The summer season rush in various tourists spots including Kanyakumari, Puliyoorkurichi, Padmanabhapuram, Thirparappu, Mathur and other lesser-known tourist spot including Kalikesam and Pechipparai dam in the district has finally picked up with holidays being declared for schools and colleges.
In Kanyakumari, long queues were seen in Poombuhar shipping corporation, which operates boat services to Vivekananda rock memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue.
While the summer holiday season is a peak time for hoteliers in tourist spots, they have not fixed boards with the prices of eatables or room rents.
As a result, poor and middle class families who frequent these places have been put to untold hardship, particularly in Kanyakumari and the erstwhile capital of Travancore state – Padmanabhapuram.
Moreover the quality of the food has also not been up to standards prescribed by the concerned officials.
There is also the complaint that adequate toilet facilities have not been provided by Kanyakumari Town Panchayat for those who do not plan to stay in Kanyakumari.
In between Kanyakumari and Padmanabhapuram, the newest attraction is modernized bio-diversity park within the Udayagiri fort at Puliyoorkurichi near Thuckalay.
The aquarium within the bio-diversity park has been attracting school students.
Next to this fort the wooden palace in Padmanabhapuram, which is frequented by foreign touristsSimilarly, huge crowds also throng Thirparappu falls as well as Mathur hanging bridge, the one of the longest and highest hanging bridges in Asia.
The operation of luxury boats at a tank near Thirparappu falls is also attracting more domestic tourists. However owing to lack of operation of adequate buses from Kanyakumari and Thuckalay to this area, tourists have been forced to pay huge amount for taxi or auto-rickshaws to reach these places.
A feature of this season has been the increasing patronage for even lesser-known tourists locations.
