January 21st, 9:02am...we have been sitting in a public bus headed toward Kottayam since 6am.
Munnar is what we could call a hill station. Perched at about 1,500 meters of altitude, and mostly surrounded by thousands of hectares of tea, cardamon and black pepper plantations all around as far as the eye can see.
When arriving in the relatively small yet beautiful town of Munnar, what caught my attention at first was its center displays a huge catholic church, a huge mosque, and a huge Hindu temple. It is the first time that I see such massive religious temples representing both three faiths, in such a tiny location.
I thought I had seen what tea plantations are supposed to look like when I trekked to Hsipaw in Burma last year. Well, I was quite wrong. Munnar and its surrounding area in that part of India display such a fascinating and also artistic kind of tea plantation structure. From afar it looks as if someone had painted the whole valleys with a huge paintbrush leaving lush green trails of each hair of the brush on the canvas. I can easily see Van Gogh get inspires buy such sight!
Given the size of the town and the fact that apparently we were there during some sort of high season, finding a place to stay was no easy business...but we found one. The good thing about such topography is that even though the place is filled with tourists, you almost never feel that way.
Our first day we wandered around and headed to a trekk we had been suggested. 12km. About 25% of the way into the trekk, a local stops by us with his ca and offers to give us a ride down the road. Why not?!
It so happened that this guy was a plantation owner on his way home. So he offered to drive us as far as he could while still on his way, and took pleasure in telling us about the area and sowing us what fresh pepper and cardamon trees look like. The cardamon trees were such a surprise. I would never had imagined that cardamon grew that way!
After a good half hour he dropped us off on the side of the road.
The location we thought he had dropped off had nothing to do with where we thought he had dropped us off...a small tiny little factor, yet of major importance, we neglected on the little map we got from the tourist office was "the map is not at the right scale". Oh boy! I think that reading the map was more confusing than not having any map at all!
So we walked for quite a while until we found a village with a bus stop and decided to not fool ourselves with the distances suggested by the map, in order to not arrive after sun down. Waiting for the bus on the side of the road was a lot of fun. We were probably the very first foreigners trying to catch a bus from that location. So you can imagine the face of the locals when they saw us, hanging out there with our cameras and our bandanas. But interactions started quite fast and was quite fun.
Back in town and after a long time, I went out, at night...not much street lighting around town at all, trying to find a scooter to rent so we could head out at dawn the next morning to catch the sunrise at what they call Top Station, 35km away.
Perhaps due to high tourism, but the locals were far from being the nicest people...far. It took me a couple of hours to find someone who was kind enough and helpful and willing to rent me a scooter. The process was actually funny, as because the seat would not lock up, we first tried to fix it at a sop next door, but since that didn't work, we ended up going all the way up the hill and to his house. It was freezing and I had no idea it would take so long. But I got a scooter finally! :-)
The 35 km the next morning was a real challenge. Not only was it dark and cold, but the road was a real mess. Potholes all over the place, and zig zagging all along and around the hills...to arrive at the view point location...entirely clogged by the fog and clouds. Though it was kind of nice to be above the clouds, it was a potty that all we could see was clouds. But lucky us, aside from a couple of teenage locals, we were the only ones there for a good two hours.
On the way back, snacking and drinking hot chai along the road dominating the valleys of plantations wasa real treat.
After a while, we found a beautiful spot with a huge flat rock in the middle of a plantation and on the hill side, overlooking the valley. So we stopped there to eat some fruits and meditate for an hour. Wow! Priceless! We even needed up taking a nap on that same rock, in the sun.
Munnar is a beautiful place, but because of its size, and touristy crowd, it does not really call for a long stay. So after two days, we had enough and took off...to the backwaters of Kerala!
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