast. This was the first time I was going so much further south. Last time when I drove to Thattekad and Munnar, that was my south-most road trip. This time we further further down, at one point on the road to Kovalam we were just 25 km from Kanyakumari. That road from Madurai to Kovalam was quite scenic in the initial stretch, with umpteen number of windmills all across. I have seen windmills before but never in such high density. It was a treat to watch and drive through that maze of windmills and hills all along. It was like farms of windmills, through a stretch of 30 odd kilometers. But then there is a 50 km stretch of road while entering Kerala, which is just single lane and a lot of Truck movement present. That takes a lot of time to maneuver through. You can’t just avoid that, if you are going from Madurai to Kovalam. Kerala roads are usually notoriously narrow, but the Thiruvanthapuram Koavalam highway is like an expressway. Beautiful RCC roads, double lane on both sides, although personally I’m not a big fan of RCC roads, bitumens are far better as far as driving experience is concerned.
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| Farm of Windmills |
Day 4 and 5:
Visited Poovar backwaters, we went around lunch time so not much of bird activity. Then visited the tallest shivling of Asia. That was under construction as they were building a Lord Hanuman statue alongside it.
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| View from top of the Lighthouse |
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| Lighthouse at Kovalam |
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| View from our plungepool room at Taj Green Cove |
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| Sunset from our room |
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| Asia's tallest Shivling |
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| Sunset from Bait Restaurant |
Spent most of the time at the private plunge pool of Taj Green Cove Kovalam. It was a memorable experience, overlooking the sunset through that private pool. The dinner experience at Bait was also nice, would be nicer for people who are not averse to fish and seafood like me. But then, Kovalam is about seafood, be it Crabs, Prawns, Molluscs, Squids, fish, etc. It’s a treat for fish and seafood lovers. I stuck to chicken and lamb though.
Day 6: Drive back to Madurai.
Day 7: Drive back to Bangalore.
Day 8: Drive back to Hyderabad.
The return journey had no surprises and we followed the same route back, staying at the same hotels. As always the car was super comfortable for these long journeys and the driving pleasure was just incomparable. The resort staff did try to clean the car before checkout, as they do in most other 5-star properties, but on this occasion, they did not do a very good job about it. There was a delay in the check-in experience at Taj Gateway Madurai on our return journey, but other than that it was a smooth and comfortable journey, with lots of memories.
Of late, in the last 3 months i visited three 5-star resorts, which were my first visits to those resorts per-se. Starting with Taj Bekal Kerala, then Evolve Back Kabini and now Taj Green Cove, Kovalam. Although both Bekal and Kovalam and in Kerala and in some way they have a similar experience being Taj properties, however Bekal was far better than Kovalam. Not that Kovalam was anything near bad, but Bekal was at a different lvel altogether.
