Munnar & Kumily, Kerala (Feb 17-21)

Another 5 hr hair-raising minibus ride takes us over the top of the Western Ghat mountains and partially down their western side. This is an area of immense tea plantations spread across the hills and valleys. You can see from the photos how narrow the road is, and with lots of switchbacks and blind hairpin turns it's amazing how the drivers here do it. Our bus had a decal of Jesus and the last supper on the front window and I can say that I was definitely praying that the previous night was not to have been my last supper! Let's just say that when Lori asked John would he chose the bus ride or a roller coaster ride - he chose the roller coaster - do you all know John has never been on a roller coaster?


Munnar was the name of the first town and we stayed in a very nice guesthouse of half a dozen rooms with a nice view out of our bay window of a tea covered hill.


The only real thing to do here is to go for walks on the hills and through the tea plantations which made for a very pleasant day, ending by a waterfall where some locals served some massala tea. As you can see from the photos the views with mountains and lush green tea plantations are stunning and such a welcome change from the dustier cities below.


Off from there we had yet another 5 hr bus ride (Lori loved the bus color - pink) which took us to the town of Kumily which is the base for the Periyar Tiger Reserve. The thing to remember is that the bus is comfortable because you have a seat and it is air conditioned because all the windows are down.

Kumily is also an area of tea plantations and spice gardens so our first day was spent on a guided tour through a tea plantation/small factory where it is always nice to learn more about how the whole process works. Of course John, never being content with just being a spectator, decided to pitch in and lend a hand....

Afterwards, we enjoyed a little tour through a spice garden where us northerners were in awe of how these assorted plants and trees yield pepper, cardamom, all spice, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, coffee, etc. No wonder the Europeans sought after the spices of the east with such passion. Can you imagine how boring their food must have been before the discovery of the orient?

Our second day was spent on a trip into the edge of the "Tiger Reserve". It's about 4000 sq km with an estimated 46 tigers in the park. The real animal concentrations though are wild pigs, bison, deer, monkies and around 1000 elephants. We took a 3hr guided 'nature' walk really hoping to come across elephants (because a tiger sighting is rare) but luck was not to be with us. We did come across the wild pigs, a few sets of black monkeys scampering high up in the trees, and a pair of exotic birds called hornbills. Lori was observant enough to spot a set of tiger tracks! (not sure if they were real?)

Some sections of the walk were through forest with amazingly large and tall trees, however once out in the open field it appeared that vast areas of the hillsides stretching into the distance were pretty bare...probably a victim of clear cutting from a previous era. The center of the park is a 26 sq km reservoir resulting from a dam built by the British about 100 yrs ago. This provided the afternoon's activities as they organize tour boat rides for a few hours for further wildlife spotting. However...the only thing we managed to see that we didn't already see from our afternoon walk were some deer and a substantially sized (6 foot long) snake.

Our accommodation here in Kumily is also nice (read as clean..especially the sheets and the bathroom...which can be a treat to have here) along with friendly owner and his wife. They'll make you omelets and toast and bring it up to our room where we have a nice little private balcony to eat on. The rest of the town is nice...perhaps 10-20 thousand people and a little main drag to walk along with many shops and cheap (but always very tasty) eats. Its a change from some of the larger towns in dusty Tamil Nadu province where we started from. It is said that this province Kerala (here on the south west tip) is more developed, wealthy and scenic than much of the rest of India...so we are being spoiled at the moment.

One thing we realize is that we have been eating strictly vegetarian since our arrival here 3 weeks ago and are not really missing meat yet - we are pretty sure it is due to the abundance of various spices and the Indian ability to blend them into so many different dishes. We continue to come across new dishes to sample with every menu we read - its awesome!