About Bay Island Driftwood Museum

Today, just two things make Kumarakom tourists’ own paradise. Its exquisite backwaters and the exciting Bay Island Driftwood Museum - the Jewel of Kumarakom. It is India's only museum of its kind and world's best at present. It stands uncontested as the Unique and Innovative Tourism Project in India. It displays a beautiful blend of nature's creativity and an artist's imagination, and remains one of the wonderful repositories of most fascinating and rarely seen objects.

* Wonders of the Wild Sea under One Roof

Driftwood Museum is Kerala's only special interest tourist destination and a great futuristic asset of Indian tourism. Mrs. Raji Punnoose painstakingly recovered these rare objects from the Andaman seas at great risk. The artifacts, created and sustained by the sea waves for millennia, weighing many tons, big and small, collected, improvised, worth millions in international market, are permanently exhibited at Kumarakom. Government of Kerala awarded its prestigious Most Innovative Tourism Project award in 2004. The Ministry of Culture, Government of India provided financial assistance to the museum under their scheme, Promotion & Strengthening of Regional & Local Museums during the year 2006-2007.

The place is not only visited by the big and the famous who come to rest in the luxury resorts, but also by thousands of regular tourists and eco tourists who come to enjoy a peaceful respite or just to be with their thoughts. However, while this place is a paradise for the contemplative traveller, for children and the special interest tourists, there are not enough sights to visit. The Driftwood museum comes as a value addition to this tourism destination.

Bay Island Driftwood Museum

A museum to display a unique collection of superior quality driftwood sculptures of very high artistic value, prepared through a rare and innovative modern art form, is functioning at Chakranpadi, Kumarakom North. It has a huge collection of driftwood structures of various shapes and designs. During her professional tenure in the Andaman archipelago, a dynamic lady school teacher used to pick up pieces of driftwood deposited by the sea on the shores comprising twisted tree trunks stumps, roots etc. which had the potential to be made into sculptures with marginal efforts. Many of these wooden parts were centuries old and having driftwood across the seas, they became more resilient. The picked up pieces were cleansed, dead parts removed, scraped and trimmed to conform to the shape she had in mind.

This driftwood museum in the only one of its kind in India as certified by the Limca Book of Records 2013. The Government of Kerala awarded its prestigious Most Innovative Tourism Project Award to this Museum in 2004. The Museum inculcates in visitors the qualities of imagination creativity originality and initiation to produce useful articles out of materials which are normally considered waste.

Unique Features

* Tourist Objects Par Excellence!

These are world-class unique objects on display; tourists turning up in good numbers to see them; high-level of constructive appreciation from all about the potential and possibilities. It has a great potential, capable of unleashing a great spurt in tourism industry in the state:

* India's First, Worlds Best!

It is the first in the country. It has immense potential as a tourism product of special interest. It is said that at least one-third of tourists to Kumarakom are visitors to this museum alone ... all these, without any marketing or makeup. The crown is in the outhouse and the king always happily steps in. This is India's first and world's best museum exhibiting objects made exclusively from driftwoods, attracting tourists from all continents.

* Kerala's Only Special Interest Tourist Destination!

Driftwood Museum is Kerala's only special interest tourist destination and a great futuristic asset of Indian tourism. The museum attracts high value tourists from over 75 countries regularly since 2001.

* A Woman's'venture!

Perhaps it is the only museum designed, owned and operated by a woman artiste, without any professional training at all in arts. It is established and managed by a retired schoolteacher with almost no external funding.

* Visitor Profile

The visitor profiles includes ministers, governors, senior officers, judges, lawyers, politicians, professors, architects, scientists, journalists, tourism managers, hoteliers, students etc. Nationals from almost all countries across have stepped in to the museum to see the artifacts.