First Trip to God's Own Country - Munnar - Day 1

To be honest, it's actually quite embarrassing for me to say that being so close to Kerala, I have never visited it for Vacation and this Ilyas my first or many visits. Kerala is called the God's Own Country because how beautiful it is. Every state in India offers some great places for Vacation and in Kerela we have quite a few. I visited Munnar 2 weeks back for a weekend and I must say that it is much more beautiful than Ooty and Coonoor combines.

The landscape you see in Munnar is outstanding. The views you get in Munnar is outstanding. The places to visit in Munnar is not that much but still you will mesmerize with the views of Tea Garden. So the two days in Munnar is actually a combination of trekking and exploring the best views in Munnar.

We reached Munnar in the morning as we have taken a Sleeper Bus from Banagalore the night before. We have checked in at the Hotel and freshened up. After that we had decided to get a scooty on rent because Hill station is mostly explored through two wheeler itself. We have tried 3-4 dealers and finally got 1 scooty on rent for Rs 500 per day. Then we have started towards our first attraction for the day that is Kollukamalai Hill Top. What we have also learned that in Munnar there are 20 Tea Estates which is quite a lot.

Kollukamalai Hill Top

So in the first day of the Munnar trip we have visited Kollukamalai Hill Top which was around 32 KMs from the main Munnar town. The Kollukumalai is famous because it is having the highest tea plantations in the world i.e. tea plantations at the height of 7130 feet. Because of this the tea here is quite famous because it provides some extra freshness and flavor because of it is grown in so much height.

At first we thought of going on top by our own Scooty which we have rented in Munnar. But Kollukamalai is accessible only by jeep because of rugged road. Normal vehicle cannot run on that road itself. By travelling in that road is nothing sort of buggy jumping because throughout the road we were just jumping on our seat as the road so rugged. We have to pay Rs 2500 for to and fro from the bottom to the top and to be honest it was worth it. The driver was awesome and he was explaining us about everything and also clicked a lot of photos of us. The top is actually located in Tamil Nadu whereas you can access the road only by the Kerala road. This is how the partition of state in India is done.

So yeah, we have started from down around 3 PM and reached the top by 4:15 PM and then enjoyed some photo session at the top and then descended back at 4:45 PM to reach down by 6 PM. Kollukamalai is famous for Sunrise as well as sunset and also the cloudy bed it gives when on top. But we have missed all the three because of the time limitation. Even though we had some of the great views on the top. There was also a rock which was resembling as a Lion face. Some of the photos while going up and the views from the top.

So these were the views we were getting while going up. As you can see the tea plantations were throughout our way to the top.

These were the views on the top. There were actually two mountains on the both the sides. And both were giving quite amazing views.

I tried to take it from the near and it looked like a sister mountain where both of them were adjacent to each other.

Though the sky was clear but sometimes we were not able to completely view what is down mainly because of the fog. And this is the place you actually see the cloud bed. Unlucky for us that it was not there. And also lucky because we can see the great views which could have been missed if cloud bed was there.

We cannot see the sunset but it would have been great. We had to trade either go and see the sunset or click great photos under the sun. As there was limit the jeep will stay this much only on the top, so we have opted for seeing the views rather than seeing the sunset. I tried to capture the sun though while it's going down.

This is me just enjoying the views and mesmerize it.

This is the jeep which carries people. Usually 6 people can go at once. 2 back, 3 middle and 1 front. But the problem with back one is that you might get hurt. So it's better to go 4 at once.

This is the rugged road. It is still ok, at some places we were like leaning left or right and jumping every single time.

This rock structure resembles the Lion Face.

There were some people like 40 families who stay st the top without any support of medical, shops and other things. They have to do ups and downs for their basic needs. These jeep carries them sometimes but if jeep is not available, they usually walk 20 kms to the top. We can only think of their hardship life.

After exploring the top we came down took the scooty and then reached the hotel. We were so tired not because of traveling but because of jumping. I am not sure how people go in the morning and then explore other places. Might be it was us who did not had this type of experience before. Whetever it is, it was once in a lifetime experience.

This was the first day of my 2 day Munnar trip and the 2nd day was great too. Will post about my 2nd day at Munnar some other day.