The trip started off the wrong foot. We had booked a tour through the tourist office in Trivandrum and as we got halfway, the minibus had a breakdown and all the tour director could say was that we had to wait. After 2 hours of eating red bananas, drinking coconut water and cursing next to a church (this is Kerala, after all), we finally started moving, but all I wanted to was to be done with the visit quickly. 

Once on the premises though, I regained my excitement: the woodwork is impressive. One such example is the pillar in Thai Kottaram (pictured). After reading here about the murals, I started checking the photos frantically, but then I realised that the access Upparikka Malika's topmost floor was restricted to visitors in order to preserve the paintings.

Kanyakumari/Cape Comorin is also worth a visit for the colours of its sand, the Thiruvalluvar Statue and the memorial to the 2004 tsunami.