Ernakulam to Munnar trip
In the last week of August, my husband expressed his desire to visit Munnar this weekend. It was a pleasent surprise for me. As I am always ready to visit beautiful places, so I agreed. He asked me to check for a hotel for the weekend (Sept 14-15) online. However, he forbade me to book the hotel till next week, fearing that in case of any urgent official work, he would have to cancel the plan. Later, I booked a hotel with zero cancellation fees. My husband decided to go by our car to Munnar which is about 125 kms from Ernakulam.
So, on September 14, Saturday, we woke up at 5 am and left for Munnar at around 7:30 am in our car. It was Ekadashi that day and I was fasting. On the way, I was telling my husband the story related to Onam.....I told him that people of Kerala believe, their own king "Mahabali" (Grandson of bhakt "Prahlad", the great devotee of lord Vishnu) comes back every year in Kerala to look after his people. I told how lord Vishnu in his "Vaman Avtar" had asked the generous King Mahabali 3-steps land. In one step lord took whole land (prithvi lok), in second step the lord took sky (aakaash lok) and asked king bali where he should take the third step? King requested him to keep next step on his head. Lord Vishnu put his foot on King's head and sent him to "Patal Lok", from where king Mahabali comes every year. My husband told that during celebration of Onam festival in his office, as per tradition, a man from his head office on the 1st floor was dressed up as King Mahabali and then his Zonal head took him to his office in second floor for celebrations.
My husband drove the car for nearly 2 hours, when suddenly our car had a breakdown. He told that clutch of the car was not working. I searched for nearest car service station on google and called on the given number. A mechanic came after half an hour and checked our car. He said that clutch plate of the car had to be changed and it would take around 4-5 hours.
My husband was worried and asked whether we should go back home. I asked him to check whether our hotel booking amount viz.Rs. 11,000/- could be refunded. He called the customer service of "Make my trip" company from where we had booked hotel. The customer executive denied to return money. Then I suggested to leave our car in service station for repairing and take a cab for Munnar. After thinking all pros and cons and discussing with car service station manager, he agreed. I booked an uber cab for Munnar.
At about 11 am, we left for Munnar. On the way, we asked our driver about the tourist spots we could visit in Munnar and how we could cover them in the given time. We reached Munnar at 3 pm. While we were making payment to driver, he asked whether he should wait for us and take us to the tourist places in Munnar. I enquired about the money he would charge for the whole trip. He told that he would charge Rs. 3000/- per day from the next day. We agreed. His name was Juhair and he owned the car. He was a Keralite and could not understand Hindi, but was playing Hindi songs in the car to please us. We asked him to come at 4:30 pm to take us to "Kalari-Kshetra", a cultural centre of Kerala, located in Munnar and Chocolate factory, Munnar.
We were welcomed in the hotel with a cup of spiced tea (Kerala is famous for spices). It had nice aroma of spices. We got room No.302 in the hotel. After getting fresh and having a nap, we got ready for "Kalari-Kshetra" and called our driver. Juhair took us to Kalari-kshetra, the cultural centre of Kerala traditions. We took tickets of "Kathakkali" show (5:30 to 6:30) and "Kalaripayattu" show (6:30 to 7:30). We enjoyed both the shows. However , Kalaripayattu show was more exciting, engaging and interesting than Kathakkali show. "Kalaripayattu" is an ancient martial art form of Kerala. In the show, boys were performing adventurous acts. We took photos and videos of both the shows. After the shows, we went to chocolate factory and bought some chocolates for us. We asked Juhair to be ready next day at 9 am.
 |
| Kathakkali dance at Kalari Kshetra |
Next day was the "Onam" day. After having breakfast at the hotel, we left for the tourist destinations in Munnar. We asked Juhair, where he would be taking us that day. He told that he would take us to Mattupetty dam, tea estate etc. I said that somebody had told me about elephant rides in Munnar. He said yes, and took us to an elephant park. We had to take tickets for elephant ride. Though, initially, my husband was unwilling to take the ride but as per rule, we could take tickets for minimum 2 persons. So, both of us had a ride. It was a fun moment to have elephant ride for the first time and feeding it pinapples. We came back at 2:30 and had lunch in Sarvana Bhavan, a vegetarian restaurent in Munnar city.
After lunch, we moved towards tea estates. The more our car was moving ahead, the more greenery we were experiencing. Main difference between the hills of Uttarakhand and Munnar was their heights. Here, the hills were less tall and more green due to tea plantation. We were really mesmerized with the beauty of Kerala, as there are hills, tea estates, lakes, waterfalls, beaches, backwaters and what not. The scenic beauty of Munnar was like somebody has drawn it on the paper and has painted it with vibrant colours.
 |
| Tea estates |
 |
| Tea estates |
 |
| Eco point |
We also saw "eco point" and took some pictures. At "tea museum", we bought varities of tea packets - flavoured green tea, white tea, black tea, rose tea, ready to drink ice tea bottles, etc. In botanical garden, we took some pics with flowers, bought organic lemon pickle, honey, banana chips, etc. We came back to hotel at about 06:30 pm, washed feet and hands and took rest on cosy bed. In dinner, we had soup, hakka noodles, chilli paneer, etc. and went to bed at 10 pm.
Next day, we woke up at 6 am with sun-rays coming inside our room from two big glass windows. In the cool weather of Munnar, sun rays in the morning were like boon. After having breakfast, we called Juhair, who was ready to take us to Eravikulam National Park. He dropped us to the national park, from where we bought tickets to go inside the park. There were govt. buses that took us inside a place in the park, from where we had to go on foot. The place was quiet, calm and serene. National park is famous for 'Nilgiri tahr' a type of goat, which is found only in that national park. So, on the way, we saw many Nilgiri Tahrs and took pics with them. It was a very satiating experience to roam around in a peaceful atmosphere filled with fresh cool air and listening to chirping of birds. I really cherish those moments in the serenity of mountains. At about 3 pm we came back and proceeded to Ernakulam as we had to join office on the next day.
 |
| Eravikulam national park |
Juhair told that though he lives in Kochi, he comes to Munnar frequently as his in-laws and other relatives live in Munnar. In fact, his sister-in-law came with a tiffin filled with "paysam"/kheer and served us. He told that it was prophet's b'day that day, so to celebrate it, they cooked paysam. It was made up of milk, vermicelli/sevain and saboodana and was delicious. On the way, we again bought some spices and had lunch at a restaurant. At 4:30 pm the driver dropped us at car service station, from where he had picked us up. The car service station was closed due to extanded Onam festival. However, we took our repaired car from security guard with a bill of Rs. 18000/- for changing of the clutch plate. The weather was ofcourse hotter than Munnar. We paid the rest money to Juhair, shifted all the bags from his car to our car and proceeded towards our house in Ernakulam playing malayalam songs. 😊😊😊
Comments