24th March 2025, 15:06
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| 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip Like many on this forum, I grew up watching Jeremy, Richard and James take on unconventional road trips and challenges and I’ve always wondered, what would that be like? So for the year end break in 2024, I decided to throw myself a challenge - is it possible to visit ONE HUNDRED beaches along the South Indian coastline. If you’re more interested in visual content, I’ve been posting versions of this on my Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/saransh.kharbanda) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@SaranshKharbanda) Now, I am based in Bangalore, and the east coast and west coast are equidistant. So when I first looked at the map, I noticed something that caught my eye. Kannur, on the west coast and Pondicherry, on the east coast, appear to be at a straight line across. And so that became my plan - starting from Kannur, is it possible to visit 100 beaches before ending in Pondicherry! My friend Jonathan, a budding videographer, decided to join me on this trip and we’re building a movie as well! I did a quick check on Google Maps, and figured there are comfortably over 100 public beaches that one can visit and so the plan was set. If you read my previous travelogue (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...derabad-3.html (A Dream Road Trip - Sand, Snow and Sea | Bangalore - Jaisalmer - Gangtok - Kolkata - Hyderabad)), you’ll notice that the big difference between this trip and the last was - a complete lack of research. I did no research on roads and routes and I did not plan much except for nightly stops and a broad plan of beaches to visit each day so we could manage getting as close to 100 as possible. Much of this plan involved under 150km of driving per day so I wasn’t too bothered about road conditions, my Scorpio N was the vehicle entrusted with the duties and so there weren’t going to be too many road related challenges. I am going to break this travelogue down into 2 parts, west coast and east coast. Service done, bags packed, we headed off to Kannur on day 0. Part 1: The beach count started on day 0. Jonathan’s friend, a Kannur local, and our host for the day, drove us around and we spent the evening at Payyambalam beach (#1). This beach is Kannur’s most popular beach, and so with all the activities, cafes and other set up, it was easily the most crowded beach we saw on this trip.  The next morning, we headed off on to the real madness. Looking on Google maps, I decided our first beach for the day would be Chootad Beach (#2). The only reason to go to Chootad Beach was the name :P For the non hindi speakers:   To this day I don't know why I wore jeans on a beach trip??!!! Anyway, here's a picture of me on Chootad Beach Of course, the word is pronounced differently in Malayalam. A quick laugh done, we then followed the map, heading south and visited Kizhuna Beach (#3), the road leading down to the beach was super narrow, just wide enough for the Scorpio N to go through, but the beach more than made up for that minor inconvenience. And given it was noon by the time we got there, we only shared the beach with some birds, that kept moving away as we tried to photograph them! The Birds at Kizhuna Beach After spending about half an hour at Kizhuna beach, we decided it was time to head further south to Ezhara Beach (#4). In my opinion, one of the most beautiful beaches we visited on this trip. Clean sand, a tree cover, and this beautiful set of coconut trees that formed a beautiful frame. Aside from that, a handful of secluded homestays and a beach that’s pretty much private, with beautiful hammocks set up meant that it was idyllic, serene and the spot I will most likely choose for my next relaxing beach holiday. A corrupted memory card meant that I'm left with not many photos and since I have visual content on other platforms, this is the only shareable piece I have from Ezhara! That said, this 7s clip accurately covers the vibe of the beach! Immediately following Ezhara, through some narrow, winding, but quiet and quaint roads, as suggested by Google Maps, we made our way to Muzhappilangad aka Drive In beach (#5)! A beautiful 4km stretch of flat, tightly packed sand, that is perfect for driving. And given I had with me a videographer, his friend, and his friend’s aunt’s AMT Wagon R in tow, aside from a borrowed, 8 year old, DJI Osmo, it meant only one thing: Splash party! After shooting content and messing around on the beach for an hour or three, we decided it was time to head further south, and so we made our way to Mahé. A very unique place, Mahé, a part of Puducherry but, in Kerala?! We drove around, spent some time at the fishing beach (#6), had the car washed after the activities of the Drive In beach, and finally called it a day at the other beach (#7), before heading towards Kozhikode, our halt for the night. With our goodbyes said to the videographer’s friend and our kind host for Kannur. That night, we had dinner at Paragon, called it an early night and woke up bright and early for another day of counting beaches. Last edited by sarvatron : 11th April 2025 at 17:01. |
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24th March 2025, 15:49
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24th March 2025, 16:25
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24th March 2025, 16:33
| #4 |
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| Re: 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip The next morning, we were back at it, but this time on foot as the beaches, that is, The Black Sand Beach Varkala (#38) and Varkala Beach (#39) are best explored by walking along the cliff. A hearty breakfast, some shopping later, we checked out of the hotel, and got back in the oven… i mean the car! We then headed towards Aaliyirakkm Beach (#40) and I think with the exception of the garbage, this was one of the most beautiful beaches we visited on this trip! However, with the excitement peaking as we approached the beach, I ended up driving in a bit further than I should have and found my car, well, beached!  Nothing that a quick shift of the 4WD drive selector can’t fix, and with the crisis averted, we were back to enjoying the beach. 10 or so minutes in, the sharp sun and the lack of shade meant we were back on the road heading south towards Kanyakumari! Along the way, we visited a few more beaches, starting with Kovalam (#41) and Hawa beaches (#42), where we had an unintentionally leisurely lunch, before driving over to Vizhinjam Beach, we found the roads and the churches to be prettier than the beach and so that’s where we spent most of the time. For our last stop for the day and for Kerala, we decided on Golden Sands beach, from what we could see from Google Maps, it was meant to be absolutely stunning! And so with the location set, we drove out of Trivandrum towards what we assumed to be Golden Sands beach, we were stopped along the way by not one, but three tour guides offering to take us on a boat tour as the Golden Sands beach was not accessible by road. Not wanting to spend too much time as we were planning to catch sunrise at Kanyakumari the next morning, we declined and decided to see what we could find by road. We first landed up on Pulluvila Beach (#43), a fishing beach and a fishermen’s village. The locals didn’t seem to enthused to have us driving around their village and so we decided we would continue back southwards to see if we could find other interesting beaches. And other interesting beaches is exactly what we found! Along the road marked Kallumukku Beach trail on Google Maps, we drove along some incredible sights of 3 beaches (#44, #45, and #46) before stopping at Kallumukku beach, which in my opinion is one of Kerala’s best kept secrets! The sand almost looks like it has an Instagram filter applied on it and the water, it’s a color so unique that it made me believe for a moment that my color vision has been fixed (I’m partially colorblind!). The time that we were there, just before sunset, the clouds were starting to show up and beams of light filtered through them, almost like to bless us and this journey. With the exception of a few fishermen relaxing in their boats on the beach, a family enjoying their time, the beach was completely empty, breezy and an absolute pleasure. Despite not wanting to leave, we had no choice but to, given our plans for the next day! And with that, in 5 days, we’d explored, seen, experienced, and driven past 46 beaches in Kerala! To do this, we’d driven on narrow roads, broken roads, taken a ferry, driven on beaches, gotten beached, gotten tanned and gotten lost. All of it was well worth it so far. And as we entered Kanyakumari and prepared for the next day, I had a slight sense of doom. Is Tamil Nadu going to match up to Kerala? |
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11th April 2025, 15:38
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| BHPian Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Bangalore
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| Re: 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip Part 2: Coming off of a stunning experience in Kerala, despite the lack of good highways, spending nights in overpriced hotels due to the Christmas, New Year break, Kerala left our tummies & hearts full with it’s brilliant food, beautiful beaches and kind smiles! Tamil Nadu had big shoes to fill, and starting off in super crowded Kanyakumari, things were not looking great. The weather was challenging, grey, windy and cold, and a 5AM wake up time to go see the sunrise at the Southernmost point of India, left us cold, wet and well, unimpressed. After a quick, warm breakfast, we decided to change out of the wet clothing and try again, as now the sun had risen and the clouds had made their way.  Making our way through crowds of tourists and pilgrims in Kanyakumari, we spent an hour or so walking around and taking in what Kanyakumari had to offer. In stark contrast to what we’d experienced in Kerala, Tamil Nadu was not looking good, for now! After spending some time at Kanyakumari Beach (#47), we started heading northwards, our first stop, Leepuram Beach, a nice, secluded, almost private beach, but the weather was still cold and windy and so we didn’t spend too much time there and headed off inland to a wind turbine farm. Aptly named “WindMill View Point - Must Visit” on Google Maps, we were to soon realize that power generation is going to be the theme of this day, more on that later. After spending some time at the Wind Turbine farm, being mesmerised by not only their size but also the sheer volume of wind turbines, I doubled down on my investments in renewable energy, hehe. By now, it appeared as though the weather was easing up and we could spend more time looking at more beaches. And as we headed towards Vattakottai Fort, which gave us a view point of Fort Beach (#48), Amanakkanvilai Beach (#49) and Calm Beach (#50), we spent most of the time here trying to dodge the rain while also shooting content!  The fort itself isn’t spectacular as far forts go, but it did serve a strategic value to the (Kingdom name) and it was interesting to see the ramp they’d built to take up their heavy machinery and artillery to save from incoming enemies! Post the fort visit, we drove down to Rasthakadu beach (#51), where we saw a family doing a baby’s birthday photoshoot, the clouds had cleared and the sunlight was not starting to show us the real beauty of Tamil Nadu’s coast. Things were starting to look good! We spotted a nearby beach on Google Maps, Ethankadu beach (#52) and started driving towards it, on well, almost non existent roads, it was a mild inconvenience in the Scorpio N but really didn’t feel like the car was breaking a sweat. We reached Ethankadu beach to again be treated to an empty beach, an insteresting colour of sand, cold winds and a bout of rain, and so we jumped back in the car and started making our way north. The stop for tonight was planned to be Tuticorin.  As we continued our journey towards Tuticorin, we spotted a Nuclear Power plant along the way. There was also a visitor center so we thought to try our luck and pay them a visit. Unfortunately, one needs to have a prior booking or permission to be allowed in and we said our polite thank yous and continued on our way. Our next stop was meant to be Thiruchendur beach, but spotted this on Google Maps:  And as this caught our fancy, we decided to ditch the beach for a minute and check out what this was! Theri Kaadu, also known as Red Sand Desert is about 12,000 acres, or 50 square kilometers in size and though they say cultivation is not feasible in Theri Kaadu, palm trees, and cashew nut trees are all that we saw. Aside from a temple dedicated to a local deity, the desert was completely devoid of people, traffic and any form of garbage! Seeing the tyre tracks, mostly of motorcycles, I was quite tempted to do some dune bashing, but given my lack of experience, low network coverage and a complete absence of any other form of human activity, I decided against it. Instead, we chose to walk in as far as felt comfortable before making our way back to the car and heading onwards to Tuticorin.     That evening, we reached Tuticorin, checked in to the hotel and took it easy as it was New Year’s eve. Spent the evening at a local AC bar and called it a night. The next morning, we were advised to avoid a sunrise attempt as it was meant to be cloudy and so we decided to sleep in and start slow. Last edited by sarvatron : 11th April 2025 at 17:05. |
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11th April 2025, 16:18
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| Re: 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip After a heavy breakfast and a lot of coffee, we decided to head towards Hare Island, and on the way, we happened to chance upon a Thermal Power plant! In the last 2 days, we’ve seen a Wind Turbine Plant, a Nuclear Power Plant and a Thermal Power plant! Is Tamil Nadu south India’s power center?  The Google Map location of Hare Island took us through a port, a power plant and however, the destination was gated and so we chose to turn around. Our next destination was set to the Tuticorin Harbour and as we headed in that direction, we chanced upon the Fishing Harbor. As it was already midday, the trawlers were all parked up and there was absolutely no activity. I also noticed these 3 wheelers that had no engine, no seat and no brakes! I wonder how they use it!  Our stop for this night was planned to be Rameswaram, and along the way, we thought if we could visit just 5 beaches, we’d be happy. To be honest, after 50 plus beaches, we’re finding more fun and excitement in the random, off the plan experiences, like the Red Desert and the Wind Turbine farms. However, not wanting to lose sight of our 100 beach target, we started towards Sayalgudi. And this is where Tamil Nadu really started showing us her actual beauty. As we turned off the highway, and wait a second, after almost a week of bad, under construction, diversion laden highways in Kerala, Tamil Nadu’s highways were already seeming exceptional, we knew we could travel more distance on a daily basis and that meant one of two things, more beaches or more chills. Why not both, we thought as we headed towards Sayalgudi beach (#53), and as we approached the beach, we spotted an old, abandoned but beautiful church. And on talking to the locals around, we were able to gather that this was a 400+ year old church that had been replaced with a new, not so stunning church just across the road.  The beach itself was absolutely gorgeous, golden sands, clean, calm waters and a very limited number of people enjoying their new year’s day out at the beach! We also noticed a gang sign(??!) before making our way back to the highway onwards to more beaches!  As we turned off the national highway onto State Highway 38, and I feel like I should be paid handsomely for sharing this, we received our new year’s present. A perfect string of tarmac, probably the best I’ve ever driven on. And I’ve driven across the country, in Germany, the US and the UK, aside from a whole host of other South East Asian and European countries. I’ve driven on national highways, state highways and back roads, but nothing really compares to what this road was, sweeping corners, flat, smooth tarmac, interesting crests, and zero, I mean ZERO traffic. To top it all off, you’re treated to sea on the one side and greenery and backwaters on the other. At this point, I wasn’t driving anymore. I was floating. I was feeling a high I’d never felt before, and suddenly it hit me! I need a fast hatch, or a sports car here, the Scorpio N’s doing well but this could be a whole lot more fun! Anyway, driving through, with a plan to visit Mariyur beach (#54), a quick stop, with some very kind and welcoming locals, we spotted some idols and a lot of clothes(??!) strewn across the beautiful beach, saw and island too but to be absolutely frank, I was just itching to get back on that road.   And so that’s what we did, back on the beautiful tarmac, we started heading towards our next target, Valinokkam Beach, and on the way, we spotted on the map, a “Sea Turtle Incubation Center”, curious, we made a diversion and as we turned off the “love of my life” road, we noticed a fair few Fortuners, a couple of Innovas and an ice cream vendor. A stark contrast to the beaches we’d been to so far. And as we got there, we realized, fishermen were auctioning off fresh catch, on the beach, just as the nets were being pulled in. Not expecting to be caught in the middle of a live fish auction, we were absolutely enthralled, and tickled by everything going on around us. One of those truly random moments. We couldn’t find a name for this beach so Fish Auction beach (#55) it is! We then quickly made our way to Valinokkam Beach (#56), while it is a beautiful beach, with an even better view of another island (Annaipar Island, I think!), we didn’t spend much time there and carried on further towards our destination for the night, Rameswaram! With a plan to catch sunset at Dhanushkodi, we blasted past the massive salt pans dotting the highway, only to be greeted to even better views as we drove through rural Tamil Nadu. Fields of green, back waters, ponds, lakes, idyllic village settings, words fail me in describing the sights we witnessed and so I’ll let the photos and videos do the talking on my behalf. After a quick blast down the National highway, a climb over Pamban bridge and an uneventful drive over to Dhanushkodi, we found out that entry is closed for visitors at 5PM. Not to be dejected, we planned a sunrise visit for Dhanushkodi and made our way over to Sangumal Beach (#56), before driving past the temple and calling it a night. The next morning, at 5:30AM, we headed off towards Dhanushkodi, the gates were to open at 6AM and we were car #3 in the line up to the sunrise view point. As soon as the gates opened, around 5:50AM, it was a drag race to the spot. Being dark, all one could appreciate was straight, flat tarmac, after being beaten by an A4, an Innova and a KTM 390 Adv, we finally made it to the spot (#57), found a nice place to set up the tripod and prepared for sunrise. It was by far the most scenic and epic sunrise I’d ever seen. While we waited for the sun to clear the clouds, we saw birds fishing, fishermen heading out to sea and a whole lot of selfies being clicked. As we started to make our way back to the hotel, we stopped by at the beach to watch a large group of fishermen and women pull in what appeared to be a large net, in unison, with a very entertaining call to keep the group moving! While this was happening on yet another unnamed beach (#58), before making our way back to the hotel to pack up and make our way to Pondicherry, cutting the trip short by a day because of a last minute Goa plan with friends.      Once in Pondicherry, we stopped for a nice cup of coffee, and a quick meal at Bread & Chocolate, headed over to Paradise Beach (#62), a quick drive around the Pondi Marina (#63), before calling it a night. The next morning, an early start meant that we made it to Serenity beach (#64), just as the sun rose over the Bay of Bengal, headed to Auroville Bakery to pack some goodies for the way, and floored the pedal tfor a high speed blast back to Bangalore. We left Auroville at 7:30AM and were on at the Electronic City Flyover by 12:05PM, this includes a 15 min toilet and coffee stop. What really helped us cover time on the single lane, but comfortable, highway, was being able to go off road to overtake slow moving trucks and buses, especially in sections where the lanes were blocked with the plastic bollards. It was an exciting, yet uneventful drive back, I stuck to the speed limit for the most part and even the off road overtakes were measured and calculated. With that, we saw 64 or more beaches. To be honest, after the third day, we stopped counting beaches, and instead focussed on enjoying the random moments, roads and overall experiences that we were experiencing as we drove along on this unimportant, but fun journey. Would I do something like this again? YES! I do want to drive down TN SH 38 in a fast car and I have something planned for that.  Last edited by Rehaan : 12th April 2025 at 00:10. Reason: Removed the line soliciting subscribes on IG & Youtube. Please do read the Team-BHP rules :) |
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12th April 2025, 00:12
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15th April 2025, 15:10
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| Re: 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip Quote:
 But seriously, this is a fun idea of a road trip..  | |
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15th April 2025, 15:14
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| Re: 2500km | 100 Beaches | A Kerala and Tamil Nadu Exploration Trip Quote:
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