Blogs from Munnar, Kerala, India, Asia - page 4

Kerala, « god’s own country » as you can read on every street sign, tuk tuk, buses and travel agency window is at the image of India, diverse & vibrant. So diverse that I simply cannot summarize my trip to this part of India into one blog so here we go…part 1, going inland in a lookout for peace and quiet ready to discover Munnar tea plantation and its heartwarming sea of green and silent mountains. Reaching Munnar & feeling home already After four hours on the busy and curvy road that goes from Cochin to Munnar, bypassing constantly tuk tuk, buses and trucks, the arrival in Munnar Royal Mist Home Stayfelt like reaching paradise. The warm welcome of the owners together with the beautiful deluxe room and the view of hills and plantation from the ... read more

So yesterday we had the longest rickshaw ride of our time in India so far and also found out at least one thing that Lonely Planet did NOT lie about. For this and more, stay tuned through this inane babble! We woke up feeling pretty well rested after the first night sans air conditioning we've had in India - nothing like gaining some 1600 metres in altitude to drop the temperature and humidity. Its so amazingly nice to NOT have sweat running off you like a slightly stinky salt waterfall the minute you move a muscle, so its going to be hard to leave when the time comes to move on to Chinnar. After a pretty relaxing breakfast staring off the balcony at the view which includes some Eucalypt trees and a spectacular series of hills ... read more

We were on the 9am bus to Munnar, a hillstation in the Western Ghats populated with tea plantations. It was a winding journey and to our dismay the bus’s horn was like an air raid siren inside the carriage and the driver used it with WW2 enthusiasum as if ze germans were bombing the hell out of the place. Ear plugs made the trip just bearable. As we rose up the mountains, plantations of pepper and cardamon gave way to Indian tea. Oddly one of the towns prior to Munnar was loaded with large buildings that sat out of place with the landscape, perhaps some hilltop boarding school where rich students from the cities were sent by their parents either out of hatred or compassion for escaping the summer heat. Arriving mid afternoon we had a ... read more

Von Madurai geht es ueber eine beeindruckend enge und steile Strasse nach Munnar. Aber der Busfahrer ist ein echtes Formel-1-Talent, und wenn man die Angst ueberwindet, kann man nur noch Bewunderung fuer seine Fahrkuenste haben. Die Gegend um Munnar ist paradiesisch schoen: sehr huegelige Landschaft, saftiges Gruen, Seen und kleine Wasserfaelle, Teeplantagen so weit das Auge reicht -- hier macht das Wandern Spass. Aber erst mal eine Unterkunft finden, was gar nicht so einfach ist, da wir erst gegen 20:00 Uhr ankommen und ausserdem Hochsaison ist. Wir lassen uns von einem Riksha-Fahrer von Hostel zu Hostel fahren und muessen uns aufteilen: Birgit und Lars nehmen ein nicht besonders tolles Zimmer, das halbwegs bezahlbar ist, Jens und ich nehmen ein anderes Zimmer, das in Ordnung ist, aber mit 1.250 Rupien ungefaehr drei mal so teuer als es ... read more

You only need to leave the monsoon forests of the Western Ghats and emerge into the high-altitude tea plantations of Munnar to realise just how many cups of tea must be drunk around the world each day. The century-old bushes cover about 60,000 acres of the surrounding hills like a bright green patchwork quilt. Every 10 days their fresh leaves are 'plucked' and taken for processing in one of 18 nearby factories that emit tea-flavoured smoke. Ten thousand workers are involved, their blue-washed homes scattered about the valleys. As Tom discovered, they put up with numerous leeches, and work on slopes that look too steep to stand on. Finally their product comes to me in the form of a Tetley tea bag. And I've just destroyed it by adding UHT cream. For the entire three days ... read more