Ponmudi or literally the golden hill is a hill station at the fag end of Western Ghats, not too far from the city of Thiruvananthapuram. Honestly, when I read about it, I expected it to be just another hill station near a big city. I could not have been more wrong. It turned out to be nature’s extravaganza – with rolling hills, roaming clouds, and narrow winding roads. Ponmudi Hill Station is about 55 km by road from the capital city of Trivandrum.
As usual, it is a narrow road climbing up the mountains.
Ponmudi Hill Station – Places to visit in Kerala
I took one of the Kerala Tourism tours to this popular hill station of Kerala. The first stop was at the Koyikkal Palace, Nedumangad.
Koyikkal Palace
A small wooden palace in typical Kerala or Travancore architectural style with a central courtyard that sinks in and collects all the rainwater and a step well outside. The highlight of the palace was its numismatics collection. Collections of weights and measuring scales that were used to measure precious metals like Gold. Tribal musical instruments and ritual masks. There is a section of wooden utensils as well, some of which were quite interesting. There is documentation of all the forts and palaces in Kerala and some collectibles of the old era.
What is interesting is that a queen by the name of Umayamma ruled from here in the late 17th CE. Most places in India have had a queen ruling them at some point in time. And most of the time she is never talked about.
Ponmudi Hill Station – A pleasant hill station
Climbing to the hill station on the road trip is through 22 hairpin bends and our guide kept warning us of potential nausea. He is probably yet to visit the Himalayas and the greater heights. On the way, there is a Golden Valley point, where a river flows through the valley of these hills. A small river flowing amidst big and small boulders, emerging from a bend behind the hills and vanishing in another bend. As if it is playing hide and seek and is just passing by this point in its race to hide and fool the hills. Tea gardens look like thick green carpets on the hills and provide their own hue of green to the surroundings.
KTDC restaurant
It was raining very heavily the day we visited, so we could not see any birds or butterflies that are supposedly found here in abundance. There is a KTDC hotel and restaurant just below the peak of the hill and this is the only place where you can get something to eat, provided you order it in advance. The landscape scenery here is beautiful. You see many mountains like the folds of a bundle of clothes. The day we were there, there were as many clouds so the interplay of clouds and hills had to be seen to believe.
View Points – Scenery Point, Echo Point & Suicide Point
On top, there are three points that the guide told us – Scenery point, Echo point, and Suicide point. View from the scenery point was divine. In fact, I had a magical moment there when I saw two clouds merging. It almost felt like the union of Shiva and Shakti and I had tears in my eyes. The rain came in the way of our reaching the echo point, but the suicide point was really suicidal. It was a steep climb on a naked hill that led to a cliff. And if you slip from that point, there is no way you will survive. Looks like every hill station in India has a suicide point discovered by dejected lovers.
For Hills & mountains, one should visit Cherrapunji, Meghalaya, and Arunachal Pradesh. These Hills, not too far from the sea, have a charm of their own.
Recommend you to read the following travel blog on places to visit in Kerala & nearby.
Padmanabhapuram Palace, Fort & Town
Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Thiruvananthapuram
Top Kanyakumari Tourist Places for You to Visit
Though from Kerala iam yet to visit Ponmudi another lovely offbeat place is Vagamon and Gavi
Hope you get to visit Ponmudi soon enough Harimohan 🙂
We toured kerala from Mumbai by car but never heard of ponmudi. Munnar itself gave us such a lovely surprise that we concluded that there may not be a better place than Munnar.
India is full of surprises Rahil.
Your experience in the Tourism sector is marvelous.Fine to read your detailed description of Kerala.
The blog that you have written about ponmudi was nice. I like it. Thank you for sharing this ..
wow… very nice post thanks for sharing
Wonderful blog and very useful information..
A wonderful place in Kerala.
This is my first time hearing about Ponmudi hill. I was not familiar with this area but you have peaked my curiosity.The ambience the place gives makes you calm and peace is all around. Pictures are so mesmerising and eye catching.Thank you for this guide about Ponmudi Hills.
This is my first time hearing about Ponmudi hills. I was not familiar with this area but you have peaked my curiosity.The ambience the place gives makes you calm and peace is all around. Pictures are so mesmerising and eye catching.Thank you for this guide about Ponmudi Hills
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