Early Saturday morning (29th April) even before the Sun rose, our cab started climbing some hills (I’m guessing part of the Nilgiris range) on some winding hairpin roads. On the other side of these hills - Kerala! We were still in the Tamil Nadu side of the hills when dawn started to break. It was a beautiful sight and though we couldn’t see the sun rise, as the hills were blocking it, we stopped to savour the moment and take some photos. Our cab had a tire puncture around this time and we stopped for more photos!

Soon we were on our way and we reached the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, somewhere right on top of the hills. While the driver was showing his documents to the border police, we stepped out of the cab and into heaven. This entry that we got to Kerala was undoubtedly the best moment of our entire trip. There was a slight drizzle and the fog had surrounded us all and the wind was blowing at great speed. We were exhilarated and felt like we had all connected with the divine. There was a small temple near this place, where we prayed and then after some photos returned to the cab. If the entry was like this, we couldn’t wait to see the rest of paradise.

Enroute to our hotel in Munnar, we crossed acres of tea plantations and amazing scenery and stopped the cab every now and then to take some shots and to enjoy the beauty. After coming from a concrete jungle like Bangalore, it was refreshing to see so much greenery and to inhale pure pollution free air.

We reached our hotel - Royal Retreat - at around 9AM, but not before stopping for as-fresh-as-possible tea at a Tata Tea factory. We checked into our comfortable deluxe suites and lazed around for a bit on the hammocks. After some much needed rest we got ready and went for lunch at the in-house restaurant. After lunch, while waiting for the driver to finish lunch, we took more photos in the hotel gardens.

Finally around 1:30 PM we left the hotel to check out more of Munnar. We saw more tea gardens and then went to a dam. On one side there was this huge river and on the side where they were releasing the water, the water was gushing out with immense pressure through a tube only about a metre in diameter! We went speed boating in the river and had good fun.

Our next stop was this echo point, with a lot of people (including us) screaming out at the river and the forest behind, only to get screamed back at! Next we saw more tea gardens and took more photos between tea plants. We then went to another river + dam, hoping to find row boats, but left disappointed. All this while we were gradually climbing up hill and our next stop was at the peak of the hill.

We had to trek a bit from the car park to the peak and once again were treated to some great scenery. The trek back was exhausting; apparently our lungs weren’t used to such clean air! After more photographs we returned to Munnar city for shopping and also went to a computer centre to transfer photos from our nearly full camera memory cards to my mp3 player. We returned to our hotel for dinner and some rest and relaxation.

Our holiday was going great so far, but we were literally sick of seeing so much greenery! Unlike the morning where we asked the driver to stop every now and then for us to take photographs, in the evening even, when he was suggesting us some places to take photos, we just asked him to drive on!

Our ever changing trip plans changed some more and we decided to leave Munnar the next afternoon itself and proceed to Kumarakom for a boat ride on the famed backwaters of Kerala.

More pictures here