Hill Station

Munnar is a hill station that is about 4 hours away from Kochi – and it seems REALLY popular around Christmas time, especially with other domestic tourists. I have seen some foreigners, but the majority of people here are Indian.

Nature

One of the top reasons to visit Munnar is to see nature. It’s very hilly up here and there are lots of tea plantations. On the way to Munnar you can stop and see waterfalls as well as quite elaborate bridges that were constructed by the British a long time ago.

Tea

Since there are so many tea plantations here I wanted to go and see a working factory. One of the best bets seems to be to go to the TATA Tea Museum. It has a small working factory at the back and a short film talking about the history of Munnar and how tea plantations started here.

Of course after the tea museum I had to buy some tea to take back home. You can buy either loose tea or tea bags and they also have a choice of black or green tea.

Hiking

One of the other things that I love about hilly areas is the opportunity to go trekking. Since the tea plantations are private property, to go trekking you need a guide. It may be a bit of a cash grab but that seems to be the way it is around here. You can find day hikes and multi-day hikes.

There was a bit of low cloud, but it was still a great hike to walk among the tea plantations and up the side of one of the mountains.