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.
