Coconut Lagoon Hotel is located hidden among the palm trees on the eastern shore of Lake Vembanad, at Kumarakom, at the mouth of the Kavanar River. It is set on an abandoned coconut plantation in the very heart of these fascinating backwaters, and has been designed to give visitors an authentic insight into Kuttanad life. The resort can only be reached by boat. A ferry leaves from one of several "mainland" embarkation points at scheduled times throughout the day, the closest being Kumarakom. Facilities at Coconut Lagoon include AC cottage and bungalow accommodations, swimming pool, multi-cuisine restaurant, Ayurvedic massage center. Cited in Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning best-seller, "The God of Small Things," the restaurant at Coconut Lagoon is renowned as much for its superb Keralan cuisine (vegetarian and nonvegetarian alike) as for its authentic setting. It is housed in one of the resort's most impressive tharawads. Known as an ettukettu, the building incorporates two atrium-like courtyards under an expansive tile roof supported by dozens of slim columns, a design that enables the space within to benefit from the slightest breeze. The restaurant is the oldest structure at Coconut Lagoon, and it, too, formerly belonged to a prominent Malayali family living in a nearby village. Though all the cottages vary in configuration, and some of the air-conditioned units are newly built replicas incorporating only fragments of old tharawads that could not be saved in their entirety, Coconut Lagoon offers three basic types of accommodation: heritage mansions, heritage bungalows and private pool villas.
