Travelling To Munnar, The Tea Country
We left Fort Cochin early in the morning by car, heading towards Munnar to spend one night in the tea country. The trip to Munnar was pretty pleasant with lovely scenery consisting of rice fields, banana and coffee plantations and of course palm trees everywhere. We spotted also many natural rubber plantations as well as cocoa, cardamom and pineapple plants. We arrived in Munnar in early afternoon and the first thing we noticed was the difference in temperature from the rest of Kerala. The weather here was much cooler then what I was used to in India, which was nice since I didn’t have to constantly sweat for a while. There are tea plantations pretty much everywhere you look and pretty much everyone who live in the area work on the plantations. Almost all plantations are owned by the large TATA Corporation which produces everything from cars to phones, and tea of course.
Tea plants everywhere, Munnar
We stayed at Olive Brook Hotel which is located on the hills outside the town and is a slightly more expensive option. It’s surrounded by cardamom and coffee plantations in a very quite area. Included in the room tariff of 63-88 USD is breakfast and dinner. They also demonstrate how they cook the dinner (they like to call it “cookery class” which is kinda pushing it) and the food was generally very good and came in loads. Since Olive Brook is small in size, the service is very personal and friendly and I think it was worth the price. They also take you for a trek to the surrounding plantations but one needs a driver to go to Munnar town. There is not much to see in Munnar, except for all the tea, but I recommend it for people with a loose time schedule. I was initially thinking about skipping Munnar due to the time it takes to get there and back to the west Kerala, but I’m glad to have seen it. There is unfortunately not much to see and do between the tea country and the western Kerala where most tourists spend their time. I did however spoke to some people who were heading to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary which is further east.
Olive Brook Hotel, Munnar, India