Welcome To The Jungle District of Wayanad, India Photos

Aug 27, 2017 • By Leonidas K. • 8 min read

India Travel

Welcome to the Jungle District of Wayanad, India

Wayanad is a hill district in the state of Kerala, sitting 700 to 2,100 meters up in the Western Ghats mountain range. The name comes from “Vayal Nadu,” meaning “land of paddy fields.” People have lived here for a long time. The Edakkal Caves in Wayanad contain petroglyphs dating back to around 6,000 BCE, some of the oldest evidence of human civilization in South India.

Today the district runs on tea, coffee, pepper, and cardamom plantations. It’s part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, and shares borders with the Bandipur and Mudumalai wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The bus from Mysore to Wayanad was a fun journey. We went through the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a corridor for wild elephants moving between the reserves. To prevent vehicular elephant slaughter, speed bumps are placed about every 100 meters for a good hour of driving through the jungle. Since the bus driver was going about 50 km/h regardless of speed bumps, you get thrown into the air every few seconds.

Check out Mysore, India here.

Deep in the Western Ghats

The Western Ghats are a 1,600 km mountain chain running along India’s western coast, older than the Himalayas. UNESCO designated them a World Heritage Site in 2012, and they’re recognized as one of the eight “hottest hotspots” of biodiversity in the world. More than 30% of all India’s plant, fish, reptile, and mammal species are found here.

Wayanad sits right in the thick of it. The landscape is dominated by areca nut palms (betel nut), the tall skinny trees you see lining every path and road. Areca nut is one of Kerala’s biggest cash crops, chewed by millions across South and Southeast Asia. Between the palms you’ll find coconut trees, banana plants, pepper vines, and coffee bushes, all growing together in a layered canopy that blocks out most of the sky.

A red-roofed house hidden in the tropical jungle of Wayanad

Misty Western Ghats peaks rising above the palm canopy

Palm trees framing a cloud-wrapped mountain in Wayanad

Dense areca nut plantation with houses barely visible behind the trees

Our hotel was literally located within the jungle, after driving through a couple of muddy roads. Every house in the district looks like it was dropped into the middle of a forest.

A narrow path through coconut and banana palms leading toward the mountains

A man on a motorbike navigating a narrow jungle path

A red dirt road lined with tall areca nut palms on both sides

My buddy David walking through an areca nut plantation

A bright green house with a red tile roof surrounded by jungle

Areca palms and pine trees with misty tea hills behind them

Monsoon Season

We visited during the Southwest monsoon, which hits Kerala from June through September. Wayanad gets about 3,000 mm of rainfall annually, and most of it falls in these four months. Everything is soaking wet, but the rain is warm, not cold at all, very manageable.

Oh, and there was an abundance of mosquitos. But luckily I brought 2 canisters of mosquito repellent. So for the rest of the few days of being in the freshest air in the world, we smelled like industrial chemicals. But at least no mosquito bites, right?

The monsoon turns the entire district a shade of green you don’t see anywhere else. Flowers bloom everywhere, the waterfalls are at full force, and the rivers are swollen. It’s technically the off-season for tourism, so everything is cheaper and less crowded.

A purple morning glory flower covered in monsoon raindrops

A woman in a pink sari with an umbrella on a wet jungle path

Walking on a rain-slicked road past tea-covered hillsides with red laterite soil

My buddy David soaking wet in the monsoon rain with a grin

Tea Country

The British introduced commercial tea cultivation to Wayanad in the 1880s. Today the district produces some of Kerala’s finest tea, alongside coffee, pepper, and cardamom. The estates spread across entire hillsides, hundreds of acres of low green bushes trimmed to waist height for hand-picking. Workers (mostly women) pick the top two leaves and a bud from each stem, every 7-10 days during growing season.

I also have to mention that this area was the cleanest area I’ve seen in all of India. A nice place to visit and hide away for a few days. I feel like Wayanad can get quite peaceful, and it would be a great place to work if you’re a digital nomad.

Houses nestled between tea plantation rows and palm trees

Terraced rows of tea bushes covering a hillside

Village rooftops with tea hills stretching into the mist

A red-brick tea estate building surrounded by tea bushes on a hillside

Around Town

Kalpetta is the district capital of Wayanad, population around 30,000. It’s small, loud, and has that typical Indian small-town energy: colorful buses, auto-rickshaws honking, and Mahindra jeeps everywhere (the preferred vehicle for navigating muddy plantation roads).

Kerala is the only Indian state that has been governed by communist parties for extended periods. The CPI(M) (Communist Party of India, Marxist) has held power on and off since 1957, and their presence is visible everywhere: hammer and sickle symbols painted on walls, red flags on buildings, party offices on every other block. Whether you agree with them or not, Kerala has India’s highest literacy rate (96%), best healthcare system, and lowest infant mortality rate. Something is working.

A cow staring directly at the camera with the herd behind

A colorful bus and goods carrier truck on a Wayanad town street

A row of Mahindra jeeps lined up on the main road in Kalpetta

Group photo with local guys next to an auto-rickshaw in the rain

Communist Party hammer and sickle symbol painted on a wall in the jungle

The Train South

To get from Wayanad to Fort Kochi, you take a bus down the mountain to Kozhikode (Calicut) on the coast, then catch the train south. Kozhikode is where Vasco da Gama first landed in India in 1498, opening the sea route from Europe. The railway station was originally built in 1888 under British rule and is one of the oldest in Kerala.

Indian Railways is one of the largest rail networks in the world, running about 13,000 trains daily and carrying over 20 million passengers. The trains we took had no AC, just ceiling fans and open windows. The fare was about $2 for a 5-hour journey. You can’t beat that.