On To The Hillstations Of Munnar

The next day we jumped on a bus for our journey to Munnar - a small town in the cooler hills surrounded by tea plantations. Since we had seen a tea plantation in Kumily we weren't expecting much from Munnar. The touristy nature of Kumily with touts galore had left a sour taste in our mouths and so we were expecting another small, dirty town in the middle of Kerala. We were completely wrong. The scenery was stunning. After travelling through endless cardamon and banana plantations, we came into rolling hills which stretched for miles and miles. Somewhere in the middle of them was Munnar.



Munnar is nothing more than a village with active bazaar and enough rickshaw drivers for a reasonable sized town. We found a small home stay called Westend Cottage and our friendly host gave us maps of the village and surrounding area, details of a tea museum and some decent walks around the plantations. He was cleverly giving us things to do in order to lengthen our stay... and his pineapple pancakes in the morning were enough reason to stay!

Our one night stay, turned into three nights as we spent the time ambling around the tea plantations and saying 'hi' to the smiling faces in the local villages. It was bliss and a welcome break from the touts of the more touristy spots. The weather was also much cooler then Kumily and the other places we’d been – we even needed blankets at night.

We also managed to find a lovely little restaurant and with every meal, the food just got better. For anyone going to Munnar - try the Bamboo Hut, behind the bazaar. Fab.