Two days in Munnar, exploring Munnar and Tamil Nadu borders - A photo story

The very sight of green Kerala from the flight above amazed me. The car we hired for the entire trip was waiting for us at the airport. We were greeted by our driver. We had a delicious lunch near Kochi and headed towards Munnar.

Soon we reached the ghats. It was green all around. We could see cute colorful bunglows in between. We had tea at a cute little restaurant by the hill. We spotted some waterfalls on our way. We stopped at a Spice Plantation. The guided tour of the Spice Plantation was a good experience. I learnt about so many new plants and goodness of those plants and herbs, how they can cure blood pressure, diabetes etc. We bought few things from their plantation shop and chocolates and then we started again and reached Munnar in late evening. It was raining. We settled down in our hotel, had a good dinner and called it a day.

Pics from spice plantation

Next day woke up to beautiful sunny morning.

Pic of Munnar Town:

After breakfast we headed towards sightseeing of Munnar. We started at around 9 am. Soon we started enjoying the bends of the hilly road. The tea plantations all around against the blue sky was beautiful. My hometown, which is in North Bengal, is also surrounded by teagarden and I kinda grew up in tea estates, so I never thought the beauty of the tea gardens of hills around Munnar will amaze me so much. I was already in love with this place by now. First we went to the Photo Point. Then we reached a beautiful dam. After that we headed towards Echo Point. The lake at Echo Point seemed amazing to me. Even some people there were shouting out loud there to check their echo and yes it was echoing back. We did paddle boating there, spent sometime there.

Pic of the dam near Munnar:

Pics from Echo Point:

We started moving towards Top Station.The roads in between the tea garden was so beautiful. Every place was a wall paper moment.

Wallpaper moments on our way towards Top Station:

Soon we moved to the other side of the hill and we could see nothing, yes, we were in clouds. We stopped and walked to the end of Top Station after paying an entry fee. It was a long downhill walk to reach the point. We could just get a glance of the hills of Tamil Nadu from that view point since it was mostly cloudy.  We walked back uphill, had a quick lunch and was wondering where to go now.

Views from Top Station:

Our driver was suggesting many places which did not attract me much. And I already read at tripadvisor that Kolukkumalai Tea Estate is one of the best places around Munnar. And I knew that we need to hire a jeep at the base, because of the bad roads, to reach the top. And finally I decided to give it a try. We started heading towards the tea estate. We crossed beautiful lakes. Soon we were greeted by a herd of elephants who were enjoying the meadows.

Some pics on our way towards Kolukkumalai:

After some clicks we started moving again between the beautiful landscapes before finally reaching the base of Kolukkumalai tea estate. There were some jeeps parked there. We agreed to a price of 1400/- rs for the round trip of around 4 hours. We along with our driver got in the jeep and started our safari.

The breeze striking my face in the airy jeep already made me happy. We crossed a small village with some shops and then soon we entered the beautiful tea estate. The spectacular view of the plantation amazed me. The sun was playing with the clouds and our jeep was playing and romancing the bends of the road uphill. The road was very rough and patchy with stones. We crossed some beautiful streams and waterfall. The jeep driver was a great photographer and took our amazing pics with my dslr. He even instructed us to give poses and was happy to share his innovative ideas while clicking pics. He asked us to enjoy small treks at some places. We walked in between the gardens. Workers were plucking tea leaves there. We learnt the art of plucking tea leaves and plucked leaves along with them. It was foggy by then.

Pics from Kolukkumalai tea estate:

We reached to the top of Kolukkumalai in our jeep and trekked a little up to the tea factory. There was an echo point in between. The tea factory was an old one built in 1930s and is the highest in the world at about 7900 feet above sea level. We paid 100 rs each there for a guided tour of the factory. First we went upstairs where tea leaves were kept and then we came downstairs where we made tea from the raw material through different machines. It was an experience one of a kind. We also had tea there.

Old tea factory:


Looking through the broken glass of the old factory:


Tea making machines in the factory:

It was around 6 by then and it was getting dark and cold. We got into our jeep and started moving back to the base. The sight of the tea factory far way surrounded by the tea garden looked like a castle to me from the distant road.

Far away is the tea factory in evening:

It was dark and too much foggy. I could see nothing. I was wondering how the driver was riding the jeep downhill through the dangerous terrain. It also started raining after sometime. After a bone breaking safari which was totally worth, we reached to the base, got in our car and started our journey back to Munnar town. After a delicious dinner in cold rainy weather settled in our cozy bed with memories of a beautiful day.

A weekend trip to the hills, Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani

Four of us started at 7:30 am from Pune for the Mahabaleshwar-Panchghani trip by car. The weather was cloudy. We had our breakfast at some roadside dhaba and started towards Mahabaleshwar again. Slowly we were in the hills. Before entering Panchgani we gave a toll. And in the entire trip I lost the count of tolls I paid as everywhere people where charging us.

Our first stop was Mapro Garden where we spent some time and continued our trip. We reached our hotel which I already booked. It was a few kilometers away from Mahabaleshwar near Lingamala Waterfall. We entered our hotel room and I was delighted. Our forest view family room at the top floor had glasses all around with some great views. I was happy over my hotel selection :). We just dumped our luggage and left the room to travel around. It was around 12:30 pm by then.

First we went to Arthur's Seat view point. We started enjoying the roads bending through the forests. Slowly it was more cloudy and we were inside the clouds with almost no visibility. We could not even see the nearest car. We got down from our car. We climbed down the steps there to several points. But nothing was visible because of the excessive fog and mist all around. This point is named after British officer Arthur who sat here and gazed at river Savitri, where he lost his wife and children in a tragic mishap. We left it to our imaginations how he must have been sitting here all alone ages back and gazing at the river with chilly winds striking him, at this barren hill.

Then we went to the Savitri View Point which is just next to Arthur's Seat view point. Here also nothing was visible to us since we were in the clouds.

We then headed to Kates point and enjoyed the views of the dam and falls with different shades of green all around.

It was around 3:30 pm by then. We were already very hungry. We came back to Mahabaleshwar town. We started hunting for a restaurant to have good non-veg lunch. We went to Shere Punjab and had a delicious lunch.

We started again and went to the Venna Lake. We took a boat for us and spent some good time sailing in the lake. The chilly winds striking us and the hills around, merged in clouds, made our sailing more beautiful. Even I tried forgetting that I am at Mahabaleshwar and started imagining that I am in Kashmir's Dal lake :). After this we had tea and also played some silly games at the nearby joints which was fun.

We left the place for Lingamala waterfall. It was 6:30 pm by then. We just realized after reaching there, the forest leading to the falls is only open from 8am-5:30pm. So we had to return back to our hotel with a plan of visiting the place next morning. Before entering the hotel I had a short walk around the hill with tress all around. I was amazed by the sound of chirping birds in the evening in an otherwise silent hill. It brought me back some beautiful childhood memories of evening of my small hometown. I found an empty green lawn with some benches, sat there for a while. Also discovered a temple with noone around. I loved spending time at these deserted places with myself before returning to my hotel. From my balcony I enjoyed the evening red sky merging with the hills. It started raining in a while. The occasional sound of rains on our tinned roof and chirping of insects was the melody of our night.

Next day we woke up to chirping birds which we rarely hear in cities. We had our breakfast and hot tea facing the hills in chilly morning. We got ready and headed to Lingamala Waterfalls. Through a forest we reached the entrance. We paid 10 rs as entry fee each and entered the area. We were in a dense canopy of trees with occasional penetration of sun rays through them. We climbed up and down the steps to reach a place which bifurcated into two ways, left and right. First we took the right route and walked around 400 meters in the forest with narrow brooks along our way. Soon we could see the falls surrounded by greenery. We walked through that route till the end and then again started moving back to the same point where we took left. Then we took the right route where we walked around 100 meters and reached a small waterfall where everyone was enjoying the falls by getting wet in it. We did not get wet. We returned back from there.

Next we started for Pratapgad Fort. The road leading to the fort was beautiful with greenery all around and some water falls at places along the road. We reached Pratapgad and started walking through the history with ruins of the fort. But there was a lot of human settlement inside the fort which looked disturbing to me when I was trying to relish the history. We climbed to the top where there was a Shivaji statue. We enjoyed the view from the top half merged in clouds. We returned back and had delicious lunch at a roadside dhaba.

Our journey back home started after lunch. But my last destination was Wai's Dhom Dam which falls on the way back to Pune. We took a left turn and started enjoying the village road to the dam. After sometime we reached Dhom dam. It was incredibly beautiful. Stretches of land with almost noone around, greenish blue water and green hills half merged in clouds, white ducks floating in the water. One of the most beautiful places  I have ever seen in western ghats. Although there was a boating club, but I did not see anyone boating.

It was drizzling by then. After enjoying the beauty and emptiness of the place we started our journey back to Pune in rains with memories of these beautiful places.