Munnar 12-14/05/2009 We arrived to Cochin railway station very early in the morning, were picked up by our driver (this time a young guy called Ismail that later turned to be a very impatient driver with suicidal tendencies) and taken to the guest house. However, since the guest house was on an island and there was a strike on the bridge scheduled for 5:30 am, we could only spend one hour in the guest house and had to set out for Munnar.
Munnar is a little town located in the Idduki district in the south Western Ghats. It's a hill resort with an elevation of 1700m famous for its tea plantations. I was sleeping almost all the way from Cochin (it takes 4 hours) but when I opened my eyes I was just amazed. Kerala is called God's Own Country and Munnar region is definitely a perfect proof of a truthfulness of this apppellation. It's just a paradise on the earth: little villages scattered on hills covered by shining green tea plantations. You can see tea wherever you look, on every hill, even on the steepest one, and you just wonder how these tea pickers manage to do their job in such a terrain and very often without shoes!!!
On our way, we stopped in a spice garden. It was very interesting. I saw coffee, pepper, cardamom, vanilla, cotton, passion fruit, papaya and many other plants and trees for the first time.
We were staying in Mattupetty 10 km from Munnar. We didn't know the exact address of our guest house so Ismail was searching for it for a while and when we finally found it I just didn't believe that it was it! A wonderful old English style house on a top of a hill, surrounded by tea plantations and with a view on Mattupetty dam. OH MY GOOD!!!
My tiny room ;o) Normaly guests pay Rs. 7000 for this room. We only paid Rs. 150 for bottled mineral water that we drank during our stay.
And a cherry on a cake was a concierge with his assistant who were taking care of us like if we were not a prince and a princess, but a king and a queen!!! They were making wonderful meals for us, preparing afternoon tea with biscuits and serving it in a lovely living room, and all the time asking whether they could do anything for us. I really felt like a famous movie star...I really didn't expect to experience something like this during my stay in India where I wanted to live a very modest and simple life ;o)
After our late morning tea and some rest, we set out for a sightseeing. Our first destination was Mattupetty Dam. Since it was a very nice day and the dam was just under the hill, we decided to let our driver go and to walk a bit. Poor Ismail was so horrified: "Why do you want to walk? It's very far! It's 2 km!!! I will drop you!" He just couldn't understand that we want to enjoy a little (2 km is really faaaar) walk in this wonderful landscape and he seemed to be really disappointed when we refused his services ;o) So we walked down the road winding in tea plantations and it was a very nice walk. And after this heroic performance (imagine: 2 km of walking down the hill!!!) we were rewarded by a very nice view of the huge dam surrounded by forrests and mountains.
While walking along the dam we met an elephant walking on the road and another taking a bath...Not a wild one and not a real bath. It was a trained elephant used for elephant rides and was taking a trunk shower in barrel of water ;o)
Our next destination was so called Top station from which you can have a wonderful view of surrounding mountains. On our way up the hill the lovely sunny weather suddenly changed, sky was covered by ugly black clouds and finally it started to rain. Ismail seemed to be pretty pesimist when saying: "Program cancelled", however, I was quite determined and was ready to walk to the view point even in rain. Fortunately I didn't have to because the rain stopped and let us go and enjoy the wonderful view.
The only negative of this Top station trip was the way back down the hill. Ismail is really a crazy driver!!! He was driving fast like a hell down this narrow zigzag road, overtaking in turns and in hills where he just couldn't see anything and all the time honking like a fool. Several times we missed a car in opposite direction just by few centimeters!!! I was scared like never before while travelling by car and felt so sorry for being atheist. Fortunately, we survived and not just this one crazy ride but all the others that followed in upcoming days ;o)
The last part of our Tuesday program was a Kathakali show. Kathakali is a classical Indian dance-drama (katha-kali) originating in Kerala in 16th century. Two guys with a thick layer of make-up and quite complicated costumes were partly dancing and doing special gestures and body movements to tell us a story about one of Indian gods. They didn't say a single word and only expressed themselves by those movements and grimaces while accompanied by a drum, little cymbal and singing. Well, although I would never understand the story without having it read before, it was just amazing!!! Especially the guy dressed like a lady was just awesome with all his facial expression. If I hadn't seen him getting dressed before the show, I would have thought he was a woman!!!
It was a really great ending of this wonderful day. But another surprise was ahead of us! When we got back to our guest house and were waiting for the dinner, a thunderstorm started. It was my first thunderstorm in India and, dude, it was so scary! But thanks to this storm and a powercut we enjoyed a romantic dinner with candles...not bad ;o)
Next day we just wanted to go for a long walk in mountains or tea plantations and relax in this God's own garden. To our big disappointment, we found out that walking (or even trekking) is really not a very favourite hobby in India and thus there are no paths for walking. Entering tea plantations is strictly prohibited and "trespassers will be prosecuted!!!", walking in forests is either prohibited or you need a permission from forest office. So after desperate driving all around and searching of any nice place for walking, we gave up, got out of the car and walked just on the road. But still it was really nice with tea plantations and mountain view all around.
And that was the end of our awesome stay in Munnar. Next day we said goodbye to our deluxe guest house and its fantastic, always smiling, friendly concierge spoiling us with his great food and we set out back to Cochin where we were supposed to spend 3 days.
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