Vagamon Hills Tour Guide

Vagamon is a hill station situated in Kottayam, Idukki border of Kerala, India. It has a warm place with cool climate as the temperature between 10 and 23 degree Celsius during summer noontime. Vagamon is situated 1,100 meters above sea level.

Kurisumala monastery is a famous hill station and pilgrimage center for the Christians where cross put-up in each sub hill stations. The close to Kurisumala Ashram is a residence of calm and spiritual delight. This hill area includes 12 sub mounds where pilgrims visit as a sacrifice. Travelers can enjoy trekking and climbing this high hill. The area is fully surrounded with Tea estates and lakes. Indo-Swiss Project dairy farms is situated on the hills.

In the Sahya Range of the Western ghats on Idukki’s border with Kottayam 68 km from Thekkady

Vagamon is surely God’s final creation so nearly perfect that it looks like the culmination of practice in sculpting the other beautiful spots in God’s own country.

Come to think of it you’ll be hard pressed to find a room even today there are few hotels currently available and finding a bed to crash out on can become an exercise in desperation. So what gives?. A hill station sans hotels?. A place high up in the clouds with nary a roof for shelter.

The Vagamon 3,500ft above sea level is a paradise in the making or more correctly, an unknown heaven only now beginning to show its charms to the world outside. Like a bride being prepared for a dazzling wedding, Vagamon is now gathering the accourements that will embellish the grand occasion when the whole world gasps at her beauty, her trousseau, her gait. You can see it happening, as the thin mist lifts with the rising sun to reveal a young archtect squatting in the midst of a 100-acre forest seeking inspiration on how to integrate stone and wood into a villa, without displacing a single rock formation.

About 10 km from vagamon is Kurisumala, a pilgrime center for Christians that recreates Christ’s final hourney the way of the cross in a series of pictures or tableaux. These represent scenes in the passion of Christ, each corresponding to a particular incident as he made as last journey up to calvary and constituting the most popular of all catholic devotions.

Though it looks formidable from the ground, kursumala is not a very tough climb and there are enough paths around the steeper inclines to allow even the aged and infirm to complete the 2 km trek. All along you will be accompanied by groups of devotees passing from station to station, offering prayers at each, deditating on the various incidents depicted here.

And all along, you can stop to catch your breath and take in the spectacular vistas the cows grazing in the distant valley, the towns of pala and thodupuzha sitting like little patches on a green carpet, the mist kissing the hillsides, the terraced tea plantations like cakes at a wedding reception. Even a non-believer will feel uplifted once atop kurisumala. Kurisumala can also be visited by jeep from Vagamon for around Rs100-250.

Meditate Amidst Cows and Flowers

Just before you enter Vagamon, about 3 km from the market center, you’ll see a bus stop opposite which is a large statue of Christ. The road from there leads to the Kurisumala Ashram, which thankfully is off bounds for vehicles. But you can walk around the beautiful ashram campus, set up in 1955 by a Belgian Cistercian monk, Abbott Francis Acharya.

Previously the ashram was open to visitors who could tour the farm the dairy training center and the meditation center. Now though it is closed for technical reasons, you can still walk around and savour the silence and meditative calm of the place, heightened by the beautiful gardens and glowers.

Picnic on Hilltops

Turn right at the junction with all the signposts and you’re on the road to Elappara, a small township 20 km away, where you can stock up on essentials like fuel. There is no petrol station at Vagamon, though some shops sell fuel in the black. The only other pump is at Erattupettah, 24 km away. You can also get some fuel for yourself at the government run liquor store at Elappara, as there are no bars in Vagamon.