I have a secret. One I’m not particularly proud of. Throughout this trip we have been getting lots of travel advice from ChatGPT. Yes, the water guzzling privacy concerning carbon consuming large language model. And yes, I am aware it seriously doesn’t align with our values from an environmental perspective. Usually, our “friend” as we call it, gives us great ideas of places to stay, helps us understand the history of sites we are visiting and outlines the most efficient travel routes between places. We don’t rely on it for precise details, but to give us ideas, it’s perfect. When we consulted our friend about hill stations in Kerala, we included in our prompt that we wanted to avoid the tourist hot spots of Ooty or Munnar. We were nervous about finding another town like Ella in Sri Lanka - we wanted somewhere a little more off the beaten track.

Enter Wayanad. The area was described to us as quieter than its well known counterparts, and famed for its tea estates, forests, waterfalls and walks. Everyone we talked to was surprised to hear we were heading there, but we took it in our stride and felt even a little boastful that we had found somewhere more off the beaten track. 

Over the last few weeks I had started to feel a bit run down, I had a pretty constant sore throat and was more tired than usual. I was dreading the overnight bus, as there’s nothing like a broken sleep to catapult that kind of run down into a full on cold. We boarded the bus in Kochi at 1 AM after an hour of delays, and both fell asleep quite easily in our double berth. The road to Wayanad was windy with hairpin bends and steep hills, not exactly conducive to a good sleep. On arrival we got an auto to our hostel, and a stroke of luck meant that our room was actually available so we could happily tuck up for another few hours of sleep, then I kept resting for most of the day. Our hostel had a pool, so we spent a few hours down there, before a wild rainstorm pushed us up to the hostel communal area to write, read, nap and play table tennis. 

This is the part where I would love to tell you that the next day we were up at 5 AM hiking to the top of Chembra Peak, but in reality the next few days passed with much of the same. We spent a lot of time on a particular couch in the common area, and I enjoyed a few 10+ hour sleeps in a row. We swam, did a few short workouts (including the therabands for all those invested), planned more of our trip and met some really great people. I especially needed the rest and although it was hard not to feel guilty about “wasting” our time in the hills, I felt much better for it. 

The lack of access to amenities here was pretty tricky. We were staying outside of the small town of Vythiri, and although we had chosen this place as it was quieter, we still struggled to find things to do or places to see. It was quite spread out, meaning that we had about an hour and a half on the bike to reach different places. We just didn’t really have the energy required to make the most of this destination. 

We rented a bike one day and spent a couple of hours riding around the picture perfect tea plantations, finding ourselves accidentally at a very fancy resort for a coffee. Usually they don’t let in ‘outsiders’ but they kindly welcomed us in for a coffee with a view. There were also a number of walks in the area, but unfortunately most of them were out of our price range. I understand charging tourists to access these places, but it’s hard to swallow when the cost is double that of our nightly accommodation budget. This paired with my sickness meant our longest walk was an hour-long joint around a local lake, which was very developed and not exactly the serene nature experience we were hoping for. One of the highlights was when a fellow guest at the hostel ordered us dinner (delivered) from a local restaurant, and we had our final taste of the famed Kerala beef curry and Parotta. Here in Kerala they are much less strict about not eating beef. We also washed this meal down with a bottle of fresh toddy - local palm wine made from the fermented sap of palm trees. It was surprisingly good, and great to try this before we head further north where it is less common. In the end, we left Wayanad a day earlier than we had planned, adding a stop in Mysore on our way to Bangalore. 

So - what was my final verdict on our Chat GPT suggested stop? I think that touristy places are touristy for a reason. If we went to Munnar or Ooty, we would have had coffee, walks and views on our doorstep. Somewhere like Wayanad requires more effort, and at this specific point, we just didn’t have the energy for that. It probably also required a bit more money - being able to easily pay for the walks, nice accommodation and the luxury of a driver would have totally changed the game. I think Chat GPT knew what we wanted and gave us a good suggestion, but it was an important reminder that we need to research well and work out how we are going to spend our time at these off the beaten track locations, and if they are within our budget. 

P.S I also want to say…  we are not using ‘our friend’ for these blogs! I think with writing once you start using AI it can be very hard to go back, so we’ve been pretty strict on ourselves with this!!