We arrive at Sultan Bathery late in the evening but it’s really difficult to find a place to sleep here. Many times we hear that the hotel is full or we get a hotel which is way too overpriced. Finally we find a nice place to sleep and the owner explains us that he doesn’t have a permit to take in foreigners. That was the reason so many hotels were “full”, the hotels were only allowed to take in Indians and they couldn’t or didn’t want to explain this to us.
The next day, we go to visit the Edakkal Caves. There’s a long climb beforehand. We fear it would be for nothing as entrance fees for tourists can be ridiculously higher than for Indians. Luckily this isn’t the case here and we pay 20 rupees per person. At first sight it seems like we are just looking at structures in the rocks, formed by erosion, but then a guide gives us some explanation for what we are looking at, and then we do see it. In these caves you can find rock carvings thousands of years old.

Edakkal Caves

View from Top of the Cave

We are glad we came here, especially for the view over the mountains from the top of the cave.
On the way up, we see some shops selling homemade chocolate and we decide to buy some on the way down. Don’t miss out on this when you come here!
Around noon we are back and continue the journey to the coastline.

Area around the Caves

More info on www.wijzijnweg.org