Trip Plan
Post COVID Wave-2, people started to move around for trips and yet post vaccination, there were cases in many popular destinations as they were getting crowded. We were looking for an isolated destination and of course on the run towards seeing all States and Union Territories of India, identified this time to be apt for visiting Lakshadweep.
During this period, RT-PCR Negative report in 72 hours before travel was mandatory and we thought this would be fair destination to go. We also researched about the options and islands to go once we decided to go to Lakshadweep. We zeroed on the Samudram package - budget friendly, cruise experience and visiting three islands in one go - including the most beautiful islands of Minicoy and Kadmat.
Members : Karthik, Sathish Raja, Lokesh, Palani, Phrabudoss, Ashok
Dates : 15 Oct 2021 - 20 Oct 2021
Trip route
Chennai - Cochin - Cochin Harbour - Minicoy - Kalpeni - Kadmat - Cochin Port - Cochin - Chennai
Know about Lakshadweep
Lakshadweep is the smallest union territory of India, and is a group of 36 islands forming an archipelago in the Arabian Sea. Kavaratti is the capital. Each island is small and all by itself. Importantly, these islands are on the same genre of Maldives having stunningly beautiful lagoons and beaches. Agatti island hosts the only airport of Lakshadweep. 10 out of the 36 islands are inhabited and totally has 12 atolls. The culture and habits are similar to that of Kerala. People across islands speak Malayalam, Jeseri and at Minicoy, Mahl is spoken. All inter-islands transportation is only waterways.
Tourism is a main source of income for Lakshadweep. The lagoons are popular for water activities including Snorkelling, Kayaking, scuba diving, Canoeing, water skiing, yachting and more.
BSNL mobile services are available in most of the islands, while Airtel is also available in Kavaratti. Liquor is prohibited in Lakshadweep apart from Bangaram island.
Planning for Lakshadweep
Unlike other destinations in India, reaching Lakshadweep is not so easy by connectivity or by ease of travel. The only operational port of entry to any islands of Lakshadweep is Cochin (Kochi). One can chose either to fly to Agatti Island or take a ship (passenger/tourist cruise) to visit multiple islands. The set of islands we get to see on either route or different. One would land in Agatti and can visit the most exotic Bangaram island and Thinnakara in this package; while the Ship cruise can take you to the amazingly beautiful islands of Minicoy, Kalpeni, Kadmat, Kavaratti (the capital island).
Please refer to the Government website for more information:
Very clear information on the ship cruises and package details are available at the below site:
One can do a 5 day package by island hopping for 3 islands for 3 days and 2 days for to-fro cruise. One way takes around 16 hours of sea cruise time. Each day morning you get to visit an island, spend the whole day in the island/lagoon and board the ship again by sunset - travel to the next island over night and repeat the same in other. Most of these islands are far from each other and may take 4-8 hours to reach from one to other.
Our package
We opted for the 5-day Samudram package covering Minicoy, Kalpeni and Kadmat. Minicoy is the farthest of the islands down south and we want to cover the same; Kadmat is one of the best lagoons and ensure great underwater experiences - snorkeling/scuba. So, we chose this package.
Also, there are island resorts in all tourist islands, where you can stay for few days and board ship later to different island. Every island had one water activity as complimentary.
Day-1 - Board the ship!
The Day-1 of the package is more of reaching the Cochin port and take care of all formalities towards embarkation and boarding. We started the previous night from Chennai by train and reached Cochin around 6 AM. We decided to stroll around as the check-in time for the embarkation was 9:30 AM. We decided to spend time at Marine drive and unfortunately got caught on heavy rain. We took a boat ride and midway drenched totally on rain and sheltered in a bigger boat for some time.
We walked around for breakfast and had very nice food. We took autos to reach the Lakshadweep - port of entry - Wellington pier. RT-PCR report was mandatory. We produced our tickets that were booked along with ID proofs and RT-PCR reports. Post verification, we got our boarding passes for the cruise, Tourist ID card and a souvenir T-Shirt of preferred size.
Embarkation
The boarding process is similar to airports, with boarding pass scan, ID card verification and security clearance. Post these checks, we are boarded on to a bus to take us to the Ship bay and then board to ship using the gangway. We also had options to leave the bigger bags at embarkation desk; the bags are delivered to our cabins using coolies as we board the ship.
Know the Cruise
We had booked our cruise on M.V.Kavarati. This ship has 3 sections of cabins - Diamond, Gold and bunker classes. Diamond class are 2 berth cabins, Gold class cabins have 4 berths and bunker is more of a dormitory style. The Diamond and Gold class cabins also have in-room washrooms with shower, wash basin and western style toilets. The rooms are very clean, well maintained and absolutely comfortable with respect to space and sleep. This ship has 6 decks and we had access to open deck on the front and rear side of the ship - giving way to enjoy fresh air around the clock whenever required.
Food - Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food are available in ships and in resorts. No worries with respect to the choice of foods - even Jain food is available on request. The food is served separately for veg and non-veg with a clean eating area. The food is served hot and fresh and every lunch or dinner with soups too.
Trip start
The first day of the trip as it started with Kochi with heavy rains, the clearance for the ship to start was delayed. After few hours, the trip started around 4 PM, which was around 2 hours delay. The delay was not much felt as we were too busy running all across the ship facilities and understanding what all are there and had lunch buffet too inbetween. We were so busy that we did not realize that it was already close to 4 hours inside the ship.
The process of ship taking off from the Wharf also was an interesting thing to watch - it took close to 1 hour for the ship to leave the wharf and enter open waters with the help of a tow boat and a pilot boat. Very interesting happenings and watching it from the deck was all fun!
We also had a de-briefing from the tour manager on the 3-day plan and finer details with respect to embarkation and disembarkation into each islands, food timings, facilities of the ship and more briefing on the package. We had an excellent dinner too. As it was a rainy day, the cruise was quite bumpy and it induced sea sickness to most of the tourists. We did not see many in dinner, whom we saw during lunch.
Day-2 - Minicoy
First Island - First step into Lakshadweep - Minicoy! This was slightly delayed because of rough weather and anchoring by the Wharf took more than 1 hour because of the water currents. Atlast, post delayed induced during the start on previous day, rough weather overnight and morning under water currents, we landed around 11 AM. Once we landed on the jetty, we were transported locally through small vehicles - vans, jeeps and cars.
Minicoy is around 200 kms south of rest of the islands - very isolated. Minicoy is the second largest island after Andrott, spanning 10.6 kms long and has one of the largest lagoons of all the islands.
The first spot we visited was the beautiful lighthouse of Minicoy. The Minicoy lighthouse is a masterpiece of 360 degrees view towering about the beautiful coconut trees at the southern most point of the island overseeing the amazing aqua blue lagoon. Our first sight if the lagoon was just to fall in love with the colour and keep watching it! Wow ... whatta view!
We then reached our first feel of the aqua blue waters in close quarters. We entered our first resort of Lakshadweep. Every day, the plan was to reach the resort and have the day trip filled with water sports, lunch and tea at the resort and reach back the ship by sunset for dinner, sleep and breakfast; repeat the same for next island. The wow feel of the lagoon view was more than what we expected and it was definitely amazing!
We spent some time walking around the resort and beach; and ended up planning for snorkeling session. The water sport activities were very cheap compared to Andaman and we booked for 2 sessions of Snorkeling right away. The Snorkel kits are available for them and we started for the session right away. The complimentary activity at Minicoy was kayaking. We did not do it as we were busy looking for snorkeling slot and doing the same.
We had earlier done snorkeling and just got into the session directly; at a depth of 4 - 8 feet. We had a person accompanying us and took us above the live corals and great sea life. We saw clusters of beautiful fishes of different colours and size - small and big ones. Each session was 15 minutes and we thoroughly enjoyed the session with clear waters and the snorkeling was like seeing the beautiful sea life through glass - lots of sea cucumbers, live corals of different shapes and sizes - Staghorn coral, Leaf coral, Vase coral, Lettuce corals, Brain corals, Great star corals, Smooth Cauliflower Coral, Finger coral.
During the second session of our snorkeling, the water current was quite high and we could not snorkel as it was pushing us randomly. We hardly could do for 5 mins and it was draining us. We decided to return and came back to the beach. We then spent the evening walking on the beach, visiting the local village with tea and some local snacks and enjoying the sunset. They have colourful race boats called “Jahadhoni”.
We then reached back the ship, quite tired, had sumptuous dinner and hit the bed!
Day-3 - Kalpeni
The second island to visit was Kalpeni. It was 8 hour journey overnight from Minicoy to Kalpeni. After the first night on the ship, which was quite bumpy; this night was much smoother and we had a great sleep. Woke up early to see the sunrise, the colours were beautiful; and so was the island view. Post breakfast, we moved to the lower deck of the ship and transported to the island on small boats. Most of the islands do not have a big jetty or the waters are shallow for the ship to get closer to the island. At Minicoy, we reached the jetty; while at Kalpeni and Kadmat, we reached the island through small boats from the ship.
Kalpeni has two small islets - Tilakkam and Pitti and the uninhabited island of Cheriyam in the north form a single atoll. A peculiar feature of Kalpeni is a huge storm bank of coral debris along its eastern and southeastern shorelines. One can swim, snorkel or reef-walk in the vast lagoon and indulge in water sports on kayaks, sailboats and pedal boats.
The Komel beach resort at Kalpeni welcomed us with tender coconuts and also had one of the best views of the lagoon with 2 smaller islands in sight.
The complimentary sport here at Kalpeni was Snorkeling! Oh yes.. you read it right. They had around 25 snorkel kits for 100+ people and have to take turns to snorkel. The tourists were taken to the Cheriyam island for snorkeling by boat and the place was quite shallow with many dead corals - making it difficult to walk around for people, especially elders and kids - no footwear was available. When you plan for a beach trip, better have your own water/beach supportive footwear.
There were 3-4 divers to support for snorkeling and other than that people were by themselves. We did snorkeling ourselves as well as with the diver for more than 1 hour. It was good time to also do snorkeling at a depth of 8-10 feet with vast sea life to see. When we did shallow snorkeling, we had the opportunity to see fishes in-between and below the dead corals and rocks.
We also did Kayaking here - a dual Kayak and we roamed around for 15 odd minutes.
Post snorkeling, we had a grand buffet of lunch - veg and non-veg on separate spreads and the food was just awesome! We, then, walked around the gorgeous white sand beach and shallow waters on either side of the resort. It was absolutely stunning walking around and enjoying what nature is by itself!
They also arranged for local cultural dance at the resort for us to spend time understanding their culture. We also visited their coconut powder factory - one of the main exports of Lakshadweep. The beach at the edge of the island was an amazing place too - we walked deep to the edge and the view was exhilarating.
Then came the magnanimous sunset between the two small islets!
With the hovering clouds, we got drenched on the rains while reaching back the ship, took a hot shower and dinner. There was an de-briefing meeting where we got to know that we would be starting early by 7 AM to Kadmat island and having a long day by the beach because of some local festival and we geared up for it.
Day-4 - Kadmat
At 6:45 AM for breakfast, gulped it and reached the lower deck as early as possible. We reached the Kadmat resort by 7:45 AM.
Kadmat is 8 km long and only 550 metres wide at its broadest point. The beautiful shallow lagoon is ideal for water sports - for snorkeling specifically. The main attraction is the stunningly beautiful long white sandy beach. Kayaks, yacht, sailing boats and glass-bottomed boats are available. The complimentary activity at Kadmat was glass bottom boat ride.
Amidst some random rain spells earlier in the morning, rest of the day was sunny and apt for a great time for water bound activities. This was the only island with Scuba diving and unfortunately, it was not happening because of high demand and shortage of divers! However, we knew Kadmat was the best place to snorkel and we were first bound for the same. Of all the sessions, we had the best in Kadmat.
We returned back from snorkeling, and all we can do was to just enjoy the white sand and aqua blue waters! By 3 PM, we understood that there are no people for snorkeling and we had one more shot at snorkeling - at the Garden of Corals - this time, I did not take the GoPro with me - Oh NO ! The Garden of Corals was the best place to snorkel and an amazing snorkeling session! It had massive single corals with all possible varieties of corals, sizes, colours! Most importantly, it was just 2 inches below us and wow! That was amazing!
We also had time to play a round of volleyball, then have tea and snacks before biding to the beautiful sunset of Lakshadweep. We boarded the ship back and had one of the best sunsets possible!
It was certainly one of the best memories to have from the amazing beaches of Lakshadweep and vowed to come back by air to see the other set of islands - Agatti, Bangaram and Kavaratti. See you again, Lakshadweep! Till then, stay safe and stay beautiful!
Day-5 - Back to land
By noon, we reached back Cochin and the checkout from the ship was just a walk out of the yard. We booked a cab for 6 hours as we had our return journey to Chennai by night train. Please note that do not plan to book a flight back to your place from Cochin on the same day. This ship mostly takes its own time to arrive based on the weather and water current. Most of the tourists who had booked flights at 2 PM and around, missed their flight. Time from Cochin harbour to airport is 1 hour. So, plan your journey accordingly.
We spent the second half of the day by roaming around Fort Kochi. We visited the water front, walked around, the place where Vasco Da Gama landed in the culturally rich ancient India and the museum nearby.
