Mystic Kerala – Trip to Munnar

Yet another long weekend and we were off to munnar as Bangalore can be very very boring and mean to you on long weekends.

As it was last minute plan due to unsystematic & uncertain kind of work environmnet we are into we didn’t have any choice but to book it via a tour operator. And as being typical boys are we never bothered to go into the finer details of the trip all we knew that it was 2 night & 3 days trip and it came at XXXX price to us.

So off we went to munnar from Bangalore around 8:30 pm on a sleeper bus only to be waked up to 7 in the morning by the conductor, we were the only two people left in the whole bus so we thought that the munnar has come but when we went down we came to know that we were at kattappana some 100 km away from munnar :) . It came as a rude shock but I prefered to play it down, so we went to a restaurant and order some aappam.Strangely you can have it with egg curry also at 7 in the morning!!!! Around 7:30 we were picked up by a mini man after some desperate calling to contact number given to us.

Drive was smooth and heartening as we were climbing up, breeze was fresh and view was mesmerizing. Always felt jealous of people who live in this kind of terrain as they have one thing certainly in their life and that is peace!!!



Finally reached munnar around 10:30 and met the person who was our tour operator there. As outsourcing is the in thing we came to know that our tour was out sourced to this guys agency, fine till now but then came the surprise. It was a free day for us, we were dropped at our hotel which was just OK, we freshen up just to look at each other and ask what we are going to do on this rest day. As we were two guys and perfectly straight also ;) so we thought it would be better if we go out and do some sight seeing on our own. We hired a taxi to show us around few points but as luck was not our side that day, it was pretty misty and finally end up coming back to out hotel around 4 after seeing loads of mist instead of any view point. Somehow survived that evening & night on our dependable source of enjoyment :).



Next morning we were off to some sight seeing and one thing I must admit that I have never seen so much to greenery in my whole life. It was tea plantation all around us no matter where you see and what you see. Went around few spots like photo point, madupaaty dam, shooting point, Echo point & Top station. But it also got over by 2 and then there was a strong desire to go back to bangalore and we felt that staying any more there was a sheer waste of time. But as luck was not our side that day also we end up spending that night also in munnar and as usual with the same source of enjoyment.

Finally the D day came and after cursing and abusing our local tour operator for almost whole day in his office as we have nothing better to do in munnar we again boarded a mini bus to go back to Bangalore via udumalpet. Finally god has heard us as route was very scenic and beautiful and as icing on the cake we have to pass through chinnar wildlife sanctuary and anamalai tiger reserve. It’s always thrilling to cut across a forest reserve when it is pitch dark and I really love that part of the journey although we didn’t met with tiger but we definitely encountered a family of elephant's who stopped us for nearly 20 minutes as they came on the road and were not very willing to get off it. The experience as tense and enthralling I loved every bit of it. Finally boarded bus to Bangalore and reached Bangalore around 5:30 in the morning.

Munnar is a nice place but please try to go for 1 night and 2 day if you don’t have suitable company to kill your ‘Free’ time. For me it’s a big 'NO' to tour operator’s as I am not going to travel with them again!!!!!!!!!!!!