Munnar: A beautiful place to spend your holidays. Review on Munnar

While writing this review I have collected some data from the net and added in places. This review is more like a descriptive essay on Munnar. If interested please go ahead-

Have you ever wondered how an ocean of tea leaves will look like???

Well its difficult to imagine/visualise this but you might see something similar if you go to Munnar. An infinite stretch of green tea that will rob your mind away and leave you wondering how on earth such beautiful creation came into being. It is then one realizes that the person who phrased the well known adage- "God's own country", rightly did so. The place definitely is different from the rest of the world and one only remains baffled the more he sees it. If Kerala is God's own Country, then Munnar has to be its capital.

In both Malayalam and Tamil, the word ‘Munnar’ means three rivers, as it is merging place of three mountain streams- Mudrapuzha, Nallathani and Kundala. The Duke of Wellington was the first prominent person to visit Munnar. Munnar was developed to cultivate tea plants by British although it was first discovered by Scottish planters.

There are around 30 tea estates, all are privately owned and about 27 of them owned by Tata Tea Company.

The green tea gardens in Munnar produce a hypnotic effect. The white mists in patches shielding the distant mountains and greenery produce an unbelievably lovely sight. The occasional rain drops that fall on the tea leaves sparkle when the bright sunlight fall on them.

Tea workers can be seen scattered here and there. They remain busy plucking the leaves and then collecting them in a bag. The serpentine roads go on endlessly, sometimes up and sometimes down, and at each step one finds a new, different and a better sight than the previous one. The sun keeps on playing hide and seek with the tea plants, changing the intensity of their color intermittently. Each tea plant survives for a minimum of 100 years.

They are shrubs and dont grow very tall. Their thickness at the bottom is an indication of their age. They resemble bonsai plants to some extent.Leaves are plucked from the top portion of these plants and new leaves emerge again in the next 15 days.

Among the places to visit here, Mattupetty Lake and Dam, which is about 13 km from the city of Munnar is a good place. The boating in this huge Lake is a major tourist attraction.

At the Tea Museum, they showed us how tea completes its journey from the point of being plucked by the beautiful hands of the tea-workers to being packaged and sold at the market. We were astonished to know that the highest quality may cost around 6 thousand Rs. per kg.

One shouldn't miss the 19th century CSI CHURCH in Old Munnar that has beautiful stained glass and brass plaques or plates.

Eravikulam National Park is another good place, but one will have to wait in a long queue before he gets a ticket for entering into the bus. The bus takes one to the top in almost 15 minute. From this place the visitors will have to walk for almost one km to go to the topmost point. Found plenty are wild goats in this place. A distant stream rolling down lazily along the moutain makes a fabulous view over here. Inevitably you will see the white mist against the black background of the collosal mountain, if you lift your face up. The 97 sq. km. park is situated in the Devikulam Taluk and is home to the Nilgiri Tahr. The Anamudi peak (2695 m) is located in the Southern region of the park. Originally established to protect the Nilgiri tahr (Nilgiri Ibex), the Eravikulam National Park is situated in the Devikulam Taluk of the Idukki District. It was declared as a sanctuary in 1975. Considering the ecological, faunal, floral, geo-morphological and zoological significance, it was declared as a National park in 1978. It covers an area of 97 sq kms of rolling grasslands and high level sholas (evergreen forests). The park is breathtakingly beautiful and is easily comparable to the best mountain ranges found anywhere in the world.

After coming out of this place, the next best place to go is towards theCHINNAR direction. This direction has an endless beautiful picturesque views that will take one's breath away. The tea plantations look too beautiful and the tea workers working in them look very tiny against the huge green background.

The Kuthumkal waterfall is one of the few ones in the world whose water is potable. It descends down from a good height.

Well there are many more places to visit in Munnar, but we had only 2 days and this was all we could witness. We came back from Munnar with a heavy heart and a pledge that we will come back to this beautiful place once again.