Carmelia Haven Periyar

htid

Hi,

Me and my girlfriend are wanting to go to Kerala in May and will visit the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. She is determined that at some point on the holiday we stay in tree house accomodation, so the logical choice would be in Periyar. We've found that Camellia Haven has tree houses but it seems as though they have no website. You only seem to be able to book them through other websites, which don't have details of price or much other information. The tree houses at Wayanad have their own sites, so it's easier to get information, but we don't really want to go right up there if possible.

Does anyone know about the Camellia Haven/has anyone been, and can anyone tell me how you're supposed to find out prices and howe to book etc.?

Thanks a lot.

machadinha

Have you tried going through the booking process? You'd normally expect tariffs and such to come up if you do. Of course, until you hit your final "submit," you'll have booked nothing.

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htid

That';s the thing, it seems as though you can only press submit to make a reservation

I'll have another look, but my main point was are certain places only available through tour companies? Is this commonplace?

machadinha

If you need to fulfil the booking to get a price quote, then obviously leave it. That's uncommon though I think; although I must admit to rarely bothering with online booking, mostly for this and similar reasons.*

Many places all over the world and certainly in India just won't have their own websites, or outdated ones if they do, or never answering any emails, and so on. Nothing to do about it. Hey, there was travel before the internet, before guidebooks even

* Did a couple of test bookings for you on different sites (and I don't find a homepage either). I don't get any further than the promise of an email reply, indeed. Well, that sux. You could register bleep AT hotmail.com right now, there should be some answers in the inbox there (Kidding, they'll have bounced already. Or that registrant is a very unlucky person.)

(By extension however, you could of course register whatever free webmail address then see what replies you get. Probably asking about your CC nr. and your cousin's neighbor's birthday, but one can always try.)

Where did you get their name? If you have their phone nr., just give them a call.

htid

Hmm that's pretty rubbish then.

As for the name, I typed "tree house Periyar" and that was about the only one that came up. I then searched for it on here and found this thread...oh, I can't find it now I just searched for Camellia earlier today and found a thread about it I was sure! Hmmm. We don't know what to do now then.

The only other options are Jungle Park Resort in Vythiri and a single tree house at http://www.edakkal.com/. This thread makes it sound good Sounds good there accommodation wise, but not much to do, I don't know if it's worth going all that way up there (the furthest North we'd be apart from that is Munnar)

Jorge Reverter

They use to have a web page because years ago have printed a lot of thinghs from their web. At the end have stayed elsewhere instead of Camellia, will look for it.

Jorge

machadinha

Htid, if you had any more time, I'd say just go figure it out on the ground, shouldn't be all that hard. But seeing how from other threads apparently you don't... no real further advice. I guess settling for something you can pre-book just to have your peace of mind and another hassle out of the way makes sense.

Hopefully Jorge will be back with details then.

Jorge Reverter

the web page in March 99 was pcweb.com/carmelia/, now hs moved to: www.carmeliahaven.com the web page is very attractive, the difference was in the name.

Jorge

htid

Wow that's great Thanks a lot Jorge, you're a lifesaver (well, figuratively!)

shahronakm

I have stayed at their Tree house in 2002 on my honeymoon. It was a nice experience. Now they have one more thing called Deluxe Tree house, which has glasses on all four sides. I would recommend to stay there at least for one night.

Ronak.

htid

Thanks

Although, we're wanting to use it as a base to explore Periyar, and it turns out it's around an hour away from the Park so not a good idea in that respect. Someone on tripadvisor suggested that if you're travelling from Periyar > Munnar (which we will) then it's a good place to stop on the way, which I'll suggest to her for 1 night (maybe a night in the deluxe tree house and a night in the cave!)

shahronakm

We had done the same thing. Stayed 2 nights @ Periyar & then 2 nights at Carmelia (one night circular cottage / one night tree house) & then went to Munnar. Check out this Periyar link for some ecotourism programmes. http://www.periyartigerreserve.org/

Ronak.

machadinha

What's weird though is Camellia does indeed throw up quite a number of hits, although I'd also suspected spelling issues. Are we sure this is the same place? (Mostly asking with a view to thread title adjustment.)

htid

That's the thing, I typed "Periyar tree houses" in google and the only one it came up with was Camellia. I don't know why it would come up with the wrong spelling, yet the official site wouldn't turn up. Strange indeed.

machadinha

That's the question though: They might well be two separate places.

Either inadvertently, or because in the business people like to copy hotel names with slight adjustments (or none at all) that have been proven to be popular. Varanasi is/was full of Yogi Lodges for instance, one of them famous and the start of it all. Shant(h)i Lodge, ditto. The list goes on all over the country. As it does in others, no doubt.