Sam’s Kalarickal Heritage is a 70 acres property at a fantastic location a few km from the Puliyanmala town near thekkady. The weather was pleasant when we reached in Mid November around noon time. Sam had assured us that enough hygiene safeguards were in place for our stay. The property has a caretaker who took care of our needs.

The lunch was the traditional Kerala meals with an excellent fish fry and curry on the side. After our lunch, the caretaker showed us around the property which has been primarily growing cardamom spices for decades. He showed us around the old bungalow and the adjoining buildings and the history behind it. (The bungalow was built in 1929 by Sam’s great grandfather). He showed us the inside of the vast cardamom store where the cardamom seeds were dried with hot air dryer and stored.

The rooms were quite spacious especially the bathrooms with hot water( Usually the bathrooms of hotel/resort are very small) and were quite well furnished. WiFi is also available.

The cook mentioned that we can have a barbecue grill setup in the night. They have a decent portable music system on which we could play songs and barbeque the chicken in the open grill. The weather in the night is quite pleasant maybe a bit cold but nothing a nice sweater can’t fix. We also played table tennis, Jenga and chess. Cycles are available for kids.

The caretaker took us around the estate and showed us the cardamom plants with their enormous leaves which are more than 6ft tall. We also saw ripe cardamom growing at the bottom of the plants. While walking around, the caretaker mentioned to us to look at the wild boar diggings all around the property. While we didn’t see any wild boars, we could imagine that the estate must be full of them just by looking at the number of diggings we saw around the property.

Breakfast was delicious with tasty dosas and chutney. We left the property after our lunch which was also exceptional.

We stayed here as part of a planned 2 week tour of Kerala. Such a beautiful place to stay. The rooms are spacious, light, clean and well looked after & the setting with the surrounding plantation, garden with flowers & beehives is idyllic. I spent a lovely couple of hours sitting watching the peppercorns drying and then being raked and packed away. The food both for breakfast and in the evening was delicious with traditional Keralan on offer alongside other choices.
The tour of the plantation and an explanation of the cardamom process was really interesting and informative. We could have stayed here much longer than our 2 nights and were really sad that we had to leave, cut short by the Corona pandemic, if we had to have got stuck somewhere this would have been the perfect place to do it. The manager of the bungalow was really helpful, welcoming, reassuring and funny. It was a pleasure to stay here and we will definitely be back once the world is not so toosy turvy.
Thank you & we hope that you stay safe and well during this challenging time for everyone.
Becky & Toby x

The place is superb. The rooms are well kitted out. Mine host could not do enough for you. Very helpful and a great conversationalist. We had very interesting discussions about various things. It was a pleasure to meet this guy. Dinner and Breakfast can be accommodated around you plans for the day. We were on a tight schedule so he met are needs accordingly. Top Mark's for service and hospitality. Thanks Stevs and Debbie.