Kerala Cycling Holidays

You arrive in Cochin and our driver or tour guide picks you up from the airport and transfers you to our pre-booked hotel in Fort Kochi. You rest a while, straighten your back and have lunch, after which you are introduced to the tour team and given possession of your bikes. In case you want any adjustments made to your bike, our cycling guide will be at hand.

Satisfied with the bike, you can step out to explore Fort Kochi, a heritage town with a long history of Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial occupations. You can’t miss the touch of European architecture and design in the old houses that line the streets of Fort Kochi. You may visit the 16th century St. Francis Church where the Portuguese explorer and sailor Vasco Da Gama was once buried, or you may drop by at the ancient synagogue or Jain Temple or visit the Jewish market. Not to be missed are the famous Chinese Fishing Nets, a big draw among tourists on holiday in South India. In the evening, you are treated to performances of classical dances of Kerala by local artists.

Hotel: Abad Dutch Bungalow / Hotel Arches or similar

After breakfast, we begin cycling, and no sooner do we leave Cochin behind than we find ourselves pedaling past the plantations of coconut, rubber and various spices. It’s an ideal route to warm you up for the long Kerala biking tour ahead. The road is smooth, save for a few rough patches and, at times, slightly hilly climbs.

Our destination for the day is Thattekkad, an evergreen lowland forest habitation famous for Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary, a birder’s haven in South India. Nature lovers, birding enthusiasts, and photographers will find much to do for the rest of the day after our arrival at the hotel in Thattekkad by noon. The place abounds with rich birdlife, particularly different varieties of cuckoos.

If birding is not your thing, you can always skip visiting the sanctuary and take a stroll to the nearby village or just spend the rest of the day lounging around the quiet lodge.

Hotel: Birds Murmur Camp / Amritara Luxury Camp or similar

A challenging day of cycling awaits us as we leave the forested Thattekkad for the hill station of Munnar, situated at the altitude of more than 1500 meters and rightly nicknamed the ‘Kashmir of South India’ for its natural beauty. We bike along the gorgeous Periyar river and past the plantations on a relatively easy stretch till we reach Neriamangalam, from where begin the thrill and toil of the uphill ascent that a cycling buff looks out for.

Here onwards, the road gets narrower, with high mountain face on one side and deep gorges on the other. The meandering ride throws up many stunning views to give you pause and make you reach for the camera. You come upon lakes, stare down into canyons, pass the rivulets and cycle through quaint villages exuding the distinct aroma of spices.

As the ride gets steeper, we prefer driving you for the rest of the way to Munnar where you can spend the entire evening exploring the town, or visiting the nearby tea estates or plantations.

Hotel: The Leaf, Munnar or similar

So splendid is Munnar and its surroundings that it needs at least a day to explore on a cycle. In the morning, we start out of Munnar on our bikes and press towards Marayoor. On the way, we pass by Eravikulam National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The landscape is a high altitude grassland full of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Biking here is like pedaling into the lap of nature. There are ample photography opportunities. After nearly 42 km, we arrive in Marayoor, which is renowned for its natural sandalwood forests and ancient dolmens and rock paintings that date back to the stone age around 10,000 BC and hold out great intrigue for any history or archeology buff. We have our packed lunches and spend ample time in Marayoor before driving back to Munnar in our support vehicle.

Hotel: The Leaf or similar

This one is going to be a long eventful day. The first pit stop out of Munnar is Lockhart Gap, named so after the gap between two mountain tops that looks like a locked heart. The place offers spectacular bird’s eye view of green valleys, tea estates and distant mountains. Here, we are on a surreal mist-clad hilly terrain.

Cycling on, we pass by the gorgeous Anaerangal Lake. In local parlance, the word Anaerangal means the place where elephants come to drink water. So don’t be surprised if we come upon a few elephants hereabouts. Further way down, we pass by forests, cardamom plantations, tea estates and spice gardens till we reach Santhanpara where we load our bikes on the support vehicle and drive towards Vandanmedu. We have lunch at Vandanmedu and then hit the road on cycles again for a 25 km ride to Periyar, our destination for the day.

Periyar is home to a wildlife sanctuary which is a famous tiger and elephant reserve. It sits high in the Cardamom Hills and boasts of diverse species of fauna and flora. The place offers great photo op for birdwatchers and wildlife lovers. At Periyar, we also take a walking tour of the Spice Plantation and get to see at close hand how several local and world-renowned spices like vanilla, oregano, basil, mint, thyme etc. are cultivated.

Hotel: Abad Green Forest Resort or similar

Today after breakfast, we will proceed towards Vagamon, Still untouched by commercialisation; the sleepy town with its scenic valleys, beautiful green meadows, enchanting pine forests, mists, fogs, tea estates, waterfalls with the overall greenery is really striking.

Vagamon is at the fringe of the Western Ghats and the foot hills on its lower side reach up to Teekoy with a gradual descent. This narrow strip of descending land gives a vital connectivity to the plains as both sides of vagamon up to kuttikkanam on the south west and moolamattom on the north east, are marked by steep and inaccessible hill slopes.

Travelling by the hill highway in this section is an exhilarating experience with deep valleys and views all around. Reaching Vagamon itself involves traversing a meandering road that is cut in solid rock and lined with pine forests.

National Geographic Traveler has listed Vagamon on their directory of the "50 most attractive places to visit in India". It has a cool climate, situated 1,100 metres above sea level.

Hotel: Winter Vale Green Stay or similar

We leave the enchanting hills of Wagamon and head for the famous backwaters of Kerala. The landscape on this Kerala biking tour begins to change slowly as we start coming upon mangrove forests and swathes of paddy fields. On the way, we visit the centuries old Syrian Orthodox Churches of Cheriapalli and Valiapalli in Kottayam.

St. Mary Orthodox Syrian Church in Cheriapalli was built in 1579. Still older is the Holy Virgin Mary Church of Valiapalli, built in 1550. There’s a lot of ancient European architectural influence to be seen in the two churches. After leaving Kottayam, we press on towards Kumarakom, which is a cluster of islands spread around on the huge Vembanad Lake which borders three major districts of Kerala.

In Kumarakom we come upon intriguing labyrinths of waterways and canals. In fact, we go on a canoe ride in one of the networks of these canals after the day’s cycling is over. We get to witness the village life, the people, their lifestyles, their customs, and how they earn a living from agriculture and fishing. Kumarakom is easily one of the top attractions for anyone on holiday in Kerala. We spend the evening and night here.

Hotel: LakeSong Resort or similar

Be prepared for the highlight of this special Kerala biking Holiday as we cycle from Kumarakom to Alleppey. We enter a landscape interspersed with lagoons, rivers and canals. This elaborate network of inland canals has earned Alleppey the nickname of ‘Venice of South India’.

Upon reaching Alleppey by afternoon we check into a houseboat, which offers comfortable accommodation including a bedroom, bathroom, sundeck and kitchen. Cruising through the calm backwaters of Alleppey, the houseboat lulls you to its own gentle rhythm and takes a route to give you close glimpses of villages, temples, paddy fields, churches and old houses. It’s like entering a different world altogether. The waters here abound with fish and prawns. The wetlands host a number of exotic migrant birds like common teal and cormorants.

Another major attraction of Alleppey is the region of Kuttanad, which is described as the granary or rice bowl of Kerala. We lunch and dine on the houseboat. If you wish to, you can buy fresh sea food and our chef will cook it for your dinner.

Hotel: AC Premium Houseboat

The cycling holiday of Kerala is never complete without an exploration of its famed backwaters, a natural yet mind-boggling network of interconnected canals, lakes, lagoons, inlets, and rivers lying almost parallel to the Arabian Sea coast. These backwaters are fed by rivers and comprise of many lakes, some of which we visit on this day. We leave our houseboat after breakfast and we will hage short ride to hotel, we will check in at hotel and after wash and change, we will go for short cycling around Alleppey or we will go on a boat ride. This boat ride gives you a wholesome experience of Kerala’s backwaters. It takes you to the Vembanad Lake, Kuppappuram, Kainakary, Chennamkary,Nedumudy, Mankombu and ends at Pulinkunnu. The good thing is you get to take your bike aboard the boat, so that during the cruise you get to deboard and cycle inland to visit the famous Chavara Church where a 250-year-old beacon of light is still preserved intact. This church or bhavan is the home of Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara, the first catholic male saint of Indian origin to be canonized. Another short bike ride through a pretty landscape takes us to Chennamkary St.Joseph's Syro-Malabar Catholic Church which is the first church in Asia to be dedicated to St. Joseph. At the end of the cruise tour of Kerala’s backwaters, we hit the road again on bikes and take the village roads to pass by rolling paddy fields, coconut groves and quaint hamlets before returning to Alleppey for dinner and overnight.

Hotel: Punnamada Resort or similar

The final day of our Kerala Biking Tour. After breakfast, we drop you at the Cochin International Airport for your onward journey. But in case you have an evening flight and wish to continue cycling, you can hit the road again for a 40 km ride towards Kochi after which the road gets too busy for cycling. We then load the bikes on our support vehicle and drive you to the airport. The tour ends with tons of happy memories for you.