Fire & Water - Varkala Beach

Spent a very short vacation at the Deshadan Cliff and Beach resort in Varkala. The Varkala beach itself is by far the best beach near Trivandrum, better than Kovalam or Shankumugham beaches. Varkala beach seems to be more frequented by foreigners rather than locals, at least by the folks that we ran into while we were there. There are a large number of resorts in Varkala, suiting wide variety of budgets, all the way from five star hotels to mom and pop establishments.

I chose Deshadan based on their TripAdvisor ratings and reviewer comments and for their swimming pool and found it to be an excellent choice. The only negative was the time taken for preparing food, order well in advance to have lunch or dinner on time (breakfast is a buffet).

Deshadan is around 1/2 mile walk from the beach, there are other places right next to the beach if you prefer that. Deshadan has a very nice pool, and a Dhathri ayurvedic spa within the resort. Both the resort as well as the spa is very reasonably priced and the service is also really good.

All photographs taken with a Canon EOS 400D and the Canon EF 70-200 F/4 L IS USM lens.

Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu

Photographs from a trip to Kodaikanal, in Tamil Nadu, India.

Madurai is closest airport to Kodaikanal at 135 kilometers, however I traveled via Coimbatore that is around 170 kilometers from Kodaikanal since there were no direct flights from Hyderabad to Madurai. There are very few buses that ply from Coimbatore directly to Kodai, in fact, I believe there is only one that leaves from Ukkadam bus stand at 10 AM in the morning. However, there are plenty of buses from Coimbatore (from Ukkadam bus stand, you can get a pre-paid taxi from Airport to Ukkadam for Rs 250) to town of Palani (every 10 minutes or so), and from Palani there are hourly buses during the day to Kodai. It takes around 2.5 hours from Coimbatore to Palani and another 3 hours from Palani to Koadi uphill via the winding Ghat road. Note that these are local buses that ply between towns and will be quite crowded, plus unless you can speak a bit of the local language (Tamil), it would be hard to identify the right bus to get on to. On the plus side, they are quite cheap – on an average it would cost you Rs 30 (less than $1) for each segment of the journey.

Coaker’s Walk is a beautiful 1 KM stretch of pathway along the side of Mount Nebo and offers a great view of the valley.


Pillar rock can be reached by an 8 KM drive from the Kodai bus stand, reminds me of the “Hanging Mountains” from Avatar.


“Green” windows of the Woody’s restaurant in Woodlands Resort, Kodaikanal.






Bryant Park is a very well maintained botanical garden located around half a kilometer from the Kodai bus stand.

Photo of the Day

Setting Sun

Canon EOS 400D with Tamron 28-200mm XR lens at 200mm. Exposure of 1/4000s at F/5.6, ISO 400. A lower ISO like 100 would have sufficed in this case and resulted in better IQ, but I've gotten into the (bad) habit of shooting at ISO 400 by default as the noise is quite well controlled.

Photo of the Day

Sunset in Bhutan

A cloud lit by the setting sun. Canon EOS 400D with Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM Lens at 85mm exposed for 1/320s @ F/10.

Photo of the Day

Another one from the series that I shot from my apartment during a particularly brilliant sunset. Canon EOS 400D with EF 70-200mm F4 L IS USM Lens. I need a better JPEG converter as the PNG version of the same picture shows.

PNG version of the same picture from the original 10MP Canon EOS 400D RAW image.

Photo of the Day

Sunset at Shanghumugham beach, Kerala

Photo of the Day

Returning fishermen in Kumarakom

Photo of the Day

Sunset at Kumarakom

Canon EOS 400D with Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM Lens.

Photo of the Day

Sunset at Kumarakom

Canon EOS 400D with Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. Shot at 17mm with ISO 100 and an exposure of 1.6s at F/4.

Since I had not taken my tripod along on the trip, I rested the camera on a flat slab and set it to self timer mode. After focus and exposure lock and initiating self timer, I left it on the slab for taking the picture. A low ISO of 100 was used to capture detail and reduce noise in the long exposure.

Photo of the Day

Click on the image to view it full size.

Wings of Fire

Canon EOS 400D with Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM Lens at 79mm, Exposure of 1/100s @ F/5.6, ISO 400. Shot during Kumarakom trip.