The Malabar Coast Adventure - 1 (Thalasherry, Mahe)

Kerala has been always my favorite destination, truly God's own country. Its not only about the natural beauties or greenery but the culture, food and tradition keep me encouraging to explore this beautiful state. 

This time we planned for Malabar coast and Thalasherry was finalized. After looking in to google map, we also planned to cover Kannur, which is just 35 km and then another less unknown place Mahe, hardly 15 km. Rajesh bhai, Gaurav and Umesh joined the trip.

We all four started from Bangalore at  11 pm and after an eventful night (lost our way thanks to google map and navigation) we reached Thalasherry at 10 am next morning. 

Let me tell you the brief history of this commercial town on Malabar coast. Before Independence Thalasherry was trade hub and  considered as the export market for spices.
The trade alliance between Vasco da Gama and King of Kolathiri gave Portugal direct access to the spice trade market especially for pepper. The French military base was built there. Thalasherry is also famous for its Biryani "Thalasherry Biryani".Thalasherry stadium located close to the sea is considered as one the oldest cricket stadium, where English used to play cricket in the 1890s.Cricket Ground celebrated its 200th birthday in 2002.


So there is many interesting places to explore but another thing which caught my attention is "Kalari Payattu". Its kind of martial art practiced in the Kerala and  Thalassery is one of the major centre. 

Before we start exploring this beautiful and historic place, we had very heavy lunch, the famous Thalasherry Birayni, Kerala Parota and Meen (fish) curries. 

The first place we covered was Overbury's Foll, near to cricket statdium, Its sea side park with a watch tower and is a great place to view the sunset.



7 KM drive from Thalasherry toward Kannur and you will reach Muzhappilangad Beach, tongue twisting name but this beach is special, its longest Drive-In Beach in India . Don't miss this when you visit Thalasherry. Beach is very wide and sand is firm. It was real fun driving out there.



We came back to town and next destination was Thalasherry Fort. Its also close to Cricket stadium however It took us good 15-20 min to locate the fort as its in one narrow lane and we didn't expect fort to be located just right side of road, in the busy town, it was almost unnoticed and  suddenly one of my friend screamed there's the fort
The British East India Company built the fort in 1708 to establish a stronghold on the Malabar Coast.The fort was the military center of the British. It is believed to have a secret channel to the sea, which was used as an escape route when under attack. The square fort, with its massive walls, strong flanking bastions, secret tunnels to the sea and intricately carved huge doors, is an imposing structure. Now ASI is taking care of  this fort.









Weather was very hot at that and within one hour we all got exhausted. We were not sure what to do next there, should we go back and rest in the hotel or should we look for another tourist spot. Then we decided to cover Mahe, hardly 15-20 km from Thalasherry. Mahe is very small and situated on the estuary of the Mayyazhi river and Arabian Sea. It is the sixth least populous district in the country and occupies an area of 8.69 square kilometres. Mahe is one of the four districts of the Union teritory of Pondicherry (though its completely unconnected to Pondicherry and surrounded on all sides by the State of Kerala. Formerly part of French India . Though the French left Mahe nearly 60 years ago, the French culture can still be felt there.

As its union territory Mahe attracted many booze lover where alcohol is said to cost only a third of what it does in Kerala. The town faces a peculiar challenge as ever-increasing crowds come to drink at its bars and buy booze from its liquor stores. The town is now gaining reputation as a booze destination and the number of outstation drinkers has shot up in the past few years.

The main attraction in Mahe is Riverside Walkway, built alongside the banks of the river from the Water Sports Complex at Manjakkal, Mahe, till the breakwater of the Fishing Harbour at Mahe built by the government of Puducherry.








After watching spectacular sunset and spendning lovely evening at Mahe, we came back to Thalasherry, had nice dinner and thinking about our next day plan we all retired to bed.

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