A Cruise to Munnar

Munnar its located 5000ft above sea level that’s about 1600mts, which was basically built as a comfort station by the british planters. It is a land with rolling hills, steep gorges, carpeted with green tea by TATA, it partially holds tropical forest and has a treasure of plants and wildlife. Munnar is one of the most naturally beautiful hill-stations in South India. It is located in the Western Ghats in the Eastern parts of Central Kerala and an adjoining part of Tamilnadu. The former, mainly in Devikulam Taluks of Idukki district, Kerala is usually known as the Kannan Devan hills or the High Ranges. The plantations in High Ranges are clustered around the town of Munnar (10 N 77 E) which is about 130 km from Cochin. Kodaikanal, another famous hill-station is just 90kms from Munnar. Munnar is known for world class tea and spices. TATA's own about 65500 odd acres of teas plantation in here, the famous brand of Tata tea Kannan devan chai is a origin from here.

There are 3 rivers Mudrapuzha, Nallathanni and Kundala which meet at the center of the town and hence the name munnar, were the ‘munn’ means three and the ‘aar’ means ‘sangama’ which means the three rivers confluence here.

Duration : Our trip was for 3 days. To look at the whole of munnar you need about 5 complete days.

Best time to visit : Post monsoon and winter for good scenic. Summer if you want to beat away the heat.

Ways to reach :

Nearest airports

• Madurai (140 km)
• Kochi (130 km)
• Thiruvananthapuram (265 km)

Nearest Railheads

• Theni (60 km)
• Kottayam (114 km)
• Changanassery (114 km)
• Kochi (130 km)

There are frequent bus services from almost all cities in south india.

Accomodation : Its preferable to have the accomodation booked well in advance, especially during season it becomes impossible finding a stay in munnar. I have provided few contacts in this travelog. There are lots more hotels what you can find around.

Our trip to munnar :
Where shall I start off with?? before starting let me tell you the perfect defination of dynamic planning....! The plan was to go to Kodai but at the nth moment our instincts (dynamic decision) drove us towards munnar....!It was a worth it decision...!

I called it a cruise to munnar, for the first time.....we were in no hurry to reach the destination it was like a smooth drive to munnar through ooty.... ! doesnt it sound good... !

Day 1 : 13th August 2005 - Friday

We were 4 dudes.. Karthik (thats me), Sunil, Sumanth and KK who cruised to munnar in a tata indica (we claim it as deisel truck - rugged, gives mind blowing mileage - beleive or not we got about 22kms/litre on long......umhhh doesnt that sound good).

We had planned to leave at 3.00 am on 13th August 2005 and it was a long weekend.

Before we left, early in morning
Sunil came home at around 3.45 am
Sunil : Morning dude ! ....with a disappointing look on his face but at the same time not able to control laugh KLPD maga !
Karthik : wht happenned ? I was worried.. and praying god.. no this trip shouldnt get cancelled
Sunil : With a grin AC and the Front display board aren't working.
Previous day night the mechanic had screwed around with the fuse panel and 'cuse of some loose connection, things weren't working. Any ways.. that didnt make ne difference. Nothing could stop us to go.. !
After that I checked whether any thing can be fixed.....as if I am a stud mechanic .....didnt have luck ...couldnt fix it !
We later on picked up KK and Sumanth.... I was still thnking hard about what could be wrong and how to fix it.... na...I still didnt succeed in fixing it !
As expected left an hour late. We hit the pitch dark artistically sculptured mysore road at around 4.15am It took us about 3 hours to reach mysore, god knows when they are gonna complete that express highway which was started ages back. The initial part of the bangalore - mysore could say till channapatna the road was pretty bad, some times its tough to figure out whether we are on a road or on a dirt track, the tyre manufacturers are really gratefull to karnataka government as there sales in karnataka has shot up ....cheers to these people, any one whoz interested in stock market... you can consider this as a tip from my end.. go buy these stocks..!!(disclaimer : I am not responsible for ne loss, but plz do consider me if you make profit).
It was about 6.30 when we were in the outskirts of mysore taking the new ringroad of mysore leading towards ooty...! It was a beautiful drive umh now say cruise from there on .. almost every one aboard were shivering of cold and we still didnt hesitate to pull down the windows. The cool breeze gave us such a relief, could sense a tinch of freshness. As the sun came up, we stopped aside to take few snaps in a sunflower fields. We did gulp in few slices of bread along with riped mango juice having a glimpse at the golden rays piercing through the morning haze, which was a worthwhile watching it. We took off again and as we reached the bandipur range .....ufff.. it was as if we were put in a room painted with green all around. It was total greenary, could smell the odor of a fresh thick wild forest. We could spot few deers, lots of peacocks and for our bad luck couldnt spot any elephants, wild boars and wild buffalo which are commonly seen animals in this forest range.


We reached the forest office at around 9.30 from here there are two routes which lead to ooty, among which one route has 33 steep hairpin bend curves which is about 30kms and another route is about 70kms which is pretty easy, smooth way to reach ooty.
You know we guys are ambitious as expected we choose the tougher route, we surely paid for it. Hitertho the journey was good no troubles, then the tata designed indica couldnt take the steep, had to stop at couple of places to cool the engine and take it up from there.
We didnt crib a lot about the car, we hogged, take snaps, enjoy the greenary around during that time ! At one stop we could spot a huge waterfalls, it was a very good scenic.....the forest out there was very dense.
Before going ahead, let me tell u the nightmare sunil had. Myself, sunil , kk and one more guy had been about 6 mnths back in the same route and had faced similar sort of problem with Indica. But then it was a new car and he was scared that his car was screwed, after the trip with "a lot of research with mechanics in bangalore", he concluded saying there was some minor problem. This time he was confident and took it up as a challenge, but his car pulled him down.
One more problem apart from this car was our kk dude, whoz a software engg working on the automobile domain, trust me this dude has hell lot of knowledge ! He keeps bugging us with his technology......every time he starts of... we guys feel..not again !
We reached ooty, we had our breakfast out there. Spent about a hour to get the problems repaired at a garage out there. We left to mettupalyam were we had out lunch. On the way to mettupalyam the AC and the front display panel again stopped working. It was about 30kms ghat roads to mettupalyam. We had a pit stop for our lunch.

At around 1.45pm we started again towards coimbatore which was about 30kms from there, filled in few fuel there. Now started towards palani which was about 40kms from there. This stretch was boring, few of us had a good nap in the car after a heavy lunch. After which as we moved towards pollachi which was about 30kms again from palani, we caught up with a good smooth highway(very impressive road) and on this road we found few good scenics around. There was lots of wind, the Sulzon had installed lot of windmills aside this highway on the later part of the highway towards pollachi. Sumanth really enjoyed driving crazily n these road.....it was the first time sumanth was driving a deisel car !! was struggling a bit... infact forcing to drive a deisel car like a petrol car.. ! hahaha...I couldnt stop laughing at his driving style.

As we reached pollachi we came to the junction.. it was the critical turning point of the whole trip, we came across a board.. which had directions to kodai and munnar...it was showing about 122kms to kodai and about 88kms to munnar..........It was almost 4 pm
I just make a statement, initially was not serious about the statement
Karthik : "guys how about munnar instead of kodai"
there was a pause from all of them
Junta : "why not "
that made me give a big smile
Karthik : "chalo...lets rock to munnar"
we took the diversion towards munnar,then I guess KK thought a lot, after a while spoke out
KK : "guys, we had planned every thing for kodai, we knew which all places to go in kodai".
We pulled aside the car, had a talk for about 2 minutes........all enthu souls..decided chuck kodai and lets go to munnar. It was a wise decision we made, that night I heard that due to heavy rainfall the previous day at kodai, lots of road were blocked. We thought we were lucky that we took right decision at right time... other wise we had to repent a lot if we had taken Kodai route !

After about 18kms in that route we found a diversion towards munnar and one more going to amaravathi dam, crocodile park. I felt it would be wise to complete those places on the 3rd day on the way back to bangalore. It was about 4.55pm, we were at the entrance of the chinnar wildlife sanctuary which is a part of periyar forest range, had to sign in at the forest check post and started off into the forest range. The initial part for about 10kms was pretty dry even the road was a bit bumpy and the ride was boring. I was wondering did we take a wrong decision. After about 5kms from there we could make out a smooth transition in weather and vegetation around. I was driving the car, I knew we had very less time before the sunset and had to cover as much distance as possible. It was about 5.40 pm we were still about 50kms away from munnar, mind you it was a single track road too many curves. Now it was getting cold, getting a bit darker, it was very silent outside in the forest. For a second I felt like I was dreaming, the dusk was getting better and better, there was absolutely no traffic now I had started enjoying the drive. We guys spoke about lots of things, after some time Sunil took over the driving. Myself and Sumanth were in the back seat, we all started speaking about girls, how sumanth and kk patafy them ! ...they were giving gyan to me and sunil ! I was taken aback with sumanths talents ......he is the dude ! lots of interesting topics pop up. I swear we didnt know how the time swayed away, it was about 8 pm and we were almost close to munnar I can say about 10kms away. There were lots of landslides because of the rain, at one spot there was a bad landslide and a bus was struggling to pass by, we had to slow down for the bus to pass off, thats when Sunil spotted a Fox, it stood beneath a small stream about 30 feet from our car, its eye was sparkling in the dark. We then made it to munnar.......ah my god.. that was a long drive .. ! we stopped in the main market of the munnar. Spotted a good hotel for dinner it was "saravanabhava" umh.. the name was familiar and thought the food would be good..... it was not very good. For that reason people out there suggested us saying that was the best hotel around, trust me thats true..... the food out here is far better than any other restaurant around... obvoiusly there were star hotels.. we didnt even thnk about those. For those people who are interested in staying in good star hotels, resorts. Here are few contacts

Umh , after the dinner our search for the cottage/room started. It was a off season, but as it was a long weekend the prices of the rooms were high and we found it tough locating any room around. Our hunt for a room went on for about 2hrs, we resigned there , said no more searching and we are gonna sleep in the car itself. Before going to sleep, we decided to go for a walk. Trust me this idea was good one, about a km away from the main market as we were walking we found a couple of guys dumping there luggage into a car. We took a wild guess and asked a person out there are u ppl chking out, they said ya..! there was a good smile on my face... there we go.. our luckiest day ......all good things happening for us. More over the price for the room was very less. Later lots of stuff happened, they told they can't give the room as it was already booked by someone else. They directed us to an other place, on the way to the new lodge, I was again cursing for my fate...thought I have to take back my word " luckiest day". Then we landed up into a place were it was dark, hardly any lights around. It was in a peak locatily and could get a few of the whole munnar town. Later he took us into a house, were the house was converted to a lodge..... when we went into the room, we realise again.. "luckiest day". The room was pretty worth the money we paid. It was Rs.600 /- for a double bed room for a night. We all were tired after a long day...jumped into and bed and were fast asleep.

End of day one.

Route & Distance covered:
Bangalore - Ramanagaram : 62kms
Ramanagaram - mandya : 40kms
Mandya - mysore : 30kms
Mysore -nanjangud-bandipur- ooty : 130kms
Ooty - metupalyam - 30kms
Metupalyam - coimbatore - 30kms
Coimbatore - palani - 40kms
Palani - pollachi - 30kms
Pollachi - munnar - 88kms
Approximate distance through this route Bangalore-Ooty-Munnar is about 500kms

Day 2 : 14th August 2005 - Saturday

We woke up at about 6.15am, the weather was so cold that we all decided not to have a bath. There was one erotic painting in the room, sumanth insisted sunil to take a snap of that. We lucky got hold on to a guide his name was Yesudas, later we came to know that he was one of the best guide of munnar. We were lucky to get such a person as our guide, he showed us in and out of munnar. He is about 60yrs and an ex-service men n army !
We took our own time to have our breakfast and yesudas was suppose to meet us at about 9.30am in front of the church in the main market area. We waited for him and finally we left for munnar site seeing at around 10.00am in the morning, I thought we were late and couldnt cover much of the places. He took us almost all places around in munnar in a day !

On the second day we woke up at about 6.15am, the weather was so cold that we all decided not to have a bath. There was one erotic painting in the room, sumanth insisted sunil to take a snap of that. As soon as we stepped out of the cottage it was cold, it was drizzling and we could see a beautiful morning view of the whole munnar from there as I told it was located on the top of the hill. We quickly got into our car and made a move to the saravanabhava hotel for the breakfast. We waited for Lupans Yesudas, he is about 60yrs and suppose to be the best and the most experienced guide in munnar. He is an ex-serviceman, his contact info is 9447220616. If he is not available on this number, just ask for yesudas in the super studio which is in front of saravanabhava, they will get you in touch with him. Luckily we got a hold on to him from his son who works at the lodge where we stayed . The contact info of the lodge/cottage we stayed is

Vilayil cottage – munnar P.O. ,
Munnar town, kerala-685612
Email : vilayilcottage2003@yahoo.co.in
Tel : 04865 – 232409
BLR contact : 080-25267457

The stay in here is pretty average stay. If you are looking for a very good place and if money is not a criterion, you could check out

Edassery Eastend,
Temple road, Munnar – 685612
Tel : 04865 – 230451/2/3/191
Fax : 04865 – 230227
Email : info@edasserygroup.com
Web : www.edasserygroup.com

The stay in here seems to really impressive, the website should tell you everything.
We started of with our site seeing , the first stop was in a very weird place on some road. I was wondering what is out here to have a look at, this experienced guide showed us one of the oldest trees in munnar and the tree which beholds the highest number of bee hives every year. He even gave us a lecture on the bees for about 15mins, trust me it was very informative. With prior request this chap can also arrange for pure honey, good tea powder and lots more. He also showed us a very peculiar leaf, which when torn apart gives a feel of a cotton, so it is suppose to be called as the cotton leaf, don’t know much about that.
He later on took us to place were the tea plantation was so neatly trimmed , it looks like a green blanket spread over and hence the name green blanket. Again this is a property of TATA tea. What ever you see around till about 5km or more in radius from munnar town belongs to TATA tea.
Our next view point was mattupetty lake, which has a speed boating and about 2kms from there you can see a Indo Swiss dairy project. About year back they used to allow visitors to this dairy project. There is lots of research which goes into this dairy and the cows here suppose to give twice the milk than a normal cow. We found couple of very good spots in this locality, clicked few snaps around and made a move to the echo point which was about 3kms from there. Trust me the echo is very prominent, we screamed a lot till we got tired. This are the few snaps clicked out here. You get some good carrot, pineapple out here. We later on made a move to the top station which is located 6270ft above sea level were we had a small trek, it was pretty tiresome and this trek was enough to make us sweat in that weather. Our guide showed us a trail which was way small to look from this peak and told us that is the one day trek route from munnar to kodai, this made both me and sumanth smile at each other. So we are planning to trek on this route some time, obviously with a guide. It’s about 30kms trek, really not sure whether it can be completed in one day. After which we made a move kundalay lake , this guide had discovered an other echo point . It seems this point is not known to public. It was about 3.30pm, we hadn’t had our lunch and it was time to rush back to munnar town as we were very hungry. We again hogged at saravanbhava, after which it was another round of hunting for the stay for that night. The prices for stay had again shot up, we all of us decided to make a move from munnar to another place by name marayoor, which was about 30kms from there. The drive to this place was good, the whether was too good and we started discussing about girls again …..umh the hot topic. Sumanth was some reason was shocked at few facts and lets forget the topic there, as sumanth started imagining lots of things which werent facts. The discussion went on for about 3hrs.
On the way to marayoor, we found a very impressive falls. We took some good snaps in here. Finally we reached marayoor and we just scanned around the whole place for a good stay. Trust me his place has very good resorts, cottage and lodges. The stay out here is affordable and mind you the climate out here is not as cold as in munnar. But a very scenic place to stay in. Here is the contact of the place were we stayed

Chandana royal resort
Munnar, Marayoor P.O.
Kerala – 685620
Tel : 04865 – 252222, 252322, 252221

This people have about 4 hotels and resorts in the same place. The stay in here was good and the early morning scenic around the resort is very good. There are couple of small water falls near to this place, you can spent some good time in here if one is interested.

Day 3 : 15th August 2005 - Sunday

It was on a Independence day, the sad part was we missed the holiday as it was on a weekend. We got up a bit late at around 7.00am in morning and left at around 8.00am to few more places around.
We went to sandal wood and bamboo forest , there was hardly any thing to see out there. After which we started moving towards coimbatore route, where we had to pass the chinnar wild life sanctuary again. There are couple of trekking trails in this sanctuary. As soon as this sanctuary ends we get the forest department, this people do arrange for about 4 different types of treks in this sanctuary. All trek lovers you can check out with this people out there.
After the check post we visited amaravathi dam which was about 10kms from there, spent some time there. It was pretty hot, we had already lost the hill station weather in here. We also visited a crocodile park out there and it was around 12.00pm . It was time for us to get back to Bangalore. We stopped at pollachi to have our lunch and from there we took a different route, a short route to Bangalore. We took route to erode via dharapuram . Once we reached erode we took up the statehighway to salem. And from salem we took up the rocking golden quadrilateral. I swear this road is too good. It was about 6.00pm when we reached the start of golden quadrilateral. Sunil started driving from here, it took him about 3hrs to reach banglore, you can guess the sort of road I am talking about and the sort of drive it was. Sunil would have touched about 140kms/hr on this road. It was a very fast and smooth drive back to Bangalore from munnar on this route. It is approximately about 400kms from munnar to Bangalore on this route.