Poovar and Kovalam

We went to Poovar which is around 1.5 hour drive from Trivandrum. We took a boat to take us through the backwaters to the beach. It is the most beautiful backwaters (much better than Allepey) and beach in Kerala. The view of all the greenery and trees with birds chirping was very calming. We even came across an island restaurant in the way and decided to come back there for lunch after visiting the beach. We reached the beach which actually is a very tiny strip of land between the ocean and the backwaters. It's so narrow that at some places the waves from ocean were crossing over the land and going to the backwaters. There was absolutely no crowd when we went there, hardly 5-6 people apart from our group would have been there. The waters look beautiful but sea was rough at that time, I don't think it's safe or swimming. There were no beach shacks, no water sports happening over there. Just natural beauty of surroundings and us. I wish all places were a little like this, less commercialized. We got on our boat again and took a tour around the lake , saw the appealing beach villas of a famous hotel chain then moved on to Mangroves. We even saw houses built such that there was no empty land /yard to walk to the entry, people just seemed like swimming across the lake like it's no big deal. It was weird, but interesting. We then went for lunch to that restaurant we had come across while coming to beach. Had a hearty meal of seafood (I had recently turned non vegetarian just for Kerala trip after being a vegetarian for almost 20 years).
On the way back we stopped by at some clothing store. I bought traditional Kerala Saree and a half Saree (which in hindsight was a waste as it never saw sunlight later ever)

Then we went to the famous Kovalam beach which seemed underwhelming and just regular and meh after the serene Poovar beach. We spent some time there and then headed back to our hostel.Read more