in God's own Country...(contd.)

The next day we got up at Six-o-clock!! [Has it been called morning somewhere, well... I have no idea, isn’t that midnight??]. We had around 150 kms to catch up ‘Munnar’, another small town, serene, pristine, not-much-heard-about hill station. Reached there in two hours, had a stop-over at the foothills. The foot hills was rather dull and evidently it prepared us to catch up the sleep which we fought off couple of hours ago. Most of us dozed off or just were plainly listening to the tracks played by our driver. The weather was pleasant but we could have got this even by switching on our AC stayed in the home, whats the big deal in coming so far.

Just then the car came to sudden halt and we are gazing upon a wall of mist covering the whole road.As if by magic, the whole mood gets filled with excitement. Not everyday you happen to see clear white mist covering your car windshield or a clean, damp road strewn with flowers or best of all, having some fried cashews with clouds literally floating beneath your feet. Well, welcome to Munnar [God's country ought to have a couple of surprises..ain't it??]. We got down, had a pleasant stroll among the lush tea plantations, just felt heavenly!!

We never wanted to leave this place and ambiance, but were only half way to Munnar and had to continue the journey. Started and drove through the mist-clad roads finally to reach the town. They pointed us to the "Rajamalai WildLife Reserve", this is some Indo-Swiss livestock project which maintains some endangered species in a Secure natural environment. The place is serene without any traces of pollution, even cars had to be left behind and people are transported in Electric vans. By the time when we finally managed to get a seat in the transporter, the mist had cleared and there was a slight drizzle . Well, this is gonna be perfect!!

The van dropped us half-way through the hillock and then its just trekking and strolling through the wilderness, catching glimpses of strange animals, wonder at mystical waterfalls, all looked like a scenery out of the "Lord of the Rings". The trek was awesome and the van dropped us back to the entry. We started from there and went to Echo point, by the time we reached there everyone was hungry. Couldn't find any hotels, finally barged into a tea shop, had some hot tea and snacks.

The next stop was Mattupatty dam, we hired a speed boat, went on for a ride, watched some elephant herds on the way. The weather being great made everything seemed wonderful. With all the places on the list exhausted, we headed to the hotel. Nights come too early in hills, by the time it was six, it was pitch black outside. Well, being too early for us to sleep, we did roamed in serach of an eatery, found some road shack, had some food, came back, played cards, heard strange sounds from nearer rooms and finally managed to sleep pretending not being afraid of the sounds.

The cottage owner woke us up with some hot tea, we had a hot shower and started back to Munnar town, stopped for pics all the while and managed to reach it by 10:00. Had some wonderful south Indian breakfast. The next stop is to visit the KDHP [Kannan Devan Hills Plantation], these guys have some wonderful tea and spice collection definitely worth checking out. Being a company outlet, the products are pure too.

We started down-hills by 12:00, surprisingly the day was hot and too sunny, exactly opposite of today and the same places which we saw the day before among the mist now looked drab and lifeless. The weather plays much of a role in the beauty rather than the place itself, Rains make it lovely and summers the other way around. Munnar has two faces to it, and luckily we had seen both. This is not the typical hill-station one would go on summers, but to be visited on winters. Make sure to go in mid-winters if you get lucky to catch a visit to Munnar.