Munnar

Date arrived: 3rd January  2024

Date Departed: 6th January 2024

Favourite sight: Tea plantations

Average Cost: £47.96 PPPD - a bit of 'treat' money useed here!

Munnar came highly recommended, and as a tea plantation region, and alternative to the (very chilly at this time of year) Darjeeling, it seemed a great place to visit. We were also recommended the Royal Mist homestay, and as their 'Splendours of Munnar' package included all the pickup and dropoff from our previous and next destination, we splashed out a little and let ourselves be chauffered around for a few days!

3rd January 2024

Following a 4 1/2 hour car journey up into the Keralan hills, we arrived at the Royal Mist homestay late in the afternoon, where we were warmly welcomed by Anil and Jeeva, our hosts. We were also introduced to Andrew and Karin, a British -German couple who were staying and thus we would be joining for breakfast and dinner for the next few days. This worked well,a s they were a charming and fascinating couple. 

After a (very welcome) cup of tea, our hosts took us all on a short walk around the village - about 10KM outside of Munnar itself - and onto the edges of some of the plantations. Here I saw my first views of tea plants, and was absolutely fascinated! Because tea can be harvested from the plants weekly, the entire plantation looks like row after row of immactulately manicured hedges, each of a height and width that allows the tea-workers to reach and trim the leaves, and all in the fabulous vivid green colour that produces the best tea. It was stunning.

4th January

Today was a scheduled tour day for us, so Kutty, our driver from the preivous day, was back in action to take us on a tour of the sites of Munnar. We started off heading out to Munnar town, and Kutty pointed out the tea factories and various dams that had been built both for irrigation and to generate electricity. We then moved on towards the highest point in the area, Top Station, which sits on the border with Tamil Nadu. 

On the way to Top Station we saw some of the areas that wild elephants often visit (none today unfortunately) and also stopped at some of the beautiful lakes created by the various dams. We walked through a grove of Eucalyptus trees, enjoying their smell!

It's said that on a clear day you can right down into Tamil Nadu from the Top Station viewpoint. This was not a clear day, and we found ourselves ascending through clouds to a somewhat disappointing view. Still, can't be helped! We took a few ironic photos from the viewpoint, but they aren't even worth sharing here.

From Top Station we returned to Munnar where we had a thali lunch at a restaurant recommended by our driver - served on a banana leaf no less. After lunch we went to the Srishti Charitable Trust, which comprises  a special school created by the Tata Tea organisation to educate the differently able children of tea plantation workers, as well as a paper products plant and a textile production facility. The latter are there to provide opportunities for the students that graduate the academy, and both seemed to do really good work.

We finally visited a flower garden before returning to the hotel at the end of a fairly long, but interesting, day in the Munnar region.

5th January

Our plan this morning was to hike up into the hils around Munnar town on a guided trek. We got to the start of the trek by tuk-tuk, and enjoyed our 3 hour walk with Ravi, which covered around 7KM. His plan had been to meet another tuk-tuk at the end for the 6.5KM trip back to town, however the tuk-tuk was not there, and after 10 minutes or so we suggested we should at least start walking back! We were pleased we did, as we got more than half-way back before finally meeting the tuk-tuk.

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Our tuk-tuk driver took us to a recommended restaurant for lunch - ironically the same one from the day before (different driver) so we sampled a different version of their Thali. From here we went to a Tea Museum, which was really enjoyable, explaining a lot about the history of tea, how it came to India, and how the leaves are processed to get to the drinks we know so well today.

After another long day, we returned to Royal Mist for a cup of tea (of course) and a brief rest before another excellent dinner.

6th January

Today was another travel day, with Kutty driving us the 100KM or-so south to our next stop, Thekkady! On the way he showed us a number of cool viewpoints, mainly of tea plantations, but also of one fascinating cave set into the rock by the roadside. We also stopped for a brief snack and Chai, but really didn't need any lunch after our massive Royal Mist breakfast.