Blogs from Munnar, Kerala, India, Asia

Woke up to a beautiful view outside our window. As the mists started to rise off the mountains and the sun started to burn through it, the cockerel was crowing and the hotel was beginning to wake up. We had a short breakfast of eggs toast and a savoury pancake- Indian style and celebrated the exciting news that Phoebe has got a major part in the Rose Theatre production of Snow Queen. She is going to be the narrator which she is over the moon about. Today we had a big trek through the hills South of Munnar, of about 12km. Up and down hills, through thick plantations and forest but also across wide open hills with views right across the valley. Anoop brought with him another guide who showed us lots of fauna and the ... read more

We woke up early at 5:30 to the cacophony of the dawn chorus ringing in our ears. All extremely tired because in the UK it was 1 in the morning and the jet lag hasn't quite adjusted. Once we'd managed to drag ourselves out of bed we went down and had an amazing breakfast. Everyone had an omelette apart from Lucas who had some scrambled eggs! We met up with Anoop at 6.30 and started the days adventure in the A team bus to Ernakulum national park (@1500 meters) to see Nilgiri (meaning blue mountains) Tahr Goats, which are an endangered species and only found in the Western Ghats of Kerala. We only saw one in the distance which dad thought was a bush to begin with but finally figured it out through the binoculars. It ... read more

We should currently be moored up on a house boat somewhere near Alleppey, enjoying a romantic evening meal cooked by our private chef under moonlit skies.... Instead we remain where we have been all day. Our room at the Blackberry Hills Resort outside Munnar. The taxi was supposed to pick us up at 830am. Unfortunately due to land slips on the road out of the hotel and between Munnar and Alleppey he was unable to get to us, or to get to Alleppey. We were initially hopeful that the highways would be promptly cleared but as an hour or 2 turned into 2pm and then maybe 4pm we soon lost hope. It gets dark around 6ish here and the drive is a 4-5hr one. Given there were further landslips during the course of the day the ... read more

Monsoon is back. After being very lucky with the weather the past couple of days the rain returned yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped since. Now we were warned about monsoon but I rather naively thought that meant short sharp showers in the relative warmth. Instead we have had continuous torrential rain with brief interludes of light rain. And it’s cold! Aware of the poor forecast for the morning we decided to have a late breakfast. Our usually stunning views consisted of a white out as we were quite literally sitting in the clouds. We decided a visit to the tea museum was a perfect wet weather activity. We meandered out of our hotel into the tiny hamlet at the top of the drive. There were lots of smart taxis for residents of the expensive local hotels ... read more

Despite a slightly rushed trip to the airport due to the usual m25 traffic jam we successfully caught our plane and have safely arrived at our first destination. The plane trip was largely unremarkable except for a small incident with our fab new water bottles (these things are supposed to filter out all bacteria and viruses making any water drinkable). Forgetting about pressure changes in the plane Elizabeth merrily opened her straw to get a fountain of water all down her top, trousers and seat. Not only was the rest of the flight rather damp but it looked very much like she had wet herself when attempting to get to the toilets! On landing at Kochin airport (in the pouring rain) our taxi driver was waiting for us and after getting out some cash (more complicated ... read more