Head to the hills – Munnar

Munnar is such a beautiful place, reached by a series of sharp bends spiralling through the hillside. The main focus of our trip here was to trek up into the tea plantations. We arranged a trip through our guest house, Green View, up at 5.30am for tea and biscuits (yes! I now seem to drink tea!!) and a 6.30am start. We met the guide and the rest of the group that we would be trekking with, a French couple (who live in Japan!) and Naadim, a guy from Kent, England. We set off on what started out as a pleasant stroll overlooking the hills and tea plantations, and then we headed UP! After climbing to ~1,800 metres, we reached the top and sat on a mist covered mountain to have breakfast. The mist cleared intermittently, no sooner had it cleared, it was back again, although the views weren’t as spectacular as we know they could have been (we’d seen photos from the previous day’s trek!) the cool air was a welcome respite from the near 40oC temperatures we’d been enduring in Kochi. After breakfast, we walked through more plantations with the guide explaining the history of the tea, villages and workers along the way – he also turned it into a bit of a food foraging trip – the joys of the edible hillside! The second half of the trek, we left the rest of the group to return to the guest house and we continued with a chirpy, giggly 20 year old guide who was very eager to test out his English and laugh his way through the forest of Cardamom, coffee and cacao plants before stopping for a late lunch at the cottage.

All in all, Munnar is a lovely place to escape the heat and see some of the other side of India – the side away from the hustle and bustle on the dusty streets and up where the air is cleaner.

Below is the GPS log of the trek followed by the pictures!