Enjoy travel: Poovar - Unexplored and Unspoiled Beach in Kerela, India

Quick Facts
Country : India
State : Kerala
District : Thiruvananthapuram
Coordinates : 8.18 N 77.4 E
Official language(s) : Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English
Poovar Climate / Weather : Summers: 36°-20° C; Winters: 16°-32°C

Poovar is like a natural wonder where different water bodies such as Lake, River, Sea and Beach meet the land. A rare find in Kerala, the southern state of India. Poovar fits the definition of an unspoiled and unexplored place, enveloped by serene backwaters, and opening out to the sea, with a bonus of a dream golden sand beach. The historical importance of Poovar lies in its strong ties with the legendary King of the erstwhile Princely State of Travancore, the great Marthanda Varma Maharaja.

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How to reach ?
Nearest Airport - Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) International Airport : (travel time - 45 minutes by road.
Nearest railway station Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) - (travel time - 45 minutes by road).

Poovar Beach, near the Kovalam Beach, separates the River Neyyar from the sea. Poovar is basically a fishing village, and interestingly, the only way to reach Poovar is through water approach. Known for its pristine and virginal beauty, Poovar Beach is visited by those who love solitude. There are not too many beach activities or water sports on this beach because of the fishing population and emphasis on fishing. Those who love angling as a sport would like the place.
Poovar is truly a window into paradise. Time stopped a few decades ago bowing to the sheer beauty of Poovar. The tranquility of Poovar is punctuated by the sound of waves and the birds. The area is abundant in well-preserved local flora, with hundreds of species of spices, exotic flowers, complete with banana and coconut groves. You can go out with a camera, fitted with a nice zoom lens, and enjoy some spectacular shots of nature.
Poovar offers several possibilities. Cruise to a neighbouring fishing village in 2 minutes. Alter course, and visit a centuries old martial arts village. Kerala is the birthplace of a unique martial art form. The traditional lifestyles here provide the experience of a natural museum.
The Poovar beach separates the river from the sea and is quite breathtaking. Because of the active fishing population the beach is not really used as a sunbathing spot or for swimming as the currents are quite strong.

Poovar weather:
Poovar lies on the southern coast of Kerala, close to the major tourist resort of Kovalam. Like other regions of India, Kerala enjoys a tropical climate with plenty of sunshine, with the peaceful beach resort of Poovar seeing high temperatures all-year round. The best time to visit Poovar is during the dry winter season, from November to February.

Holidays in Poovar – Stay in a unique floating cottage
The beach at Poovar is covered with golden sands and backed by coconut and palm trees, enjoying an unspoilt atmosphere and an abundance of natural beauty. Banana groves, exotic flowers and spices add to the scenery and create an exotic environment. Poovar is home to a couple of hotels along the river estuary and on the beach offering modern and comfortable facilities, as well as the Ayurvedic health centres, found throughout Kerala. A must-see in Poovar is the serene and isolated Poovar Island Resort, accessible only by boat from the jetty, offering the unparalleled experience of staying in a floating cottage, which bobs gently up and down in the Arabian Sea. These cottages are

Things To Do In Poovar :
- Beach (and it is spectacular). The tranquil beach resort is the ideal spot for relaxation, in a setting of golden sand backed by coconut and palm trees. The exotic setting is enhanced by lush vegetation and tropical flowers, and the picturesque fishing village boasts an unspoilt charm. Swimming and snorkelling are the main activities on the beach.
- Waterways. Located on the famous Kerala backwaters, Poovar offers many trips along the canals and rivers, providing a fascinating insight into local life. Excursions range from basic canoe trips to luxury houseboat cruises, with the many water-taxis a unique way to get around. These can give a great feeling on gently coasting on the water, relaxing, with a book in one's hand.
- Ayurvedic Treatments. With Kerala being the home of Ayurvedic medicine, Poovar offers plenty of opportunity to try age-old treatments that soothe the mind, body and soul, with the tranquil ambience enhancing the relaxing atmosphere found here.
- Cuisine. Enjoying the delicious Kerala cuisine is one of the pleasures of a holiday in Poovar, with plenty of places to try the many different spicy dishes, from street snacks to leisurely meals. With affordable prices and an array of varying flavours, dining out is a treat, and especially good for vegetarians. And of course, enjoying sea food is great.
- Shopping. Poovar's weekly market offers a taste of local produce and offers an array of hand-made goods and crafts, which make ideal gifts and souvenirs.
- Floating Island. Visit the luxurious Poovar Island Resort and enjoy a tranquil stay in one of their unique floating cottages, or a drink or a meal in the restaurant for a one-of-a-kind experience.
- Day Trips. Head out on a crocodile watching expedition, enjoy a sunrise cruise to watch the fishermen, or a romantic sunset cruise for two. Make the trip to the city of Thiruvananthapuram for a taste of bustling life in Kerala.

PLACES TO STAY IN POOVAR :
- Poovar Island Resort (link)
The Poovar Island Resort Thiruvananthapuram belongs to the Sarovar Park Plaza hotel chain. It offers you the very best in luxury and hospitality. Traditional Keralian architecture has been used to construct the cottages. The cottages though traditional in outlook is replete with all modern facilities. Set amidst the verdant green of coconut plantation and overlooking the cobalt blue sea, Poovar Island Resort Thiruvananthapuram, is an ideal place to spend your weekend.
The floating cottages are connected to the main area by a bridge. They are constructed out of hollow light weight hulks. Traditional materials have been used to accentuate the heritage value of the resorts.
- Estuary Island (link)
It is nestled in Poovar Island and offers 46 rooms which show off premium comforts and plush settings. The rooms are categorized as Estuary Suites, Estuary View Suites and Estuary Garden suites – all of which are aesthetically furnished with attractive wood furniture, spacious lounge areas, king sized beds, attached washrooms and baths, and private balconies. Enjoy the tranquility of a beach resort without compromising on the world class amenities.
- Isola De Coco (link)
It is blessed with some of the finest natural bounties, it provides you with the best of comforts. No visit to Kerala would be complete without a reverie stint with this enchanting resort. There are 46 well furnished rooms with fine decor, which are last words in opulence. The ensuited rooms are categorized into Suites, Heritage Rooms and Standard Rooms, complete with private balconies, which offer great views.



External articles / blogs:

1. Wanderlust (link to article):

Poovar Estuary Island resort has an island with a beach and the Arabian Sea beyond, an estuary giving way to a lake and subsequently, the Poovaru (river). There is a vantage point upfront with recliners from where all of them form part of one panoramic view. The island is sandy for the most part (land reclaimed and silted) and looks over to the lake on one side, the sea on the other. There are boats that ferry people from the resort to the island and the boat-jetty is operational 24 hours if prior notice is given.

2. A wandering mind (link to article). Lots of photos in this article.

Poovar is a small island about 30 Kms from Trivandrum, where the backwaters merge with the Arabian Sea. The river Neyyar also empties into the sea here, and thus, at Poovar Beach near the island, one can see the remarkable sight of river, sea, beach, backwaters, as well as lakes (formed at intervals due to the flow of water), all converging at the estuary.

3. Travel and Places (link to article):
4. Holiday Spa Resports (link to article):

Situated on the midst of south-west coast of Arabian Sea, the beautiful land of Kerala, Poovar Island Resort owns a sense of natural beauty in itself, where it has been widespread around 30 acres along with 60 cottages, which looks like that nature itself is creating a true landscape. And not only has this, the secluded beauty of golden sandy beaches where long palm trees surrounds it, made this place a true paradise. That is the reason why the count of tourist visiting Poovar Island Resort of Kerala is increasing year by year.

5. Anoop's weblog (link to article). Plenty of photos on this blog.

Poovar is a small coastal village in the Trivandrum district of Kerala state, south India. This village is almost at the southern tip of Trivandrum and there is not much distance from here to the Kerala – Tamilnadu border. This village has a beautiful beach which attracts tourists. There are also some good tourist resorts. Poovar was a trading center of timber, sandlewood, ivory and spices. It is believed that the trading ships of King Solomon landed in a port called ‘Ophir’, which is figured out as Poovar.

6. Travel to India Guide (link to article):

Poovar island is 30km from Trivandrum and 12km south of kovalam. Nearest airport and railway station is in trivandrum…Through road if you travel from Trivandrum in the early morning you can avoid the traffic and reach the boat jetty in 45-mts….A 15-minute scenic boat ride through the backwaters takes you to the resorts around the island.

7. Vacation Tour (link to article):

In the southwest coast of India, Arabic sandwiched between the sea and the majestic mountains of the Western Ghats, is a narrow strip of the beautiful countryside. A great country, famous for its natural beauty breathtaking. The lush green country of the name of Kerala, the country of God. " Poovar Island Resort, http://www. poovarislandresort. com, has a large number of unique habitats. A total of 54 bungalows in a 25 hectares. Charming country cottages, country inns 54, built in typical Kerala architecture, which extends over the island, lined with coconut Haine traditional atmosphere combined with state-of-the-art facilities.

8. Wanderlogue (link to article):

The resort offers stay in either a land cottage, which lies beyond the reception and swimming pool, or a floating cottage - on the backwaters. The floating units are constructed on hollow light weight concrete hulls. They are air-conditioned and fully equipped with all modern amenities.

9. Jaggu's Blog (link to article):

We had reservations for a floating cottage, which are built on a hollow concrete base and tethered to the shoreline. However, as these cottages were shutdown in the weeks prior to our arrival due to high tides and wind, they were not ready for occupation when we arrived. They put us up in a regular room, with a hammock in the balcony for a couple of days before we shifted to the floating cottage. In hindsight, that was a good break, as I was not very impressed with the cottage, which had quite a shabby feel to it. In contrast, the rooms were extremely impressive, spacious and neat.

10. Rising of a photographer (link to article). Lots of photos in this article.

This stunning location has been successful in attracting many tourists over the years. This charming beach is considered as one of the leading tourists spots in Kerala. Poovar Beach is a place where life goes on as it did hundred years ago

11. Lightning strikes everyday (link to article):

The place is already so beautiful that you feel you are part of some dream sequence. On top of it everywhere you see, there are couples holding hands and walking slowly, couples sitting near the swimming pool and nuzzling each other like newly born kittens. Things are almost in slow motion and where ever you see, couples are walking in slow motion looking dreamily into each others eyes.

12. Scene India (link to article):

Poovar was a trading center of timber, sandlewood, ivory and spices. It is believed that the trading ships of King Solomon landed in a port called 'Ophir', which is figured out as Poovar.

Photo / Picture Gallery:

1. Poovar Estuary on Webshots.com (link)
2. Poovar Photos on sulekha (link)
3. Poovar Photos at trekearth.com (link)
4. Poovar Photos on oktatabyebye.com (link)
5. Photo Gallery at royj.net (link)

Videos of Poovar on Youtube:

Poovar Resort (link)



Poovar Island Resort (link)



Fridays Place, Ecolodge homestay, Poovar Island (link)



Poovar Island Resort, TVM (link)



Poovar Island Resort (link)



Poovar (link)

Joke: Rednecks go fishing

Two rednecks go on a fishing trip. They rent all the equipment - the reels, the rods, the wading suits, the rowboat, the car, and even a cabin in the woods. I mean they spend a fortune!

The first day they go fishing, but they don't catch anything.

The same thing happens on the second day, and on the third day.

It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men catches a fish.

As they're driving home they're really depressed. One guy turns to the other and says, "Do you realise that this one lousy fish we caught cost us fifteen hundred bucks?"

The other guy says, "Wow! Then it's a good thing we didn't catch any more!"

Debate on wild Salmon - read this article

Here is an interesting article that talks in some depth about the safety of eating the salmon that we traditionally treasure.

Is it OK to eat farmed salmon? If the answer seems elusive, it’s partly because things change—ecosystems change, the fishing and aquaculture industries change (or not), and we learn more about how those industries affect fish populations, ecology and economies. But the answer is slippery mainly because it depends so heavily on what the meaning of the word “OK” is. OK is personal. The most satisfying answer comes from what you might call your own Is-That-Food-OK Algorithm—a weighting of variables that will be as simple or complex as the criteria you bring to it.
The fry spends a year or so in freshwater tanks gradually made salty. Then your fish, some 8 to 10 inches long, is vaccinated against an array of infectious diseases, which are a constant threat in the crowded net pen into which the fish is now placed. The pen—a bowl-shaped net, essentially, with its rim at sea level—is about 30 to 100 meters across. It holds tens of thousands of fish. Instead of roaming the seas and swimming hundreds of miles to spawn, these fish never travel more than a few yards. Here in its pen your salmon fattens up on fish pellets. The pellets contain fish meal, fish oil, perhaps grains, and invariably an additive to pinken the fish’s flesh—usually astaxanthin, a carotenoid derived from commercially grown red yeast or algae. Given bountiful food and little work, your fish grows apace. When it’s a couple of years old and a couple of feet long and weighs 8 or 10 pounds it is netted, killed and packaged, iced and shipped.
Farmed salmon hold about 2 to 10 times the levels of PCBs, DDT, dioxins, pesticides, mercury and other suspected carcinogens that most wild salmon do, apparently because the rich meal they eat contains bits of oily fish in which these contaminants tend to concentrate. Yet the levels of those chemicals are still so low, as Harvard Medical School nutrition specialist George Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., noted in a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “that it’s not going to cause harm.”

WHY FISHING IS BETTER THAN SEX

* A big, juicy worm always gets a fish excited.

* You don't have to eat a fish while it's still flopping around.

* You can take a leak in the bush anytime you want.

* Stroking your rod won't piss off a trout.

* Sipping a beer and scratching your balls is all the foreplay expected of you.

* Anything you stick in a fish's face, it eats.

* A fish will never gag, choke, or come up for air.

* A red snapper won't cry if you call it a flounder.

* You wear rubbers on your feet, not on your dick.

* If you want a bigger pole, you can have a bigger pole.

* A smart fish knows when to keep it's mouth shut.

* It's okay to cook a fish to make it taste good.

* Fish bite for a guy of 60, same as they do for a guy of 20.

* You're never called a jerk when you throw back an ugly fish.

* Fish are real happy when you pick up your gear and go home.

A good fishing ..

The day after his wife disappeared in a kayaking accident, a Canadian man answered his door to find two grim-faced Mounties. 'We're sorry sir, But we have some information about your wife,' said one Mountie.

'Tell me! Did you find her?' the anguished husband sobbed.

The Mounties looked at each other. One said, 'We have some bad news, some good news, and some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?'

Fearing the worst, the ashen husband said, 'Give me the bad news first.'

The Mountie said,'I'm sorry to tell you, Sir, but this morning we found your wife's body in the bay.'

'Oh my God!' exclaimed the husband. Swallowing hard, he asked, 'What's the good news?'

The Mountie continued,'When we pulled her up, she had twelve 25 lb. snow crabs & 6 good-size lobsters clinging to her.'

Stunned, the husband demanded,'If that's the good news, what's the great news?'

The Mountie said, 'We're gonna pull her up again tomorrow!'