Munnar

I wanted to continue to avoid bigger towns and do something mellow after the ashram, so I headed to the hill station of Munnar, up in the mountains in Kerela. Munnar is tea growing country - tea plants cover every available piece of land. Tea plants looking like nothing more than a well-tended hedge in the shape of a human brain. One of the prettiest Indian towns I've been to, Munnar is mainly an Indian tourist destination, though foreign tourism is picking up. The British cultivated the tea trade here in the late 1800's, and it was gradually brought under Indian ownership after Independence and now, in good Kerelan fashion, is owned mostly by the workers (they're a little bit Communist down here). The other thing I love about Munnar is that they have great homemade chocolate here - the chocolate is so bad in most parts of India.

I arrived into town late at night with what I thought was a reservation at this cute home stay called Zina Lodge. When I got there, this strange old Indian man kind of chewed me out for not calling again when I got to town, and then revealed that he had overbooked the rooms and that I might have to sleep on the living room floor (or go to his brother's lodge). If he hadn't been so cranky and annoying this probably would have been fine but as it was I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. It was pretty funny because he is written up in all the guidebooks as a local treasure, and he did make me a cup of tea and give me some biscuits. But everything about the man was not friendly underneath and I couldn't wait to leave. So I called up my rickshaw driver who had conveniently given me his cell phone #, and had him take me to the next hotel that looked good, which turned out to be a fairly expensive splurge called the Hillview. This is where Indian couples go for their honeymoon, I think, and it's nice with lots of dark carved wood and enormous rooms. It reminded me (like so many things) of the hotel in "The Shining". I stayed for two nights and then moved to the cheaper and friendlier Green View hotel, which was all about trekking and backpackers like myself.

There's not a ton to do here other than learn about tea and go trekking. Luckily, the trekking is fantastic, with amazing views from about 5 peaks in the area. I went up with a group of a couple other travellers, and we had sketchy weather - not raining yet, but it looked like it might be going in that direction. We had breakfast up above the clouds and watched them pour over the mountains like a river. Our guide kept on checking the weather carefully and calling his cohorts on his cell phone. Finally, he turned us around and we made it off the mountain and got to our shelter just as it started to pour hard. Which was lucky for me because for some reason I forgot my raincoat that day...I met a super nice Italian guy named Luka on the trek and we ended up hanging out and then travelling together to Periyar Tiger Reserve.