About this tour
Where India Ends and the Journey Begins - A Sisterhood Retreat
Duration: 6 Nights / 7 Days
Devi del Sur is a 7-day journey through South India's most powerful feminine landscape — a women-only retreat built for those ready to begin, or deepen, their journey as a sadhaka. You'll begin on Munroe Island, where the backwaters hold you in stillness before anything else is asked of you. From there, the path moves toward the ashram of Amma, the living goddess — a direct encounter with the mother principle this retreat is named for — followed by unhurried hours on the water by boat, at the pace the canals move, not the pace we're used to. In Varkala, the cliffs open onto the sea and the town turns inward. You'll visit Sivagiri Mutt, the samadhi of Sri Narayana Guru, and walk the cliff at your own rhythm — a place of teaching and quiet reform as much as devotion. The final stretch carries you to Kanyakumari — the land's end of India, and for centuries the place where a sadhaka's inward journey has been understood to begin, not end. This is the land of the unmanifest: where Swami Vivekananda sat in meditation on the rock at the tip of the subcontinent before the vision that would define his life's work, and where three seas meet in a confluence sacred to the Devi herself. You'll visit the Kanyakumari Devi temple, pay respects at Attukal Bhagavathy, climb to the last hill of India, and travel to Maruthuvamalai — the mountain of medicine, and a site long associated with awakening. From there, the road turns into the Kalakkad Mundanthurai forest belt, one of South India's last pristine wildernesses, before a final walk around the quiet, little-known Sootu Potthai hill. This is not a retreat built around performance or spectacle. It's built around water, the Devi in her many forms, and land's end — three thresholds that ask you to arrive, turn inward, and stand at the edge of something larger than yourself, together with other women doing the same.
Airport pickup with Smukti welcome kit, transfer to Munroe Island, hotel check-in, orientation session with Berta, welcome lunch, opening circle with intentions.
You land in Trivandrum and are met by your Smukti driver — no queues, no confusion. You travel to Munroe Island, a cluster of eight islets held between the Ashtamudi and Kallada backwaters, where the pace of the trip changes the moment you arrive. After settling in, you share a welcome lunch and Berta opens the circle — each woman naming, quietly or aloud, what she's come here to release or receive. There is nowhere to be but here. The retreat has begun.
Morning canoe tour through the backwater canals, darshan at the ashram of Amma — the living goddess — visit to a local island temple, evening sharing circle.
The morning begins on the water — a traditional canoe gliding through Munroe Island's narrow canals, palm groves leaning in on either side, fishermen already at work. From here you travel to the ashram of Mata Amritanandamayi, known worldwide simply as Amma — the embrace of the Mother, given without condition, to whoever arrives. For many women this is the emotional center of the whole retreat: not a lesson, not a ritual, just contact with the mother principle in living form. The afternoon continues to a local island temple before the group gathers for an evening circle to hold what surfaced.
Morning departure from Munroe Island, drive to Varkala, afternoon check-in, evening walk along the cliff.
The group leaves the stillness of the backwaters and travels toward Varkala, where Kerala's coastline suddenly rises into red laterite cliffs above the Arabian Sea — one of the few places in India where this happens. After check-in, there's time to settle before an evening walk along the cliff path, the sea below catching the last of the light. Varkala holds a different energy than Munroe Island: less water, more edge.
Morning visit to Sivagiri Mutt and the samadhi of Sri Narayana Guru, afternoon at leisure on the cliff, evening sharing circle.
The morning is spent at Sivagiri Mutt, the spiritual and administrative seat founded by Sri Narayana Guru — one of modern Kerala's most influential reformers and mystics, whose teaching of "one caste, one religion, one god for all humankind" reshaped the region's social and spiritual life. You visit his samadhi in quiet reflection before returning to the cliff for an afternoon of rest, beach time, and unstructured wandering. The evening closes with a sharing circle on the clifftop as the sky turns.
Morning departure from Varkala, drive to Kanyakumari, evening arrival at the confluence of three seas.
The longest drive of the retreat carries the group south, toward the southernmost point of the Indian mainland. We will visit the richest Hindu temple by assets Sri Anantha Padmanabhaswamy temple and by evening you arrive in Kanyakumari, where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean meet in a single, visible confluence. There's a particular quality to standing at land's end — nothing ahead but ocean. The group gathers to watch the sun go down into it.
Sunrise at the three-sea confluence, trek at Maruthuvamalai, onward to Kalikesam waterfalls inside protected forest, evening reflection.
The day begins before the light does — sunrise over the confluence, where the horizon itself seems to dissolve. From there, the group treks Maruthuvamalai, the mountain of medicine, long held as a site of healing and awakening, before travelling on to Kalikesam. The name comes from kali and kesam — Kali's hair — and the waterfall itself is as pristine as the story suggests, reached with special forest permission arranged for the group, in a stretch of untouched wilderness few outsiders ever see. Kanyakumari is often called the land of the unmanifest, and by evening there's space simply to sit with that.
Final sunrise at Kanyakumari, morning boating, darshan at the Kanyakumari Devi temple, closing circle, transfer toward Kovalam for onward travel.
One last sunrise over the confluence, followed by a quiet morning on the water by boat — a gentler bookend to the sunrise that opened the retreat's final stretch. The group then visits the Kanyakumari Devi temple, one of the sacred seats of the goddess at India's edge, for a closing darshan before the final circle. From here, the retreat releases you toward Kovalam, and onward to your individual journeys home. What began at the water on Munroe Island closes, fittingly, at the feet of the goddess and the water once more.