After arriving in Munnar yesterday, we all woke up early to have our breakfast and then head to DTPC‘s office for our full day tour. DTPC is the District Tourism Promotion Council. You can call a day before to reserve your seats for the tour or just show up on the day of the tour at their office by 8am to get your seats.
After having breakfast, we took an auto-rickshaw to the DTPC office.
This is the DTPC tourism officeWe were the first to arrive. We paid up while waiting for the other tourists joining us today.The main tour DTPC offers includes a stop over at Eravikulam National Park. Unfortunately, Eravikulam National Park was closed to the public as it was breeding season for the Nilgiri Tahr, a deer commonly found in Munnar and the Nilgiri Hills.It was time for us to board our Tempo Traveller van and begin our tourI know I’ll be seeing sights like this every minute of the journey but tea plantations never stop being beautiful to look at
Some flowers were in bloom along the wayThe driver (cum guide) would stop along the way to show us sights like this — massive beehivesOur first stop was at the Carmelagiri Elephant park
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.
By the time I woke up, we were already nearing Aluva.
This is in continuation of a travel series that began in Kumarakom. To recap, we had gone to Kottayam for a friend’s wedding and after another friend, Ramesh, joined us in the afternoon, we took a bus from Kottayam’s main bus depot to reach the town of Kumily.
The nearly 3 hour long journey was quite an experience by itself. Once we passed the low lying towns, we sensed we were going uphill, but it’s not like we could see anything. It was pitch dark outside, and we could only assume the bus was taking hair-pin bends when the three of us slid from side to side on our seats. We had a blast, quite a roller coaster ride it was!
We reached Kumily town past 7pm, if I remember correctly. We didn’t have a reservation anywhere but we got a room easily for less than Rs. 1000 a night. I don’t remember the name of the hotel, sorry, it’s been nearly 3 years ago and I don’t remember where I wrote down all the details.
We had our drinks from a bar near by and then ate hot dosas and fried eggs from the street stalls that appear in the market centre at night.
The next day, we woke up early and took an autorickshaw to the Periyar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary. We wanted to get there as soon as it opened at 6am as we were keen on taking the very first boat ride on Periyar Lake, for a couple of reasons. One, a lot of guides said it was the best time to see animals and the other being, the morning calm in the air. Plus, if we got the very first boat ride itself, we could have left for Ernakulum today itself.
We bouight our tickets (Rs. 150 for the upper deck) and got on our boat.
The reason you see tree branches sticking out of the water is because Periyar Lake is an artificially created lake, flooded when they built the Mullaperiyar Dam in 1895The morning calm surely made for awesome reflections in the water
The boat ride is extremely smooth... and very relaxing
The skies looked good too
We may have woken up real early for this, but the morning ride was well worth itYou could make up for lost sleep here if you wanted to. It's a perfectly quiet environment.This island looked like it belong to a private hotel or resort
Drifting peacefully on this lake, I did wonder what this forest must have looked like before it was floodedThis being a wildlife sanctuary, there are supposed to be animals, even tigers. But all we saw were water buffaloes.Oh well, something better than nothing
Our boat was full of tourists from all over India and abroad
Saw a lot of these birdsDucks?We saw a large variety of birds. Too bad I didn't have a super-zoom lens back then.
An hour into our journey , we spot a few elephants grazing high up on the hillsBut the rest of the time it was bird watching
Here’s a video I took:
After a pleasant journey, we returned back to the banks from where we began our ride
What was a pleasant journey for us ended up being a nightmare for other tourists a few weeks later. On September 30th, one of the tour boats operated by KTDC capsized and over 40 tourists died. It was a grim day for Thekkady’s tourism and one that woke up officials to address passenger safety. It wasn’t even until this incident that the boat operators insisted on life jackets for all passengers. Appalling, when you think about how they wait until some lives were lost to understand the value of certain basics.
We took an auto rickshaw back to our hotelThe wildlife sanctuary is pretty big and you even have a tiger reserve nearbyYou have elephants rides here tooThis being Kerala, you're bound to see a lot of them
We checked out of our hotel, had lunch and got a KSRTC bus going to Ernakulam, Cochin from the town bus station.
This would be a good opportunity to see the sights we missed last nightMan, did we miss some sights alright!
I took all these photos from inside the bus while it drove back down the narrow hill road
Needless to say, the journey was beautiful
The Western Ghats of India are really beautifulThere were quite a few small waterfalls I spottedThe bus even rode past a fewIt's no wonder Idukki district is such a popular tourist destination
We passed a lot of rubber plantations on the way
We reached Ernakulam (Cochin’s main city) just past sunset. After a tea break, we took an autorickshaw to Fort Kochi, where we would be staying the next two days. (Photos from Fort Kochi in the next post)
