Kumarakom is a tourism destination near the city of

Kottayam Kottayam () is a city in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India. It is the district headquarters of the district and is located about north of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. As per the 2011 Indian census, Kottayam has a population of ...

in Kerala, India. It is near the

Vembanad Lake Vembanad () is the longest lake in India, and the largest in the state of Kerala. The lake has an area of 2,033 square kilometers and a maximum length of 96.5 km. Spanning three districts in the state of Kerala, it is known as Vembanad L ...

, the largest lake in the state of Kerala. In January 2023 ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' mentioned Kumarakom's backwater tourism.

Climate

Kumarakom has two

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

s-south west and north east.

Boat race

Boat races include the Nehru Trophy boat race Alappuzha.

In popular culture

Arundhati Roy Suzanna Arundhati Roy (; born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel ''The God of Small Things'' (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. ...

's ''

The God of Small Things ''The God of Small Things'' is a domestic fiction written by the Indian author Arundhati Roy. It is a story about childhood experiences of the fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" prevalent in the 1960s in Kerala, Ind ...

'' is set in Ayemenem or

Aymanam Aymanam is a village in the Kottayam, Kottayam District of Kerala, India. It is about 4 km from the railway station in Kottayam along the road to Parippu, and 85 km from the Cochin International Airport. Aymanam is the setting for Aru ...

village, which adjoins Kumarakom. The explosive success of this novel has given some added tourism impetus to this area. The Taj Garden Retreat hotel complex is centered on a building that is called "History House" in the novel; it was built by British missionary Alfred George Baker, whom the locals called "Kari Saipu" (possibly an

elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

form of "Baker Sahib"), as in the novel. Four generations of Bakers lived in the house until 1962, speaking

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

, and even wearing the

mundu The mundu (Malayalam: ; ) is a garment worn around the waist in the Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, the Lakshadweep archipelago, and the Indian Ocean island nation of Maldives. It is closely related to sarongs like dhotis and lungis ...

. The Baker Memorial School, Kottayam, was started by a daughter of this family in 1925. The Baker family's house is in ruins in the novel, as it was in reality before was developed into a hotel and has been restored by the Taj group. The Ayemenem house, where Arundhati Roy spent part of her childhood (like the twins in the story), can also be visited in the village, which can be reached by boat along the Meenachil river that figures prominently in the story.

Special tourism zone

Kumarakom has been declared a special tourism zone by the Kerala state government, as legislated for by Kerala Tourism Act, 2005.

Awards and honours

It had won top honours including the UNWTO Ulysses Award Probe Chandy's role in 1992 Palmolein case
UNWTO, 22 January 2014 for Innovation in Public Policy and Governance. The Kumarakom initiative had earlier won the National Award for Best Responsible Tourism Project and also the PATA Grand Award for Environment.

References

External links

Kumarakom Backwaters

Kumarakom - Kerala Tourism
* {{Kottayam district Villages in Kottayam district Mangroves