Munnar's rolling hills, tea plantations and clean rivers

As I mentionned earlier, we arrived past midnight at our homestay in Munnar. We got completely lost and had to drag the homestay manager out at 1AM to pick us up. It was very gracious of him and we were grateful, I don't know what we would have done otherwise. We stayed at Green Planet, it was remote and took almost 20 minutes of winding roads to reach the city center but it was very picturesque and our hosts were helpful and friendly and I would stay there again. The same owners also manage another property called Bracknell Forest which is right next door.

First impressions of Kerala : Although it was dark by the time we reached the Kerala border, we saw an immediate change in the landscape. Rushil asked if we were going to the forest as it was so green and lush. The biggest change we saw was how clean it was in Kerala, there was not as much garbage on the streets, the rivers and lakes were clean and this even applied to the bigger cities. And you don't see people using the outdoors as their toilet. I'm not sure if the population is smaller or if it's due to the high literacy rate but Kerala should be a model to other states in India how to keep their streets and rivers clean.

Munnar is a hill station with an abundance of rolling hills, tea plantations, a lush landscape and rivers. We went to Rajamala which is the highest peak in South India and enjoyed some great views from there. Prasad stood in line for 1.5 hours in the hot sun to catch a bus which takes us to the peak. I was told that the line thins out at 2:30pm but I found this out too late. The highlight of the trip started after Krithiga, Subhas, Surina and Arjun arrived. Sindhura was so thrilled to see Surina, they both ran towards each other and then stopped when they were in front of each other not quite knowing what to do. That evening, we caught up and had a relaxing dinner at the homestay. That is the great advantage of homestays, you can typically have your breakfast and dinner there and it's quite tasty, less fattening and easier with kids.

Although we didn't see any other specific sights in Munnar. We drove around and headed towards Alleppey. We stopped at a tea plantation on the way and met an elderly women with huge droopy earlobes. We were not sure if she expected money after we took the picture and she initially refused when we offered some money but later explained that she would save the money and treasure it. She also offered to give us some powder to mix with our rice, she was so friendly and sweet. Check out her long earlobes! Krithiga knows Tamil and in Kerala, everyone speaks Tamil, I believe Malayalam is similar to Tamil so it helped having her there. The drive to Alleppey was long but the views were stunning, we arrived in the early evening. More on Alleppey in the next post. I'll be posting all the Kerala pictures on Flickr and will add a link here soon.