Date: March 11, 2018
I’ve been meaning to visit Munnar for quite some time. Although I’d been to Periyar back in 2009, I didn’t have the chance to visit the more popular town of Munnar, even though both are in the same district. My mother has been talking about visiting Munnar for a few years now. So in early March, I decided to take my parents to the famed hill station of Kerala.
There wasn’t too much planned. It was going to be two nights in Munnar and then one night in Kochi before heading back to Kannur.
Getting to Munnar
From Kannur, I assumed you had to get to Ernakulam first and then take a bus to Munnar. But upon doing some more research, turns out when coming from Kannur (or north Kerala), one can also get down at Aluva station and then take a KSRTC (Kerala State Road & Transport Corporation) bus from the Aluva bus depot which is very close to the railway station.
The train I booked from Kannur to Aluva was the NETRAVATI EXPRESS, which arrives (if no delays) into Kannur at 6:45AM and stops at Aluva 12:13pm.
On the day of our journey, our train was delayed :/
Since I woke up early to catch the train, I slept through most of the journey and missed most of the sights.
We arrived in Aluva 30 minutes late. We quickly had lunch from a restaurant nearby and then walked to the KSRTC bus depot which is only a short walk from across Aluva train station.
It’s a 4-hour uphill journey so we just wanted to board the next available bus as soon as possible.
The KSRTC bus drops passengers right in the middle of Munnar town — which by the way, isn’t very big at all. From the bus stop, I used Google Maps to find the hotel I had booked at. I had booked a Family room at Jays Tourist Home, which was walking distance from the main bus stop.
But other than the two large beds, nothing else about Jays Tourist Home was worth praising. Right off the bat we faced issues with the hot water supply. Given how cold it was in the room, the water was freezing and no way could we take bath without hot water. The hotel staff asked us to let out god-knows-how-many buckets of water until the hot water started to come through. My father got very impatient and very annoyed. It took nearly 15 minutes of leaving the tap on in the bathroom for hot water to come through. We felt guilty wasting so much water but we did so hesitantly at the request of the hotel’s own staff!
Worse still, they only turn on the central water heater from 6 to 9 in the morning and 7 to 9 at night. So if you want hot water on demand — which is something very important in a generally cold town like Munnar — do not stay at lodges like Jay’s Tourist Home. Pay extra, book a proper hotel and confirm they have a water heater in the bathrooom itself.
Anyway, we had to adjust for two nights at this lodge. Tomorrow, we would go for the full-day Munnar tour by KTDC and trust me — it made up for our dreadful room.
