Places To See - Trivandrum

 

Puthen Maalika

This two-storied palace is also called Kuthira Maalika (Horse Palace. There are about 100 wooden horses carved on the outside of its first floor. The palace houses 80 rooms, with spacious verandahs and airy windows. It was built by Maharaja Swathi Thirunal Balarama Varma in 1844. He was a poet and a musician and used a part of the palace for his work.

The palace is now a museum that has many carvings, wood and marble sculptures chandeliers and mirrors. It has paintings of all the Travancore kings that ruled there. There are also thrones, porcelain artifacts and sundials and also musical instruments, artifacts, weapons and ornaments used by the Travancore royal family in this museum. The royal exhibits lead us into the pompous life led by the kings of yesteryears.

Other than Mondays, it is open to the public on all days. The Swati Thirunal Music Festival is conducted in the palace courtyard annually.

Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple

This 2,000-year-old temple is a major pilgrimage centre as well as a tourist attraction. Popular movies have been shot in and around the temple and the nearby palace. The temple is a mix of Kerala, Chola and Pandya styles of architecture. The temple faces the east and one can enter it through the ottakal (single stone) mandapam. Methan Mani is the clock tower of the temple.

Only Hindus are permitted entry into this temple. Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple is a mahakshetram. A mahakshetram is one which adheres to 10 criteria such as historical significance, royal connection, proximity to sea, forest origin and antiquity. The temple’s idol is made of katusarkarayogam, a combination that is known to stand the test of time. The inside of the idol is strung with 12,008 sacred stones. The 10-day Navaratri festival is the most famous festival of this temple.

Padmanabhapuram Palace

This impressive structure has a lot of history behind it. Once, it was just one palace. As kings came and went, they added more buildings and rooms to it. It has 127 rooms, out of which only 27 are maintained well and some of those are open to the public.

It has many wooden carvings and furniture from ancient times. The main palace, ootupura, homapura and navaratri mandapam are very famous structures.

Shankumugham Beach

It might be the lesser known beach of Trivandrum, but it’s definitely high on tourists. It is known for its strong currents and relentless waves. The beach gets its name from ‘Shanku’, which means conch, and ‘mukham’ meaning face.

The building across the road is an indoor sports centre. The 35-m-long stone carving of a mermaid, facing the beach, is a known landmark. Chacha Nehru Traffic Training Park here provides opportunity for children to learn traffic rules and to have nice time learning to ‘drive’.

Twice a year, during the Aarattu ceremony, the idol of the local deity, Lord Padmanabha is brought here for a ritual bath. So the area enjoys religious significance, too. The Thiruvananthapuram Airport and Veli Tourism Village are places of interest located close by.

Veli Tourist Village

Located where the sea and the Veli Lake converge, it is an ideal spots to relax. It is only about 12k from the city. It is popular with school children and youngsters.

Boating is the main acitivity – you can opt speed boats or peddle boats, both of which are available on rent. The safari boat will take you to Aakulam Bridge. There’s a garden, with works by artist and sculptor Kanayi Kunhiraman. The open air auditorium hosts many cultural performances.

An interesting feature of the area is the pozhi murikkal – the small stretch of beach that goes under water when the lake floods in that area.

Napier Museum

It is the oldest museum in the state. It was built in 1855. And the present structure was constructed over the existing museum in 1880. It was then named after Lord Charles Napier, Governor of Madras from 1866-1872. Designed by Robert Chisholm, the consulting Architect of the Madras Government, the structure is built in the Indo-Sarcenic style. It has gothic roof and minarets.

The museum houses a lot of artifacts from south and Southeast Asia. Stone and bronze sculptures and wood carvings find a place here. They are from the 11th to the 18th centuries. The museum also houses ancient ornaments, a temple chariot and ivory carvings.

The Sree Chitra Art Gallery on the premises has works from Raja Ravi Varma and Nicholas Roerich, and also Mughal and Tanjore art. The museum is open from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. On Wednesdays, it is open only from 1 p.m. photography is prohibited.

Natural History Museum

It was built in 1885, and the collections in the museum started with the personal compilation of minerals and books presented by General Cullen. The Natural History Museum is located in a modern two-storeyed building in the eastern end of the museum and zoo complex.

The museum has separate galleries for mammals, birds, lower vertebrates and invertebrates. Also visit the skeleton gallery, ethnology gallery library and laboratory. There is also an outdoor exhibit of fossil tree trunks near the entrance.

Trivandrum Zoo

Trivadrum zoo is one of the largest zoos in the country, at 55 acres. In 1859, the then Maharaja of Travancore presented his personal menagerie to be made into a zoo. You can also see lakes and lawns in the zoo. The zoo also has an aviary and a reptile house.

There are about a hundred species of animals from India and abroad at the zoo. The lion tailed Macaque, Nilgiri Langur, Indian rhino, Nilgiri Tahr, Asiatic lion, royal Bengal tiger, leopard, giraffe, hippopotamus and zebra are found here.

The zoo complex also The Botanical Garden, within the zoo’s premises, has many tropical plants and trees. The museum is located on the Vellayambalam Road, at Palayam in Trivandrum. The zoo is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., and tickets are issued only till 5:15 p.m. Monday is a holiday.

Science and Technology Museum

This state museum was opened to public in 1994. In 1997, the museum was also developed to accommodate a children’s park. The museum has many sections dedicated to science and technology, such as electronics, computer science, and solar energy and biomedical science.

Aakulam Tourist Complex

The Aakulam tourist complex is 10km away from Trivandrum city. Boating ad simming facilities and are the main attraction. You can have cool drinks and snacks at the refreshment counter. Kids can enjoy themselves at the children’s park and the musical fountain.

Peppara Wildlife Sanctuary

This sanctuary covers 53sq.km on the Western Ghats. The best way to reach it is via Vithura, 12km away, enroute to Ponmudi. It is rich in forests and eucalyptus plantations. It is known to be a centre for moth-, butterfly- and bird-watchers.

The Peppara Dam on the Karamana river provides water to the district. The sanctuary also consists of sections of the Palode and Kuttoor reserve forests. With prior permission from the Chief wildlife warden at Trivandrum, you can go on two to three-day treks inside the sanctuary.

The sanctuary is home to elephant, gaur, sambar, lion tailed macaque, Nilgiri langur, Malabar squirrel, wild boar, barking deer, mouse deer, wild boar, python, king cobra, tiger and panther.

The sanctuary’s vegetation consists of west coast semi-evergreen trees, found between 150m and 1,050m. The southern hilltop tropical evergreen forest has stunted evergreen trees, found above 1,000m elevation. The southern moist mixed deciduous forests cover more than 60% of the lower slopes of the hills.

Beemapalli

Shortened to its current name, Beemapalli Dargah Shareef is dedicated to a devout Muslim woman, Bee Umma. She is said to have arrived here from Saudi Arabia many centuries ago, and is buried here.

She had spiritual powers and is buried here. Her son Aboobacker is also buried here. There’s a 10-day annual festival – Uroos – that is celebrated in their honour. In the evenings and on special days, you can watch religious and cultural programs. An interesting ritual that pilgrims and devotees undertake is Chandanakudam, where they offer coins in kudams (earthen pots).

Vylopilly Sanskriti Bhavan

It was built in 2001 in the memory of Malayalam poet Vylopilly Sreedhara Menon. There are several structures you can check out here – an open air kalamandapam for folk arts, an art gallery, P.N. Panicker Library, open air auditorium and a Nritha Mandapam. The Kerala Council for Historical Research is also situated here.

Regular cultural, art, dance and theatre fests are conducted here. The programmes on Monday evenings are open to the public for free.

Ponmudi

This beautiful hill station is located in the tip of the Western Ghats in Kerala. It is close to Trivandrum, and is known for tea and spices plantations as well as for wild orchids. The place is good for nature walks and trekking. Tourists and honeymooners flock to Ponmudi round the year.

Agasthyakoodam Hills surround this picturesque town. The peak, which shares the name, is 1,890m high. It is great to go trekking and river rafting. Just a few miles away where the Kallar River falls over a set of rocks is the Meenmutti Waterfalls. About 16km from Ponmudi is the Aruvikkara Dam across the Karamana River. There’s also a Bhagavathi Temple situated on top of a rock here.
On your way to Ponmudi, from Trivandrum, be sure to stop at the Koyikkal Palace at Nedumangad. It used to belong to the kings of the Perakam Dynasty. Now it has been converted into a Numismatics and Folklore Museum.

Trivandrum airport is only 65km away. Buses and taxis are popular means of transport. There are many forest bungalows, homestays and resorts you can stay at, in Ponmudi.

Neyyar wildlife Sanctuary

In 1958, it was declared a sanctuary. Trivamdrum’s highest peak, Agasthyakoodam, is located within this sanctuary. The tributaries of the Neyyar river – Mullayar and Kallar – flow through this sanctuary, which spans 128sq.km.From the Neyyattinkara taluk, the sanctuary connects with the Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve of Tamil Nadu in the east. Trivandrum city is only 30km away.

A crocodile farm and a lion safari park are major attractions. The reserve is home to a lot of medicinal plants. There are about 109 rare plants in the area. You can find vegetation such as west coast tropical evergreen, southern hill top tropical evergreen, southern moist mixed deciduous forest and southern sub-tropical savannahs.

Elephant, gaur, three-striped squirrel, Malabar squirrel, lion-tailed macaque, Nilgiri tahr, sambar, barking deer, wild boar, porcupine, mouse deer, tiger, bonnet macaque and Nilgiri langur, and reptiles such as cobra, rat snake, viper, python and flying snake are found here.Birds such as myna, king fisher, white-breasted water hen, gray jungle fowl, hoopoe, little green heron, woodpecker, Indian cuckoo,jungle myna, Indian hill myna, darter, little cormorant, little egret