A good deal? yeah right.

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The trip to Munnar was a mixed bag. The friends we went with were staying in Kochi while we were at the beach and more ideally located for booking and looking into the trip to Munnar. So having looked at all the options, they decided the best value option was to book a package for 2750rs down from 3500rs. This included, or was meant to, the taxi there and back stopping at certain attractions along the way taking about three hours, taxi around when we arrived, a room for the night, three meals, entry into all the attractions, and two hours of trekking.



The company told us that they'd pick us up at 7.30AM, after getting our friends at 7AM. An impossible task given that it took an hour to get from Fort Kochi to Cherai, but whatever, this is India and nothing gets done on time. The taxi turned up for our friends half an hour late (good start), eventually getting to us at 9.10AM. We set off, the first stop in the package being an elephant sanctuary. But all of us being against cruelty to animals, we decided against going here to bring the price down. These things usually consist of looking at heavily drugged elephants chained to one place and being hit with a stick to move.



Next stop Cheeyappara waterfalls. When someone says waterfall to you, you imagine a mass of gushing water. When the waterfalls is an “attraction” you expect it to be very picturesque! However, this was a trickle of water falling down some rocks by the road side, with so much litter surrounding it you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a waste disposal plant. A silver lining being the monkeys sat around chilling, my personal favourite being one monkey sat with his legs wide open and his bollocks on show for all to see, striking the “porn star” pose. You've got to give him credit, if I was a naked monkey with tourists gawping and taking photos all day, I'd sit with it all on show too. Just for the laugh.

No more stops on the way, quite a disappointment considering we were meant to have lunch on the way and me and Dave hadn't eaten all day.



When we get to Munnar the taxi takes us around all the touristy things to do, which it turns out don't cost anything for entry (I'm sensing some clever wording in the sales technique, must've been learning from CPW tulketh mill, telling people a 13mp camera on an M4 is better than an Iphone's).

So anyway we went to Kundala lake and got some nice photos. Saw yet more poorly looked after animals, horses with sores all over their legs. Some couldn't even keep their back hooves on the ground properly, poor things. They weren't even tied up, just stood still...I'd imagine more drugs had something to do with this.



Mattupatty Dam, a very unimpressive dam to say the least. How they can get away with marketing that as a tourist attraction I don't know, my only answer is this is India!.

Top station was the last order of the day, surely this was going to be good. Wide ranging views of the western Ghats (mountains where Munnar is situated). But sadly again nothing but disappointment, the clouds were low (or we were high?) and we couldn't see a thing. Quite strange place to be, felt almost as if we were floating...or in a dream and the hill we were stood on was the only part our brains could create...or maybe we were in a parallel dimension? Who knows.



Anyway, the next and final stop is to go to where we'll be staying. On a trip to Munnar you'd have thought that Munnar would be the place you're staying...Nope! 11Km away from the town. By this point were beginning to realise that we'd be ripped off, big surprise. The place we stayed was actually quite nice, but we'd been told we were staying 2km away from Mannur and we'd have a nice view of the tea plantations. This wasn't the case.

Now for the meal that we'd paid for. Me and Dave especially looking forward to this as we still hadn't eaten!
No choice of what to eat as this was a home stay, but I'm hoping for plenty of food. Like a King's banquet ideally (I knew that was more of a pipe dream), but what came was a joke! What you'd usually get in a restaurant for one MAYBE two people, was to be shared between FOUR! What exactly had we paid for?!

I hadn't met the guy who sold the trip, but I was ready to give him a piece of my mind. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Indians don't understand swearing so I don't think my frustration was properly conveyed when I spoke to him on the phone the day after!



Breakfast was garbage, warm bread and last night's curry reheated. Nice.

Next to the trekking through the tea plantations. Given that the whole place is surrounded by mountains I was expecting the trekking to be quite high up with really good views...It wasn't to be, while there was good views and this probably was the best part of the trip, it didn't last for two hours! Apparently walking from the end of the tea plantation back to the home stay constituted the final half an hour of the trek. I was fully prepared for a rigorous walk to the top of a mountain. Oh well. Bring on Everest!



The last stop on the journey was the tea museum, yes, a museum dedicated to tea. Firstly though, the taxi driver told us it was closed because the manager had died....I'm not really sure what went on, but he made a few calls and we were on our way, just to see if he was telling the truth. Turns out the manager had come back from the dead and it was open (Dave thinks we went to a different tea museum though judging from his call, I don't know). There was a few old tea making machines, type writers etc. The coolest thing, I thought, was a 2^nd century B.C. Urn. There was a video that me and Dave couldn't be bothered watching, the whole thing was in malayalam (local language) so not much use to us!

There was also a guy telling people how to make tea...and seeing as we're both British, we don't really need any lessons on this, even me and I don't drink it!



It's a shame that we've had to come all the way to India to learn about British history, I think I mentioned this in my previous trip's blog. But basically back during the British Raj (when we were the “terrorists”) we went up there and started growing tea...but in true colonial style we basically enslaved the local population to do this, while their oppressors (us) went around hunting the local wildlife.

In Munnar we created coinage specifically to be used in Munnar, so that when we paid the Indian farmers they had not choice but to stay in Munnar because their money meant nothing anywhere else!



During the British Raj we were taking the crops and textiles etc that Indians had grown/made and exporting them elsewhere as our own trade, whilst also charging India to buy back the products. So the farmers had to buy back the food they'd grown! And we're supposed to be the good guys.....yeah right!



Having been to three hill stations in my times in India, this was the second best. Ooty is by far the best, and I'd recommend going there if you've only got the chance to go to one. Munnar wasn't really worth the outlay, although my opinion could be different had we not been ripped off. Kodaikanal is the “worst” I’ve been to, but that's more to do with the fact it's in Tamil Nadu, and not many backpackers go to that state, so the place isn't really geared up for tourists so much.





That's it for now, next stop Anoop's home town and then onto his wedding! Exciting times ahead!

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