Tea plantations everywhere

  Munnar, Kerala, India Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Once again it was raining as we left - this time in a private car - at 6:30am We were soon joined by a Malaysian man who from this point forward will be referred to as MM! Because of the rain it was very difficult to see the beautiful countryside as it sailed past and as we climbed higher into the mountains east of Kochi. We engaged MM in conversation trying to make friends but it was quite difficult. If you mentioned anything he wanted to impress you with his knowledge and reeled off facts and figures like a mini Wikipedia! He seemed to moan a lot about being ripped off everywhere he went and always wanted a photo of himself in front of every landmarkWhich is fair enough - so do we but it was a bit more egotistical with him and it made the trip a bit quiet coz we didn't want to start him off again. He certainly didn't like it when we knew things he didn't like the fact that Malaysia has a massive elephant sanctuary just outside of Kuala Lumpur and he lives there and didn't know anything about it! Anyway, on with Munnar. We did the typical tourist things. First we stopped to watch the elephants go down to the river for a bath. As it is monsoon here, unfortunately they have to go somewhere else due to the high river levels and it was very narrow and we couldn't see much. It also was a bit unpleasant with the mahouts  shouting at them all the time so we left there early. As it was still raining hard, we all agreed to give the herb garden a miss (we had seen the lovely one in Galle, Sri Lanka so didn't feel like we really needed to see another anyway) We stopped very briefly at the waterfalls (more professional photos for MM here) and very briefly again at the dam (MM wanted more photos here too which all mean sitting around waiting for them to be printed) and again we all stayed in the car at Echo Point as there really wasn't much point testing the echos in all this rainThe highlight of this day was our stop at Elephant Camp. The elephants were only there to give rides but they were all sheltering under awnings to keep them dry and some were not chained or roped just happy to stay put, dry and munching away. The mahouts didn't have any of those horrible spikes either (alough MM argued they were hidden in the bamboo canes until we proved him wrong) - Grrr that man is getting on our nerves! The Camp clearly wasn't wealthy but you could see the elephants were happy and the mahouts were affectionate towards them too which you don't always see. Lunch was at our guesthouse. It was 3 varieties of curry which were a bit peculiar in taste so we didn't eat much of it. Next stop the Top Station - a place to view beautiful scenery - when its not covered in clouds we are sure! OK pass on that then. Back in Munnar and we are cold and wetWe had time to kill before seeing the traditional Keralan Martial Arts Display so we sat in the car skyping friends and family (sorry if you weren't one of those we managed to talk to) The Display was performed by what seemed the local school and was in fact more like a dance routine but that's ok - we didn't really want to see all these kids killing each other. Big it up for the only girl there though! Dinner back at our guesthouse was delicious. 3 types of Keralan curry again but different and much tastier. MM sat in silence until he demanded Bryan reveal his knowledge about Kingfisher Beer. When the internet once again proved him wrong and he suffered another defeat about Coca Cola (you have to realise we were not in competition with him, he challenged us on virtually every subject and talked utter B*****t) he sloped away from the table and we didnt see him for the rest of the evening. Phew! peace and quiet. Next morning MM was absent from breakfast, instead he "chose to eat with friends" (the cook).First stop the Tea Museum. Today the weather is much clearer and we could see more of the beautiful countryside surrounding us. There was tea everywhere and it created a crazy paving type of effect over the mountains. It really is quite beautiful. The museum was very old and clearly not well funded but we were shown a documentary film which was quite interesting and told us that TATA had sold the plantation to its workers who were well looked after and catered for. Lunch again at our guesthouse and we needed all our energy for MM in the car on the 4 hour drive home again. Gosh never were we so glad to see the back of someone! [gallery columns="4" ids="7485,7487,7494,7501,7511,7516,7522,7525,7530,7535,7540,7543,7545,7549,7553,7560,7562,7565,7571,7573,7581,7593,7602,7608,7619,7624,7641,7650,7661,7668,7672,7680,7685,7692,7699,7702,7711,7717,7725,7737,7744,7749,7753,7757,7763,7769"]