Day 16

I went to the bus station very early in the morning. As it's almost routine now, I couldn't figure out on my own how to find my bus, but some locals were helpful and pointed out when it came.

I thought about two things for the journey, because it supposed to be long one. I thought that maybe I will manage to sleep a little, but almost everything in buses here is from metal and there's no glass in windows so I couldn't even rest my head on anything. Another thing was idea that I can update my diary, but due to little sleep and bumpy road I couldn't really focus and write much.

Before I realized we were already in hilly areas. Although there is terminology confusion, because what Indians call hills we would probably call mountains. Bus was going sometimes very quickly on the slopes down or up, on the turns and I felt a little bit anxious, but quickly it faded away.

After few hours I finally noticed properly mountainous landscape and when I saw mountains for the first time I literally held my breath for a few seconds. Road was leading around serpentine paths and views were really extraordinary. I felt excited like a little child and tried to notice everything. Previously I was scared to do photos, because I felt that bumpy road and open windows could mean that I drop my phone, but somehow I forgot about all that at that time.

The most magical were the famous tea plantations covering mountains slopes everywhere around. But there were more to spot and I saw two monkeys, although because it was on the bus I wasn't even able to make a photo. Huge mountain rocks were impressive as well, especially when we were driving close to them.

Hill towns we were crossing had different vibe from what I experienced so far in Kerala, but it's hard to spot where the difference lies except obvious environmental one. At some point I started to feel little dizzy out of the bus ride on these mountainous roads, but amazing landscapes were a prize for all of that.

When I finally arrived in Munnar I reached my hostel and it was actually quite nice place. Very narrow, but relatively tall building painted in green. It was a little formal, but besides looked nice. When I unpacked I went to ask hostel manager for guidance with attractions here. He pointed me to government office that provides good tourist packages in affordable prices. It sounded good so I went exactly there. They have four different offers, but I didn't know immediately what to choose. Eventually I chosen one with Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary as I hoped to see some wild animals.

When I felt that things are settled for the next day, I decided just to roam around, looking on a map just like a guide for otherwise random walk. I climbed up to tea plantation hills nearby and to the temple viewpoint surrounded by it. Going around paths in the middle of plantations was extremely calming at this time, every place, every viewpoint looked gorgeous and I truly felt happy that I could be here. Someone told me it's popular honeymoon destination and I can understand why. Maybe I will return here some day?

I went to eat something and afterwards when it became dark I went for small walk. It was nice experience, but when landscape is barely visible it's not the same so I returned to hostel to sleep.

At the end, few free flowing impressions about Munnar. My first surprise was big presence of Tamil. I knew that it's close to the border with Tamil Nadu, but it was still surprising, my mind trained on our borders, when even with open Schengen zone borders, you can easily see divide in use of language and population when you cross the border. Tamil script could be see alongside Malayalam on various signboards, there are restaurants apparently run by Tamil, I thought that I heard kid calling his dad "appa" (although I'm not that good at picking up words in my surrounding). Another interesting thing is that people seem to be on average more dark skinned than in coastal areas. Things like that are always hard to assess just by looking, but I think I'm not wrong with that observation. Is it presence of Tamils? Or is it more due to more Adivasi - hill tribes blood? Or some other reason? It's hard to speculate just like that and I would need deep dive into research to answer that.

.