It is always said that life changes when you get married. And it is true in my case. I was just recollecting my old days when my mother used to wake me up early in the morning. Even though I have an alarm in my room I just open my eyes to stop it. Again I will cover my face with the blanket and enjoy my sleep. Those olden days were the glorious days of my life. And it is not for me alone…. It is the same for each and everyone who is reading this blog. In my deep sleep, I was recollecting my school, and college days where I wholly depended on my mother for every minute thing. She would be always busy in the kitchen in the early morning but whenever I call her… she would run to me to solve my issues… suddenly I felt like something was crawling on me… and it continued for a minute …. I thought it would be some ant… therefore I did not open my eyes and continued to be part of the dream… but something again interrupted me …. But this time it was not the ant but something else… someone was hitting with a hard material… without any second thought, I decided to uncover myself and to my surprise, it was my second child beating me with his water bottle… he is the only person in our house who wakes up so early that many a time even if we forget to set the alarm he will be there to wake up us…. thank God for gifting him for us… by the time my husband woke up and we together sort out all the household chores… later we both got ready for our office… he used to drop me to the office everyday…. That day I shared my dream that I saw in the morning and old school days with my husband…. I really miss those days I told him…. I expressed my wish to go back to the olden days…. for a moment he remained silent… and then told that we can plan an exotic vacation during the summer holidays. I was thrilled… he asked me to find a fascinating destination for us as well as for kids.
As we both had a shortage of leaves I did not surf any places outside Kerala. More than the duration of the trip it is the way how much we enjoy it… therefore we decided to search places in Kerala itself… many places came into my mind…. at first we decided to plan a stunning trip to hill stations like Munnar…but when I discussed the same to my hubby.. he said that it will be boring for kids…as our kids are too small and they cannot enjoy the adventurous activities… then we thought of amusement parks…but over there only kids can enjoy and we will have to look after them and we will not be able to celebrate the trip in our own way… even spending more than an hour on the computer we were not able to finalize the destination…hence with disappointment, we shut down the system… to refresh my mind I started to spend some time surfing social media sites …. suddenly I came across the family pictures of my friend … she and her family had an amazing vacation somewhere in Kerala…after zooming one of the pictures I got the name of the place… it is the Mango Meadows… it is for the first time I am hearing the place… I showed the same to my hubby… he found it interesting and asked me to inquire about it to her… the very next day I contacted her … and asked about the place…she told me that it is the Mango Meadows in Kottayam. It is the biodiversity park and best place for vacationing… she gave me their contact numbers… before ending the call I ask her whether the park is suitable for couples she replied that the park is suitable for both couples as well as for kids… there are separate sections for kids and adults. Therefore we availed of the family tour packages from Gogeo Holidays. The name of the travel operator was suggested by my friend… we utilized the online services.
It took nearly two hours to reach the Mango Meadows. It is situated in Kadathuruthy in Kottayam district. It is one of the largest biodiversity parks in the world. The park is sprawled in an area of 30 acres with more than 4500 varieties of trees and various species of birds and animals could be seen there. It was Mr. Kurian’s dream to build an amusing agricultural and he took 14 years to accomplish his dream. As my friend told the park comprises separate sections for couples and kids. For kids, there are amusement parks and for couples, there is a special place called ‘valentine’s corner’ and only married couples are permitted to enter. As we both were busy we hardly found time to spend with each other and this valentine’s corner really helped us to spend some quality time. We indulged in many activities like badminton, cycling, shooting, pedal boating and may more. For more than a decade it was for the first time I was riding the bicycle… It took half an hour to regain the cycle balance. And we also had a cycle competition. And in that our kids defeated us. Followed to it we played badminton too… by noon we savoured traditional Kerala foods in their restaurant the food was served in a long banana leaf. Over there we saw many families coming from various parts of India as well as foreign countries by availing of the family tour package. It is the traditional custom of Kerala to serve food on banana leaf…it was a new experience for many of the non-Keralites. Followed to it we visited the sacred grove called ‘sarpakavu’… It is the place where serpents were protected. Then we moved to the ‘Nakshtraval’ it is the place where you can find trees corresponding to your zodiac signs. Many of the foreigners found it difficult to identify the trees related to their birth star and I helped them. It was a proud moment for me. We clicked on many lovely photographs. In the night we opted for treehouse to refresh. It was a mind-blowing experience for us. It was for the first time we spend a night in the midst of trees. As aforementioned it was our son who wakes up early in the morning. On that day it was the melodious chirp that called us back from the deep sleep. A one day tour really gifted us life long memories. We are really thankful to the Gogeo Holidays for organizing such a wonderful trip and also to our friend for suggesting this place.