How Not To Get Fleeced at Poovar Backwaters for Speed Boating

Day 1

Poovar which boasts of one of the last beaches of Kerala is located some

Poovar which is located in the Southernmost end of Kerala and some 15 - 20 Kms from Kovalam is a must visit if you are a nature enthusiast and visiting Kovalam / Trivandrum.

Poovar is almost an hour's drive from Kovalam beaches and can be completed in half a days time .

The same can be clubbed with Sri Padmanabhaswami Temple and should be Ideally visited early morning or in the evening to witness the setting sun.

We left from Kovalam with a lot of apprehension regarding finding the boat and since there were a lot of reviews over the internet about how exorbitantly they charge and this especially being high season and end of December, I was expecting to get fleeced pretty bad.

In the internet, you find a lot of reviews where people claim they paid around Rs 4000 for a 2 hour ride.

Even my agent who had booked our Kerala trip informed that Rs 3500 after negotiation would be a fair deal. My driver whom I had requested for price before boarding did not answer my query somehow .

It's only later that I realised his hesitancy in giving a definite answer.

Anyway that left me with little choice but to look for a solution myself. I searched the internet and found out that there are many boating agents out there and most of them have not received a positive review. Then I came across a link which had very few reviews but those were all positive.

Here is the Google Link :

https://g.page/r/CSkFCDlB0DLZEA0/review

His name was Shaijin J. and immediately found his number from Google . I texted him on watsapp rather than calling and he was quite prompt in his reply.

I straightaway came to the price and asked him and he quoted Rs 1300 for 1.5 hours and Rs 1500 for 2 hours which I could have bargained further on but I knew that this would be a fair enough price. He shared me his location over watsapp and only question that he asked me was whether I was driving on my own or coming with a driver. At that moment, I did not understand the relevance of the question. Its only later that I did so.

When we were about to reach Poovar, my driver Jijo then took us to one of the motor boat companies in Poovar. The same driver who was extremely quiet till then and not provided us with any sure shot answer which I had believed by now was his basic nature as during our 7 day trip even though the role assigned to him was of driver cum guide, he only had assumed the role of a driver.

Now when I told him that I have already spoken to someone and fixed a deal, he did not seem at all pleased and infact very upset as if I had turned his world upside down.

I told him to please drive to the location shared with me. Its when we reached that location that he confronted me and told that I had crossed my boundaries by bypassing him for booking the boat ride.

But when enquired earlier he had not mentioned anything about the prices and now started saying himself that they start from 1500 onwards to any range depending upon requirement.

But too bad he was too late by then and had missed his bus to earn good fat commission which they get from boat agencies. The higher they end up charging from the customer, the fatter their commission is and according to my boat driver, it goes upto 50 %.

So I was wondering that do we really want these middlemen out there. Drivers who are not able to perform their own job properly which is of showing around tourists with true heart and intent but at the same time are at the very forefront of extracting money from you. Also, why go through all the headache of negotiating and bargaining over and over again to come down to the right price.

And, also as tourists I feel it always leaves a bad taste in our mouth regarding a place and its people, if we somehow later realise that we were really overcharged for an activity or even any item.

There is always a fair price for everything and I have always been in favour that in India these prices should be regulated by the government.

You know beforehand what you are going for and what's going out of your pocket. Example would be Paragliding in Gangtok, Sikkim. They only go by goverment approved rates and atleast never beyond that.

Coming back to Poovar ,the boat ride through the mangrove forests was extremely scenic and a must do for everyone visiting that part of God's own country.

Our boatsman was extremely patient and took us for a good round. He took us to a restaurant first where we placed our order for food and then he showed us Elephant Rock and Mother Mary Statue.

Then he showed us all the resorts and took us all across the islands through the narrow canals of backwaters and mangrove forests.

He was extremely patient and seemed to be enjoying doing his job and the entire ride easily took somewhat less than 2.5 hours including the scrumptious lunch he made us had at Sea Queen Restaurant. And, finally what made this all the more enjoyable was that we did not end up feeling cheated during the course of our trip.

We knew that the person had shown us the place with a lot of enthusiasm and he had charged us the correct price for it.

Here is a link which he later shared to contact him :

https://www.poovarboatingisland.com/