Kakanakote & Stay at Vythiri

A blissful drive through green stretch of Kakanakote forest to Vythiri, glimpses of tiny and busy villages of Wayanad, wide panoramic view of Wayanad mountain ranges from Lakkidi View point, view of curvy Thamarassery Ghat road and the visit to mysterious chain tree of Lakkidi made this drive more memorable.

Planning

After spending some peaceful time at Kabini Backwaters, our plan was to proceed towards the stay we booked in Vythiri for our Wayanad trip. We thought of having lunch at some good restaurant on the way and reach Green pepper OYO stay by evening. We thought of spending some relaxing time at Vythiri after reaching there and not to visit any more places for the day.

For Day 2 the plan was to start or trip by visiting the chain tree of Lakkidi and then Lakkidi View point. Drive down to Vayalada view point and return to Wayanad to have an adventurous zip line at nearby tea estate.

Best route to Vythiri

We took the scenic route to reach Vythiri from Kabini backwaters. It traverses via Kakanakote reserved forest, Bavali Check post, Kattikkulam and Kalpetta.

Kabini Backwaters > Kakanakote > Bavali > Kattikkulam > Kalpetta > Vythiri

Total Distance: 95 Km

Time Taken (Including Lunch) : 3 Hrs 30 Mins

Kakanakote Forest

After proceeding around 22 km towards Mananthvady from Kabini Backwaters, we entered a beautiful reserved forest stretch called Kakanakote forest. There are occasional humps created by forest department to reduce the speed of the vehicle in very long straight stretch of the forest route. It is a bliss to drive in this stretch, and a tiny test of your patience too. We encountered a very few number of vehicles on this route.

Kakanakote Forest in History

This forest used to be hunting premises for the Royal families and British officers in the pre-independence period. This forest was very much well-known for the’ Khedda’. It’s a system in which a large herd of elephants was captured by surrounding the herd with an enclosure of about 20- 50 yards in diameter and 12 feet in height. The Wildlife Protection Act(1972) outlawed the hunting of wild animals. At present, the Kakanakote forest comes under the Rajiv Gandhi National Park and abounds with wildlife.

Since we traveled during the summer month of April, the forest was a bit dry, and we did not get sightings of any animals on the way. With the plan of returning here back during monsoon months, after taking few clicks of our car in this long beautiful stretch, we progressed towards Vythiri.

OYO Experience

We hardly spend much on the stay when we travel as we make sure to utilize the whole day travelling and exploring around the place we are travelling. If the goal of the travel is to relax and spend some quality time with the family, it does make sense to book the stay in some good resort. Hence, we usually look for the decent budget stays in the destination. OYO rooms are meant for this purpose. Sadly, it has proven to be wrong multiple times in our case. You might have read our experience booking OYO rooms in Sirsi in this post.

Wayanad Green Pepper OYO, Vythiri

This time there was no issue booking our stay. It was a bit tough to locate the place as this establishment doesn’t even have the board indicating the name. We spent 30 mins searching for the hotel and since I have seen the pics in TripAdvisor portal was able to identify the building. After locating the hotel, went in to confirm if it is ‘Wayanad Green Pepper’. To our surprise, there is no reception. Just a small table in an almost open area and not a single human being in visibility. Contacted the phone number mentioned in the receipt. After 15 mins of wait(standing), we got to see the hotel representative.

Once the staff arrived to confirm our booking and allocate room, we got to know that he understands only Malayalam. We were surprised to see him not able to understand Hindi/ English and managed to get the room details only through sign languages 🙂 We too love our native language Kannada but isn’t it mandatory for someone in travel business to be fluent with generally spoken languages to communicate with tourists?

Review of Wayanad Green Pepper OYO

Our room was on the 2nd floor, and there was lift service available. And this almost ‘no staff’ hotel didn’t offer any help to carry our luggage. Travelers with elderly persons must avoid booking here.

We were happy to see the very spacious room with the best view of Wayanad mountains and the Kabini river flowing right below the window.

In short, Pros and Cons of this hotel can be summarized as below:

Pros:

• Spacious Rooms
• Good Parking space
• Rooms have very good view of mountains and river
• No TV in the room (Complements the peaceful ambience)

Cons:

• No Board at the Hotel Building
• No reception area or representative to assist
• Language barrier. Knowing Malayalam is must to communicate with the only staff present.
• No Phone provided in the rooms to communicate with the reception.
• No Lift and no assistance by staff in carrying luggage.
• Geyser provided didn’t work.
• No in house restaurant and no good restaurant in the near vicinity. We had to travel to Kalpetta every time to have food.

Kakanakote Forest Route Timings

Below is the Kakanakote forest & Bavali Chekpost timings

Monday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Tuesday

6:00 am – 5:00 pm

Wednesday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Thursday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Friday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Saturday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Sunday

6:00 am – 6:00 pm

Tips For Travelers

• Do not stop for too long and venture into the forest on the Kakanakote forest route.
• Do not feed wild animals
• No good restaurants are present at either side of Bavali Checkpost. Plan your food breaks accordingly
• If you have booked stay at Vythiri, call up and make sure person present at the establishment can understand your language.

Places to Visit Nearby Vythiri

Food Options in Vythiri

• The Woodlands Hotel at Kalpetta is good vegetarian food option if you are travelling towards Vythiri
• India Gate Restaurant & Bakes at Vythiri
• There are various other food option in Kalpetta such as Ramavilasam Veg. Restaurant , Green Garden Food Inn, Couch Potato, 1980’s A Nostalgic Restaurant

Live the Experience

We suggest you to watch our short informative video on this place before visiting.

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