Fai Tira blog

Highlands and Munnar tour, Sun/Mon 30^th/31^st January 2011

 

 

I was asked if I could organize a tour to the Munnar district of Kerala. This I did with the help of the Chisl crew and Bali Blue. I asked one of our friendly “boat boys” fat Nazar, who put me in touch with his friend in the tourist office.  We set off the following morning in a minibus heading for the mountains. John was already away on his train journey, so it was just Jeremy and me from Fai Tira.

 

Our driver, Vijeesh, was the safest we had been with whilst in Sri Lanka and India, but compared with British standards it was still a white knuckle ride at times.

Our first stop was at the river where they wash the elephants. Being a bit of a sceptic, I think the daily routine of washing these loveable creatures is just for the tourists and to make a bit of money.   

 

As you can see the location was spectacular and I had the pleasure of scrubbing the rear end. Being so close to these animals was fantastic, I loved every minute of it.  Apparently these gentle giants are used for ceremonial occasions where they are dressed and decorated.

 

 

We weren’t allowed to go near the large elephant which is laying down in the first picture. It was huge.

 

After this great experience we went to a local “homestay” house for a traditional Keralan breakfast of curry and chapattis, served with Indian tea.

 

 

Here are Jeremy and Aldan enjoying breakfast with the owner.

 

The next stop was Cheeyappara waterfalls.  We actually stopped at a smaller set of falls before this, bought and drank coconut milk straight from the shell and were completely aghast at the amount of litter and rubbish piled up at this tourist spot.

 

Don’t do this at home, you WILL chop your hand off!  The lovely falls with huge amounts of rubbish thrown over the wall.

 

The lovely Keralan hills and our first view of the well-ordered tea plantations.

 

We visited a tea factory and museum which was more interesting than the one we visited in Sri Lanka. It is amazing how just by picking the buds, the tea plants are perfectly pruned to the same height.  Unfortunately on both occasions we have visited  tea plantations, it has been a public holiday or a weekend so we never saw the hundreds of pickers out in the fields.  The museum was fascinating, showing life as it was when the first Scottish tea planters arrived.  At that time there were still tigers roaming the hills.

 

 

We headed off to book into our two star hotel - in Munnar itself - which turned out to be perfectly adequate and clean with nice views over the town.

There was a special Catholic religious ceremony taking place, with hundreds of people taking part in a procession to the church standing on the hill. The route was decorated with silver bunting. We never did find out what it was all about.

 

Late afternoon saw us heading to Top Station via the Mattupatty Dam.

 

It being a weekend, we saw lots of locals enjoying the area.  It’s a bit like the Lake District but much much warmer.

 

We arrived at Top Station via the highest road in the area affording great views....in cloud with no views at all!  So we nipped into a ‘tea room’ (just a shack really) and drank local tea. This lady outside was cooking and selling the worst-tasting corn on the cob we have ever had.  The locals put loads of chilli powder on them to disguise the taste. They even put chilli power on oranges and pomegranate: they “do like it hot”

 

This is what we missed because of the mist.

 

The evening saw us eating at the “Silver Spoon”, another restaurant/hotel, before an early night.

 

After a continental breakfast we set off for Eravikulam National Park where there is a rare and endangered species of mountain goat.

 

There was also a rare breed of motor bike there, a fabulous specimen of a Royal Enfield.  The Indians bought all the tooling when the English factory closed years ago, and now churn out fair numbers of the 350cc ‘Bullet’ model seen here.  Much more stylish than all the various Hondas etc one also sees around!

 

We boarded a National Park coach and drove up a narrow winding road which afforded great views, and even saw one of the aforementioned goats lying by the side of the road.

 

We saw numerous other goats along the track we eventually walked along.  These goats are so tame they were nearly shot to extinction by the British army and tea growers, being a good and easy source of meat in the 19^th century.

 

Talking of meat it was time for lunch so on our way back to Cochin we asked the driver to stop at an establishment that sold good food and cold beer.

 

He stopped in a busy town and pointed out a hotel with restaurant and bar.  “That will do” we said.  We walked in to the bar which was dirty and dark. We were quickly ushered up stairs to the family restaurant.  That was full so we were yet again escorted to what we thought might be a rooftop terrace but turned out to be a bedroom with a table in it, and a handy en suite basin and loo. 

 

This meant we could wash, eat, drink and then sleep.  The food was excellent and the beer refreshing. We didn’t have time to sleep as we had to be back at the marina for an update on the pirate and Egypt problems.

 

 

Overall we had a great tour and all of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The area is beautiful and must be even more stunning when the Blue Grass is in bloom like in the last photo, which is of another photo on a Park notice board!

 

We are travelling up the Indian coast to Bombay/Mumbai where we shall refuel before setting off again.