Review Of Wayanad Sterling Holiday Resort
Including A Blow-by-blow Account of My Stay
Introduction
As Toni Morrison has said,
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
This is the review I wanted to read, but it hadn’t been written yet. So, I have written it now for others.
This review would have saved me the doubt about whether the stay at this resort would be good. It was, sort of.
This review has two versions. For those short on time, the executive summary version follows. For those who want more details, scroll on to the detailed version. You can later come back to the short version of a summary of recommended dishes.
Executive Summary Version
The Route
The route from Bangalore passes through Bandipur Tiger Reserve. You might see deer, monkeys, boars, peacocks and elephants.
Check-in Procedure
Provide ID proof for anybody older than a toddler.
Sign a waiver as the resort is in a forest. Fill in the names of party members and the mobile number and name of an emergency contact not with the party.
Buggy tour of the resort.
Drop to the restaurant.
Restaurant First Impression
It’s grand and spacious with welcoming and friendly staff.
Recommended Dishes
Breakfast Buffet
Poori - bhaji
Vada - sambar
Dosa - chicken curry
Mini doughnuts
Coffee
Chole-Batura
Gobi paratha
Tea
Pongal-sambar
Lunch Buffet
Paneer gravy
Butter kulcha
IRD (in-room dining)
Butter kulcha - malai paneer
South Indian filter coffee
Fresh lime soda (sweet, and sweet and salt)
Chicken malai kabab
High Tea
Coffee
Tea
Okay Dishes
Breakfast Buffet
Omelette
Lunch Buffet
Chicken curry
Crispy corn
IRD
Hyderabadi chicken biriyani
Naan - butter chicken
Butter kulcha - paneer jalfrezi
Malabar chicken biriyani
Chilli chicken
High Tea
Pastry
Dishes To Avoid
Breakfast Buffet
Pancake
French toast
Masala dosa
Sandwich
Egg curry
Lunch Buffet
Fish dishes
Soup
Dessert (due to flies sitting on them)
High Tea
Chilli Bajji
Onion Pakoda
Suggestions For Resort
Consider installing a pest zapper near the desserts.
Suggestions For Guests
Try the buffet the first time to see what to order for IRD (in-room dining).
There’s no mobile signal. So call the resort and ask for wi-fi details. Four devices can be connected.
IRD Procedure
Call the resort and provide your Whatsapp number.
They will send you the menu.
Room First Impression
It’s small but looks good.
Pool Information
With up to 6 families, the pool doesn’t feel congested. This is the normal turnout. Beyond that, it gets cramped.
There are a couple of paddle boats that can be dangerous if they hit kids or if they overturn with the kids in them.
Pool is clean
Towels are available for the taking
Pool chairs are slippery. Drape a towel before lying down.
One side of the pool gives way to a steep slope and may be dangerous for kids.
Coffee Or Tea?
In most parts of Kerala, coffee doesn’t taste good, but tea does. There are rare places in the state where coffee is good, but tea isn’t. Wayanad, or at least this resort, is the only place I know in Kerala where both are good.
Activities
In Activities Room
Free
Carrom (2 boards: 4 and 6 players, respectively)
Pool
Table Tennis
Foosball
Jenga
Kid’s play area
Paid
3 Gaming consoles (charged per half hour)
Outside Activities Room
Paid
Pottery (pay Rs. 150 to potter and Rs. 250 to resort)
Unknown
Rock climbing
Zipline (alleged–I didn’t see it)
Free
Horticulture area
Butterfly area
Evening activities (7 pm onwards)
Kid’s play area
Caution
Most good dishes are fattening. If you are watching your weight, this is something to keep in mind and reduce the number of dishes you order and the portions you eat, even if some food might get wasted.
Detailed Version
Day 1
We hired a cab to go to the resort and back. On the way, I was pleasantly surprised to pass through Bandipur Tiger Reserve. My sense of geography is poor, and what might be common knowledge for others took me by surprise.
We saw deer, monkeys, a boar, peacocks and elephants.
We reached the resort and checked in, and they gave us a tour of the resort in a buggy, with the final destination being the restaurant.
My first impression of the restaurant was that it was grand and spacious.
We opted for the buffet. The fish dishes (a curry and a fry) were bad. They were underspiced and so tasted a bit raw. The chicken curry was good, but not enough to support a complete meal.
In desperation, I turned to the veg section, which I normally spurn, and came back with a plate laden with paneer curry. I also swallowed my pride and asked for the kulcha I had turned down thrice three minutes ago.
My gambit paid off. The kulcha was surprisingly crunchier than expected and made for the best part of the meal with the paneer. I would recommend this combination amongst the offerings in the buffet but nothing else.
The soup was also underspiced. The dessert isn’t impressive. A pastry had a fly on it. I wonder if a pest zapper would help. The crispy corn was okay. The ice cream had run out by 2 pm, and I realised only later that we forgot to ask the servers to refill it.
A portly chef with a French beard, who reminded me of one of my cousins, materialised and asked how the food was. I didn’t have the heart to tell him, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known where to start. So, I pretended it was all good. I couldn’t help but think later that instead of asking how the food was, if the chef had spent that time on the meat dishes, he might not have had to ask how the food was.
Since the vegetarian dishes were better, I wondered if vegetarian chefs also cooked the meat dishes.
The buffet cost a bomb and isn’t worth it. Still, I would recommend you try the buffet for the first meal anywhere you check-in. It will give you a good idea of what to order for room service and what to avoid.
Incidentally, room service has a naughty connotation. Maybe that’s why everyone calls it IRD (in-room dining).
There’s no mobile signal in the resort. Call them on the room phone to get the wi-fi details.
For IRD, you need to call them and provide your number. They will WhatsApp you the menu. Again, nothing inspires confidence except kulcha, paneer and coffee.
I will get back to the coffee in a bit. After lunch, we came to our room. It was small but looked good.
We went to the pool. A lot of people came to the pool over the two hours we were there, but it didn’t feel too congested because the pool was big. There are a couple of paddle boats for kids, which could be dangerous if they hit small kids or if they are in the boat and fall in.
On the side of the pool area near the exits from the pool, there’s a steep slope down which kids might fall.
Ari started swimming towards the best-looking female, whom I had already discreetly checked out. Like father, like son? I guess.
As if in response to our interest, she clung to her husband like a limpet for the next two hours, and we ignored her.
Jaya got jealous even though I wouldn’t stop her from doing the same to me. She disapproved of the PDA, but I consider their behaviour a couple goal.
We returned to our room, and I pondered whether to order coffee or tea. I think in most parts of Kerala, tea tastes good, and coffee tastes bad. There are exceptions, and I didn’t know if Wayanad was one.
I asked Jaya, as her mom is from Kerala, and as usual, she stuck to the basics and said,
“In Kerala, tea tastes good.”
“Everyone knows that. I am asking you to go deeper. Your dad said of a border town between Kerala and Karnataka that it was the last place in Kerala to get good coffee on that route. What about this route? Is Wayanad like that place?”
“I don’t know.”
So, we attended the high tea near the activities room to sample both and found that coffee is good in Wayanad or at least in Sterling Resort, Wayanad. Tea is also good, but coffee is better.
I think that makes Wayanad the only place in Kerala I know where both coffee and tea taste good. Usually, it’s either or neither.
Among high tea snacks, the chilly bajji is not spicy. So, eating it is pointless. The onion pakoda has so much ginger that it’s, in effect, ginger pakoda and is unpalatable, leaving the pastry as the sole worthwhile option.
The activities room is good. It features carrom, pool, table tennis, foosball and others. It also has three gaming consoles that they charge per half hour. It has a play area for toddlers, which they love. Sagu found a quiet boy and, in a few minutes, transformed him into a menace like herself. I think her parents will rue this day for a long time. Some of the activities were unused throughout our visit there.
The activities manager kept pestering us to do pottery and attend the evening show. We eluded him on the first day. Let’s see if our luck holds. We saw rock climbing on the way to the activities room. There is also a zip line, but I am not sure where.
For dinner, I ordered kulcha, paneer and coffee as planned. The kulcha and paneer were not as good as at lunch but still okay and the coffee continues to be good.
Day 2
We were late for breakfast and started close to the closing time of 10 a.m. Many of the dishes were over, but the staff did a good job of keeping everyone supplied with what they wanted.
I would recommend poori-bhaji, vada-sambar, dosa-chicken curry, mini doughnuts and coffee. Avoid French toast, masala dosa and omelette.
Next, we went to the pool, which had only four families, including us. Like yesterday, the pool was clean and towels were readily available for the taking.
For lunch, we ordered chicken biriyani, butter chicken, naan and coffee. All were good, but the chicken was too bony and was gone, orphaning a lot of the butter chicken gravy and biriyani rice. I am notorious for finishing gravy and wasting the meat. So, if I were to leave the gravy standing with all the meat gone, it means the meat was so less that it could win the Guinness record for the least meat in a meat dish. To think that the food here is expensive and they still skimp on the meat to such a degree leaves a bad taste in the mouth, supplanting the good taste of the dishes.
For dinner, we ordered chicken biriyani. This time, I didn’t share it to check if the chicken-to-rice ratio was indeed wrong, but I couldn’t because this time, I ran out of raita. So, biriyani is probably better avoided because it isn’t properly proportioned. Either there’s too little meat or too little raita. This lack of proportioning confirms my suspicion that vegetarian chefs cook meat dishes.
Day 3
Yesterday, we left Sagu unattended at the table. Ari seemed to have joined her immediately, but still, it was an unprecedented slip-up in my twelve years of raising my kids. So, today, on day three, I hung around Sagu as Jaya gathered Sagu’s breakfast from the buffet table.
I then sat at the table with the kids while Jaya went to get breakfast. To reward me for putting Sagu before food, Jaya fetched my breakfast. She ordered masala dosa, but when it arrived, Sagu commandeered it. Jaya had also ordered chole-batura, which was good and which I recommend. As usual, the coffee was good and the sandwich bad due to inclusion of cabbage. Egg curry was missable.
We went to the pool, which had five families, including us. Two more families joined, and it got crowded. One of the families left and the pool felt spacious once more.
For lunch, I ordered kulcha-paneer jalfrezi and coffee, which were good, but I am tired of paneer, and there are no good alternatives.
Sagu did the pottery activity. The outcome was an uncategorised vessel that looked like a cat. Jaya later revealed it as a pen stand. We had to pay Rs. 150 to the potter and Rs. 250 to the resort.
We then went to the activities room, where Sagu fortunately couldn’t find any new kid to corrupt. Ari and I played table tennis. He’s learning and improving.
Last time we had rallied around, I told him,
“You scored two points.”
“How many did you score?”
“Everything that you didn’t.”
I didn’t know what that ‘everything’ was. I hadn’t kept count. Today, I did. The scoreline was 74–8. I reckon we played for the same amount of time last time. So, Ari has improved. We didn’t play a game as he is not ready yet.
We tried to play carrom, but the board was hexagonal and meant for six players. In hindsight, we should probably have played on it. It would have been a novel experience but put off by the change, I suggested we move to the adjoining regular board, but Sagu moved to the foosball table and wanted to play alone. We didn’t agree. So, she dragged us out.
We went to a kid’s play area outside. It has slides and such. From there, we took a long walk and found a horticultural area. There was a butterfly area, but we were not sure where exactly it was. So, we went back to our room.
For dinner, I ordered Malabari chicken biriyani and fresh lime soda. The Malabari biriyani rice garnished with burnt onion and cashews was good. It had a hint of raisin, but the chicken in the biriyani tasted weird. So, I poached most of the pieces from Ari’s chilli chicken.
The fresh lime soda had a hint of sugarcane juice, and I highly recommend it.
Day 4
On our last full day in the resort, for breakfast, I had vada-sambar, Gobi paratha and tea. Coffee makes me anxious and overreact to things, which I did yesterday. So, I am off coffee for the rest of the trip. At home, I have only decaf which isn’t available here or in any resort usually.
The pool had six families and didn’t feel crowded.
For lunch, we ordered chicken malai kabab, Hyderabadi chicken biriyani, kulcha-butter chicken and fresh lime soda. All were good, but the biriyani was not that great, and we should have probably given it a miss.
At the activities room today, the females in our party played Jenga and the males table tennis.
Ari increased his score from 8–74 to 14–74. It seemed like it was time for him to play his first game.
We did, and I won the first game 13–2 (won due to a difference of 11 points). In the second game, Ari went down 11–21. The better performance was because he acquired a mean serve, but his return was still literally all over the place. I won the third game 16–5.
Then, I wanted to teach him to spin, but I never really practised it, and I was spinning within my half of the table. We quit before somebody, unaware that I was only practising my spin, offered to teach me how to play.
Tea at tea time was perfect today.
For dinner, I had kulcha-malai paneer and fresh lime soda. Malai paneer is the best of the three paneer options available.
Day 5
For breakfast on the last day, I had Vada and Pongal with sambar and tea.
Conclusion
On returning home, I weighed myself the next day and saw that I had put on 2 kgs in 5 days.
Other factors can’t account for this increase as I always measure my weight maintaining a base state (no clothes, after toilet, on an empty stomach, same weighing scale placed in the same location).
In my zest to have only the tastiest food available there, I forgot all about my weight loss goals. So, this is something to watch out for.