Travel · History · 7 min read

Ayyappancoil: The Drowned Village, the Island Temple and the Hanging Bridge

Where three rivers meet the upper waters of the Idukki reservoir, a town vanished under the lake in the 1970s. Its old stone Sastha temple still rises and sinks with the seasons, and a 200-metre suspension bridge now sways above the water that drowned it.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

The bridge begins to move as soon as you step onto it. Not much: a gentle sway underfoot, a creak of steel cables, a shiver that runs along the deck as someone walks towards you from the far side. Below, the water is wide and still, green-brown and full of the reflections of the hills. A breeze comes down the valley from the High Ranges, smelling of wet grass and cardamom. Halfway across, two hundred metres of steel and wood suspended over the water, you stop and look downstream, and there, on a low rise at the water's edge, stands a small stone temple, its walls lapped by the lake that swallowed the town it once served.

This is Ayyappancoil, on the upper reaches of the Idukki reservoir, where the Periyar, the Kattappanayar and other streams flow together into the great lake. It is a place of quiet beauty, and of memory.

The town beneath the lake

In the early 1960s, Ayyappancoil was a busy township on the banks of the Periyar. Settlers had come up into these hills in the decades before, clearing land for cardamom, pepper and paddy, and the town had grown around its market, its homes and its ancient temple, a place of pilgrimage for the hill people long before the settlers arrived. Paddy fields lay along the river, and paths and roads linked the villages on both banks.

Then came the Idukki hydroelectric project. When the arch dam between Kuravan and Kurathi hills and its sister dams at Cheruthoni and Kulamavu were built, the waters of the Periyar would back up for miles into the valleys upstream. Ayyappancoil lay in their path. The Kerala government evacuated the township, and its people were resettled on higher ground. Homes, shops, fields and roads were abandoned, and as the dams were completed in the 1970s, the rising reservoir slowly swallowed them.

The people did not forget. The village was reborn on the slopes above the lake, and in 1977 the new Ayyappancoil grama panchayat was formed, its farms of cardamom, pepper and tea climbing the hills that look down on the water where the old town lies. (Read the story of the dams in The Titans of the Ghats.)

The temple that would not leave

At the heart of the old town stood the temple of Sree Dharma Sastha, Ayyappa, built of stone on the riverbank. Local tradition holds that its idol was consecrated by the sage Parasurama, the legendary creator of Kerala, and the temple carries inscriptions in old Tamil script, a sign of its age and of the old links between these hills and the Tamil country. It has long been sacred to the Mannan tribal community, and another local legend tells of an underground passage that once led from here all the way to the Meenakshi temple at Madurai. Its entrance is still pointed out, though no one may enter it.

When the town was evacuated, the deity was ceremonially moved to a new temple at Thoppipala, on the Kattappana–Kuttikkanam road. But the old shrine was not abandoned. Its sanctum was raised so that it would stand above the water, and many local people still prefer to worship at the original site, by the river where their ancestors prayed.

The seasonal ghost

Ayyappancoil lives by the rhythm of the reservoir, and the same place looks utterly different at different times of the year.

From June, as the southwest monsoon fills the Idukki reservoir, the water creeps up the banks, drowns the old fields and paths and surrounds the temple. At its highest, only the raised sanctum stands above the lake, a small stone island in a sheet of water, and pilgrims and priests reach it by canoe. The old road bridge across the river disappears under water for about six months of the year.

Then, from late winter into summer, as the reservoir is drawn down for power and the rains fail, the water slowly retreats. The lake shrinks back to a river. Stony riverbeds, the outlines of old paddy fields, the stumps of old trees and the remains of the drowned settlement emerge from the mud. The temple stands on dry ground again, its stone walls and steps stained by months under water, and visitors can walk across the bed of the reservoir among the traces of a town that vanished half a century ago. For the old people of Ayyappancoil, it is a strange and moving sight: the landscape of their childhood, returning for a few weeks each year.

For major festivals, when the water is high, local tribal people build a temporary bamboo bridge to the temple, an old skill still remembered.

The hanging bridge

The reservoir that drowned the town also cut the two banks of the river apart for half the year. For decades, people living on the far shore depended on boats and long detours. To reconnect them, a pedestrian suspension bridge about 200 m long was built across the Periyar, opening around 2012, linking Ayyappancoil with Kanchiyar panchayat. It is the longest hanging bridge in Idukki district and one of the longest in Kerala, and from November, when the water floods the lowlands, it is often the only way across.

It has also become the place's great attraction. Walking across it is a gentle thrill: the deck sways, the cables hum, and the water lies far below. From the middle, the views open in every direction: the wide reservoir, the meeting of the rivers, bamboo groves and forest on the banks, the green slopes of cardamom farms, the distant blue line of the hills, and, downstream, the old temple on its island or its bank. In the monsoon, the bridge seems to float over a vast blue lake; in summer, it spans a valley of stones and grass where a river winds through the remains of the old town. Morning mist and evening light are both magical here.

Nearby

• Thoppipala, with the new Sastha temple.
• Kattappana, the market town of the cardamom hills.
• Anchuruli, where the Erattayar tunnel pours into the same reservoir. (Read our guide to Anchuruli.)
• Kalvari Mount, for a view over the whole reservoir. (Read Kalvari Mount.)
• Parunthumpara, Kuttikkanam and Thekkady, each within about an hour.

Visitor's guide

• Getting there: Ayyappancoil is about 15 km from Kattappana; the bridge is about 2 km from Mattukatta on the Kattappana–Kuttikkanam road. It is about 45 km from Painavu (Idukki), 40 km from Kumily and roughly 75 km from Munnar.
• For the bridge and a full reservoir: visit from July to December, when the water is high and the hills are green; the views from the bridge are at their most dramatic.
• To see the old temple and the drowned landscape: visit in the dry months, roughly February to May, when the water has receded and you can walk on the riverbed. Water levels vary from year to year with the rain and the power demand.
• Boats: local boats and canoes ferry people across when the water is high, and are used to reach the temple; ask locally whether rides are available. We have not found a regular coracle (bowl-boat) service here.
• On the bridge: cross a few people at a time, hold the railings, and do not jump or rock the bridge; follow any limits on the number of people.
• On the riverbed: the mud can be soft and the water deep in places; do not swim or wade in the reservoir.
• At the temple: remove footwear, dress modestly and respect worshippers.