We woke to the sound of Indian cuckoo’s and bullfrogs and the sight of beautiful flowers in the hotel grounds, a relaxed hotel in a forest, on the outskirts of Thekkady. Breakfast was a very funny affair – buffet Indian style, served by a very gay young waiter who called us “my lovelies” and enjoyed having his derriere slapped by his colleagues 😄
Our hotel rooms
Back on the road to the famous Alleppey, home to Kerala backwaters (a backwater is a part of a river in which there is little or no current) and our houseboat. The journey took a few hours, again passing through tea plantations, where pickers were wearing umbrella hats to protect themselves from the 30c sun. We were entertained by massive cow in a trailer being taken for a ride, for some reason we found that odd and hilarious, but this is Anything Goes India…..
Very soon the green plantations gave way to flat canal filled plains with large waterfront houses. We arrived at the boatyard to be greeted by the owner of the company, who showed us around his 100 year old family home before showing us onto one of his boats. The company own five boats of varying sizes, all used to be grain storage and transportation boats, now repurposed as luxury houseboats.
We were accompanied by a driver, chef and waiter, and were shown to our rooms! Another WOW moment!!!! Two large bedrooms and bathrooms, a lounge with floor to ceiling windows, upstairs dining room with a viewing deck at the front, a bathroom but also a jacuzzi and steam cabinet!!! Roll on relaxing!
Lunch was served as we pulled away, lots of fresh salads, fish, calamari, chicken, rice and fresh fruits! Out to the deck to admire the Riverside views, constantly grinning to ourselves when passers-by waved or listening to sounds coming from houses, churches, fields, birds and the river.
Kingfishers, egrets, kites and herons everywhere, as well as flying/jumping fish, fishermen, washer women, and children on bikes on the riverbanks.
We moored up in the evening, David and Graham went for a walk into the paddy fields whilst Di and I had a spa session! By the time we had all changed, dinner was served, another feast of chicken, sauces, rice, potato, salads and vegetables, followed by warm sweet homemade rice pudding. We all slept like babies that night, it was so quiet and dark, the boat slightly moving, rocking us to sleep.
We left our amazing hillside hotel in Munnar and headed to our next location which was Thekkady. The travel agency itinerary makes it sound easy, “after breakfast, drive to Thekkady (4 hours) and check into your hotel before lunch”. In reality it took FIVE HOURS TO DO 55 MILES!!!!
What it doesn’t say is that the road between the two towns is running right across several mountain ranges, with massive gorges below, so we went up one side, over the top, down the other side, up again, along the ridge, and down again. 90 kilometres, about 55 miles of road that had straight stretches no more than 200 metres long – it gave us bum ache from sliding across our seats, and neck ache from looking over the driver at oncoming traffic, behind us at the narrow roads and below us at the rivers/waterfalls/ power stations and tiny villages.
And we often felt nauseous from all the tight twists and turns in the road, however, Jo was a fantastic careful driver and we felt very safe with him at the wheel. Jo kept us entertained with information on the farms we were going through, the hydro electric plants we saw, he told us more about his traditions and the fact that he was in a “break-up hangover” because he couldn’t marry his girlfriend of ten years as she was a different caste to him. His mother was actively on the lookout for a wife for him. Jo even sang us songs to keep us going!!!
On route, we stopped several times to stretch our legs and rebalanced the equilibrium. We stopped briefly at a Temple, where Jo took us around the grounds to explain their traditions and we passed quite a few more decorative temples.
We stopped for a coffee at Kalvari Mount, 1300m above sea level, a viewpoint over Idukki Dam, and again, it was a WOW moment!!! So high up, misty mountains, peace and tranquility (despite the bus load of schoolkids that had just arrived) and such beautiful colours!! The lake was stunning, clean and calm and the mountains so lush and green. We were duly rebalanced!
Sir Graham greeting his staunch followers again!
We passed through a very affluent area, full of stunning large houses all with huge sweeping driveways and manicured gardens.
Also passed through a cardamom plantation!
We finally arrived at our next hotel just in time for a very quick lunch then back out to try to catch the last scheduled boat trip up a river in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. We missed it! Fully booked. Gone was our (slim) chance of seeing tigers. But instead, we took a Jeep safari!! Another first experience for Graham and Di.
The driver Shibu took us off road to the edge of the nature reserve and then up the sides of a mountain to the very top, where we overlooked a military airstrip, but was surrounded by nothing but beautiful mountains, trees and wildlife. It felt like we were on the top of the world!
The roads were steep, rutted and potholed, we negotiated some small streams and hung on extremely tightly at all times, necessary to stay inside the Jeep, such good fun!
We stopped on the way up at a small viewpoint where we looked across the lake and caught sight of several cute Nilgiri Langur monkeys in the trees (only 5000 in the World) and giant tadpoles in the water, giant as in as big as your hand!
Is that a monkey I see?Giant tadpoles!
On the way down we passed through another tea plantation, small villages, saw wild silk worms and eventually arrived back in the Reserve’s car park in time to see some elephants being fed and put to rest for the night. So despite not going into the Reserve, we managed to see monkeys, fish, silk worms and finally, elephants!!!
Top of the World! The airstripSilkworms in the wildA truck full of tea leaves on the way to be processed
Dirty, wind swept and happy, we returned to our hotel and after going out to dinner we all slept well that night!!!
It was suggested to us that we visit a resort hotel called Tea County in Munnar, so we saved the best until last and had dinner there on our last night in this area.
“Tea County is a Resort Hotel in Munnar, amongst enchanting mist clad hills, quaint cottages, fragrant tea gardens and mist-draped mornings that are hallmarks of Munnar. For years the cool and picturesque town of Munnar was the summer retreat of the British and it still retains the charm of a colonial past. The destination is also home to the only sandalwood forest in Kerala”. THIS IS THE HOTEL’S BLURB!
And rightly so!! We felt we were back in colonial Raj in the 1940s, splendour exuded every space, polished marble floors, sweeping staircases, sumptuous sofas, gardens full of rose bushes and the hugest dining room I’ve ever seen .. ..the Chef even came out to talk to us about our menu choices before they were cooked!
The entrance FoyerHeading to the Beer and Wine RoomWaiting for our drinksParquet floors and Plaster carved ceilings at its bestChef discussing our food order.
We had a great meal in spectacular surroundings. We felt like Very Important People!!!!
We woke in the morning to the most amazing view, our hotel was perched on the side of a hill, surrounded by tea bushes, waterfalls and a river below. The sun was coming up over the mountains in front of is, at about 6.30am, birds were swirling about and the morning mist was rising, it was simply stunning! Sadly we didn’t have time to indulge in the infinity pool or the spa, we had a busy day ahead!
Morning sunrise over the Western GhatsOur bathroom windowAnd the view from the window!Breakfast was a traditional rice pancake, omelette and a small fresh coconut dip 😋
MUNNAR as we know it was established around 1880 by British John Daniel Munroe, who was sent there to settle border disputes but fell in love with the lush forests and gentle hardworking inhabitants.
Munroe and two other Brits established the tea and coffee plantations, taking care to leave the land structure complete, working around the forests and its flora and fauna. Moonu’ means ‘three’ and ‘Aru’ means ‘river’ as the town was established where three rivers meet. The area is at a height of around 1,500 m to 2,695m above sea level and was once the summer capital of the British in South India. The soil is so rich and the weather so perfect that every scrap of land has tea bushes planted on it, along with eucalyptus trees, cardamom and lemon grass.
First stop, Eravikulam National Park inside a tea plantation with the most fabulous views. We took a golf cart (it was too hot to walk) up the 3kms to the top to see wild deer (too fast for pictures), Nigrili Tahr (endangered mountain Goats only found in this Park) and a plant that only flowers once every 12 years, the blue Neelakurinji flower. We also saw Fresh Elephant dung!!! Sadly no sight of the beasts themselves.
The views at the top, which was at over 6000 feet above sea level, were spectacular! It was calmly serene, beautiful and so colourful.
Fun in the golf cartGraham pretending to be a mountain goatDavid being a mountaineer!
Graham trialled picking tea leaves – he was unsuccessful at being offered a fulltime job!
The views got greener and the atmosphere became quieter the further we went up.
Finally we came across the endangered and rare Negrili Tahr Goats…..
First sightingThen they got closerAnd really closeThen the whole family wandered along….
Finally, a photo stop at the top of the tourist trail…..
On the way down, we got very excited when we saw some fresh elephant poo, sadly that’s as close as we got!
Real tea pickers! A plantation school
We then visited a Tea Museum, we saw how the picked leaves are crushed several times through spiked rollers, it’s at this point it smells like tea. The bushes and leaves have no smell at all. The crushed leaves are then dried and sifted before being mechanically sorted and packaged as leaf tea or tea dust.
Green freshly picked leavesGoing into the first crusher2nd crusher
Old artefacts were on display and we watched a fascinating film on the history of the establishment of the farms.
After lunch we took a drive out to a lake and stopped at Echo Point, Graham duly verified why it was called that! Sounds echoed around the mountains, which again were beautifully green.
A red crested Bulbul birdA mountain side villageEcho PointAn operational tea processing plant
On a Monday evening we caught a short internal flight from Goa south to Cochin for a prebooked escorted trip around some of the sights in Kerala.
Airport loungeEven found a WH Smiths!
We were “upgraded” on the flight from row 32 at the back to the Emergency Row seats in row 12, with 6 seats between the 4 of us, nice and spacious!
On arrival in Cochin, we were shocked and surprised at the comfortable lounge seating, clean polished marble floors, clean toilets and posh airport, totally unexpected! On exiting, we were met by a gentleman who directed us to a car and we were whisked off to the Airlink Hotel for the night.
First impressions were: its much cleaner than Goa, much more greenery and less animals! The hotel was fine, although David was upset that the bar had closed at 10.30, we arrived at 10.45!! Hot and tired, we headed to bed, sleep evaded us because it was hot and we had noisy fans, the beeping traffic started about 4am and it got light at 6am! We were the first ones to arrive for breakfast at 7.30, a curry buffet or toast and jam 😀
Our bedrooms, lots of Indian wood furniture.
On Tuesday morning, a driver called Jo met us after breakfast and we headed out on the long drive to our first stop at Munnar, a hilltop station (a mountain top town). Jo was a local who spoke fairly good English. We told him we loved to get involved and explore local life so immediately he started mentioning his village and his family, and how we can stop off at his home town….so we agreed!
Our first encounter with monkeys was just outside Cochin city, a troupe of monkeys were playing on the roadside.
We headed into Athirappilli National Park and stopped to admire its waterfalls, which, after Monsoon season, are known as India’s Niagara Falls.
A short drive further upriver and another set of waterfalls on the same River, much more spectacular and a popular tourist attraction.
As we walked along a pathway to a fabulous viewing area, we were all mobbed by men, women and school children who asked for photos with us! We could get used to this celebrity status!!
The water was roaring despite the water levels being so low, I’d hate to imagine the noise when it was in full flow!
Monkeys were all around us again, some were pregnant, some new mothers and some youngsters, all inquisitive and yet natural and gentle and so funny.
We drove further to Vazhachal Forest border point with Tamil Nadu and stopped again for a different view of the waterfalls.
Fierce, swirling and fast water created so much noise and yet it was also calming and beautiful. Here we found another troupe of monkeys all happy to be admired, filmed and photographed, they were interesting, funny, playful and real posers!!
We headed into a palm oil plantation (plantations are usually thousands of acres in size) to cut across country to Jo’s village which was enroute to Munnar. He pointed out the rows and rows of palm trees and rubber trees, which were endless.
A rubber tree that has been cut to bleed rubber.
Arriving in Jo’s village we saw lush green paddy fields, beautiful houses and stunning scenery. We were quickly introduced to some of his family before arriving at a neighbour’s small pineapple farm, where he showed us 10 acres of pineapples, papaya and other fruits growing around a sprawling new house. We met the owner who showed us his honey bees, so tiny you could hardly spot them going in and out of the hives!
Paddy fieldsTraditional housePineapples growingBees nestsPineapple plantation owner’s house
Next stop, another neighbour, who’s land had thousands of rubber trees on. Their small processing plant was still in their old house, a large new modern house had been built for them next door at a cost of 1.5 million rupees, about £140,000. Check out the beautiful wooden doors and windows, all teak wood from surrounding forests!
Jo showed us how the bark is removed so the trees “bleed” rubber, the liquid is caught in a cup tied to the tree, collected and put through two mangles to flatten it before it is dried in a wood fired oven for 3 days. The resulting black strips of rubber latex are sold to make vehicle tyres and other items. Around the area were much larger scale processing plants, it’s a real big business in this area!
We took a walk to a dam, and strolled along a wobbling suspension bridge that connects people on one side of the river to the other, to drive around was a good 10 mile trip. It was a daunting but interesting walk but well worth it for the amazing scenery.
Another few hours later and we arrived at our hotel in the Western Ghats in Munnar, it was a twisty hairpin bend slow drive on a busy narrow road that is meant to be a Nstional Highway! Trucks overtaking busses, cars and motorbikes, scooters and tuktuks all fighting to get by each other, on tight bends made it a very long hard journey, but we finally arrived after 11 hours being on the road!
Road traffic on tight bendsKnackered!!!Our spacious rooms
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