Varkala is usually seen from above: a cliff path, cafés facing west, and the beach at the foot of the slope. Its canal history asks you to imagine the landscape from the water instead. A boat travelling along Kerala’s sheltered inland route met a ridge here. Rather than end the journey, Travancore cut a passage through it.
A coast connected from the inside
Lagoons offered a way to move goods without putting every coastal journey into the open Arabian Sea. Connecting them required excavation as well as navigation. The Varkala tunnels were an unusually ambitious part of that work: enclosed waterways through laterite, carrying the canal beneath rising ground.
Kerala Tourism dates the start of construction to 1867. Its history gives 1877 as the completion of the first tunnel and 1880 for the second. These are stages of one project, not competing dates for a single opening. The two passages are known as Sivagiri and Chilakoor, with lengths reported as 722 metres and 350 metres respectively.
What a tunnel changes
For a traveller on the canal, a tunnel turned a geographical obstacle into a stretch of the route. For Varkala, it left a second kind of landmark: engineering below the ridge rather than scenery above it. The entrances, cuttings and water channel belong to the same coastal landscape as the more familiar cliff, but tell a different story about how people used it.
Chilakoor’s new chapter
Chilakoor returned to the news in February 2026 with renovation and a tourism launch linked to the Akkulam–Chettuva waterway. The proposed visitor experience included electric boats and a light-and-sound presentation. A March circular hosted by the Inland Waterways Authority of India records the project; reports later that month said public boating had not yet begun.
An inauguration is not a departure timetable. If you want a tunnel boat ride, obtain the operator’s current departure, boarding point and ticket confirmation before travelling. Do not enter either tunnel independently, climb into a cutting or expect a cliff-side beach walk to lead safely to the canal.
Seeing Varkala differently
You can appreciate this history without making the tunnel an improvised expedition. Start with the Varkala Cliff visitor guide, then add a confirmed canal outing if one is available for your dates. The cliff shows why people come to Varkala; the waterway shows how an earlier generation found a way through it.
Read more: Kerala Tourism’s tunnel history, the 2026 waterways circular, and the 28 March report on public access.