Date: March 12, 2018
See the previous post for stops at Mattupetty dam, Echo point and Kundala dam.
Our tour continued with the next stop being Top Station — basically a great viewpoint. But we would stop along the way, whenever our driver-cum-guide would spot something interesting.
Now, we weren’t visiting the Top Station in Theni district, in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. The driver told us this was ‘Top Station’ on the Kerala side. The driver dropped us off at the entry place and told us to walk down. There is no entry fee to Top Station.
The previous night, several trekkers were caught up in a forest fire and several young trekkers died. The picture above is one I took using my camera. The smoke from the fire was still blowing. As the locals murmured about the tragedy, we had to continue on with our tour.
So here’s a brief video:
I saw this weird looking flower too:
I took some more videos before leaving the plantation
From Top Station, the next stop on our tour was a flower garden.
After the visit to the Floriculture Centre, our group were taken to a restaurant for lunch. The food at said restaurant was not good at all… so I won’t even name the restaurant. It’s kinda weird how bad the non-vegetarian food in Munnar was, or at least in the restaurants in Munnar town where we mostly ate. If you aren’t dining at a star hotel or fancy resort, stick to vegetarian or egg. After lunch, we were taken to a spice garden.
Entry fee was Rs. 100 per person. The tour lasts an hour or so.
The guide’s explanation was good, filled with trivia and interesting to listen to. I stopped taking photos after a while since a lot of the plants weren’t new to us as we grow them ourselves but for the Europeans in our tour group, it was mostly all new information. The tour takes visitors all over the estate and it ends with a stop at their store which sells fresh spices, coffee, cocoa, tea powders, dried fruits, nuts and all sorts of other items.
It was nearly 4pm by the time our tour ended
The DTPC tour of Munnar is a very cost effective way to see the best Munnar has to offer. There are tours operated by private agencies which last longer and cover more places but for Rs. 400 per person, it offers good value.
Previous posts in this series:
Getting to Munnar – Train ride from Kannur and KSRTC bus from Aluva
DTPC Munnar day tour: Mattupetty dam, Echo point, Kundala dam – Part 1
