Thenmala Bee Hive dormitory

A community-linked forest and wetland visitor area near Madathara, used for guided birding and nature walks rather than an unrestricted independent forest excursion.

Eco-tourism area with forest walks, dam views and adventure activities.

Twenty Forest Department programmes in the Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary — walks of one to six hours, a dawn birding trail, boat and vehicle safaris and four camps — booked at the wildlife office at Thenmala. Rates are per group and include 18% GST.

Guided trekking trails at Thenmala, billed as India’s first planned eco-tourism destination, through the Shendurney forests and dam catchment in Kollam.

A valley settlement inside Shenduruney Wildlife Sanctuary, reached by 11–15 km of forest road from Aryankavu, with a ticketed Forest Department viewpoint, a departmental safari and guided walks beyond the village.

The Parappar dam across the Kallada river at Thenmala, built for irrigation — the reservoir behind it is the water the eco-tourism area is built around, and the catchment upstream is Shendurney sanctuary.

The Sastha temple on the old Kollam–Sengottai road and rail route into Tamil Nadu, where Ayyappa is worshipped married to Pushkaladevi rather than celibate — with a forest village, a railway pass and the Palaruvi road around it.

A protected evergreen forest in the Agasthyamalai Biosphere Reserve east of Thenmala, named for the Chenkurinji tree and centred on the Parappar reservoir.

Tall forest waterfall near the Aryankavu side of the Western Ghats, reached by forest shuttle from the highway.

The Sastha temple on the Kollam–Shencottai road where the god is Bala Sastha, the child, and the river alongside is full of protected fish the devotees call Thirumakkal — the sacred children of the lord. Feeding them puffed rice, meenoottu, is the temple’s characteristic offering and fishing is prohibited outright; one of the two species present, Hypselobarbus thomassi, is critically endangered and endemic to the Western Ghats. Named in every published version of the Pancha Sastha. Three 15th-century sculptures from here are in the Napier Museum, Thiruvananthapuram.

A rare 1877 Travancore-government suspension bridge over the Kallada river at Punalur, in east Kollam on the way to the ghats.