Summer Vacation to Lakshadweep

"You never take us on any holiday tour" this was the complaint, I regularly heard from my wife and her complaint was very genuine because it was a very long time when we went on tour. In my mind, I decided, I do everything to get my leave sanctioned and go on holiday tour during her summer school vacation.She is a teacher.

My determination to get leave sanctioned has given a positive result, I got my one month leave sanctioned. There was a celebration at my home when my wife heard about my leave sanctioned and we are going on a holiday trip.The jubilant mood of my wife has given me an immense satisfaction as I am going to fulfill her a long due demand of holiday vacation.

But I also kept some condition to her on our holiday vacation tour and the condition was,  the tour destination will be inside India but not at a religious place.It should be an Island state where we could reach by utilizing all the three modes of transport rail, air, and ship. She understood my intention and agreed with my condition.

After googling and collecting all the details of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands, we decided to go for Kadmath Island of Lakshadweep as there is a very beautiful beach with a nice and reasonable rate of accommodation. We decided that first part of the journey will be by train, then by air and in last by ship and return journey will be by ship and air, accordingly, we booked our tickets.

Our journey started from Mumbai Lokmanyatilak Railway station by Kuchuveli Express through Konkan Railway and reach Ernakulam. The total journey hours between Mumbai and Ernakulam was almost 24 hours and during the journey, we enjoyed the natural beautiful of Konkan region of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and finally Kerala"God's own Country" and also enjoyed the engineering marvel of Konkan Railway which has 92 tunnels and 179 major bridges. The Karbude tunnel is the longest tunnel of Konkan Railway with 6.5kms length.

On reaching Ernakulam, we stayed in a budget hotel and next day morning,  we catch the Air India flight from Kochi Internation Airport and flew to Agatti Airport, Lakshadweep. Agatti airport is only one airport in Lakshadweep and it has a very small runway so big flights do not operate.Only one Air India flight once in a day and 6 days in a week ply between Kochi to Agatti airport. On Sunday, there is no flight.

Agatti Airport        Image source: www.lakshadweep.nic.in

From Kochi to Kadmath island and back, the entire booking was done through a tour operator who has made all booking in a tour package.It is relevant to mentioned here that Lakshadweep Administration also facilitates its own tour packages with four different names

1. Lakshadweep Samundaram(Ship based package)- five days tour by ship to different islands
2. Marine Wealth Awareness Programme(Staying package)- 4-7 days stay at Kadmath island
3. Taratashi(Staying Package)-4/5 days stay at Kavaratti island
4. Swaying Palms(Staying package)- Six/Seven days stay at Minicoy Island

On reaching Agatti island, a speed vessel of Lakshadweep tourism department was waiting for us. We along with some other tourist likes who booked for Kadmath Island boarded the vessel and speed vessel sailed from Agatti island for Kadmath Island. We reach kadmath after 2.5 hours vessel journey. During this 2.5 hours journey, we enjoyed the roaring of the Arabian sea and also saw types of fishes. We earlier heard about flying fish but this time, we saw flying fish flying side by side of speed vessel and dolphins are playing in a group(Soal).

Fishing in open sea near Kadmath island

On reaching Kadmath Island,  for the stay, we have been providing tourist hut maintained by the Tourism department of  Lakshadweep Administration. To get rest from the hectic air and sea journey we decided to take some rest and in the evening, we would go for beach seeing.

Evening view of Kadmath Beach

we stayed at Kadmath for two days and two nights and enjoyed all kinds of water sports like parasailing, scuba diving, snorkeling, boating, fishing, swimming, and kayaking etc. The four days stay at Kadmath was full of enjoyment. A full fledged water sports institute is also functioning at Kadmath where one can learn and indulge in adventurous activities like scuba diving, windsurfing, and parasailing.But one thing I would also like to reveal here that other than beach nothing is there for site seeing at Kadmath and the best time to visit Lakshadweep is between Mid Oct to Mid Apr.


 About the beach  Kadmath island, I will only say that it is a calm, clean and a true natural beach. No local crowds to disturb, no commercial hoarding to distract,  the only tourist so the best place for couples.

Kadmath Beach

After completion of our two days stay at Kadmath again we started our return journey initially by speed vessel from Kadmath to Agatti, and from Agatti to Kochi airport by Air India Flight and from Kochi to Mumbai it was not a train journey but by Jet airways flight. It was a memorable and ideal tour for me.