Munnar, where we are currently, is a town in the Western Ghats mountain range in India’s southern state Kerala. It was originally a hill station and resort for the British Raj elite who established tea plantations in the late 19th century on the rolling hills.
This morning we booked a plantation walk in the Latchmi Estate and met up with our guide for the walk, Ganesan.
We set off from the meeting point which was around 400m from the entrance to the plantation carrying a bottle of water as the temperature was starting to rise, as did we. As soon as we got to the plantation there appeared to be only one way and that was up.
Ganesan explained various aspects of growing tea leaves – the leaves are picked from the tree approximately every 2-3 weeks depending on the season, each tree will produce around 8-10kg of processed tea in a year, there are 27 tea estates in the area, the population of Munnar is around 70,000 of which 46,000 work in the tea business.
Ganesan
The desired items from the tea tree - flower, seed and leaf tip
We clambered high up the slopes until we reached the point where we said enough climbing thanks however at that height there was a superb view of the surrounding plantations as well as a wild elephant which while we didn’t see it (we heard it in the bushes) Ganesan insisted we move on quickly in case it took offence to our presence.
The view across some of the plantations is here
Ganesan was an interesting character and seemed to be in his happy place in the hills. He had the usual smart phrases such as “no hurry, no worry, no chicken curry” but the one that made us laugh was one he used when talking about his wife who works as a tea picker (a back breaking job if ever we have seen one). He was talking about being very happy in his marriage even though they had the normal matrimonial ups and downs and it was during the downs, that he inferred she could deliver a fair punch to the ribs when necessary.
While it doesn’t come across as funny when it is written in a post, try and imagine a smiling and laughing religious Hindu Indian, talking in an Indian accent, demonstrating a punch in the side while saying “Oh my God, jeezus she can hurt”
3.75 hours after setting off we arrived back at the starting point, thankfully!
Thankfully there was also a restaurant very close by so it was in there for a lunch and recharge.
From there we went to the Srishti Charitable Trust premises where they employ around 260 “differently abled” people from the area designing and creating paper products from eucalyptus leaves, elephant dung and tea tree leaves starting with the pulp process, and also hand dyed clothing.
The unfortunate part was that the person explaining the various processes was not that good at doing so and as a result it was not as informative as it should have been.
We ended our day with an (uninspiring) walk around the Munnar shops.
We won’t comment on the driving skills on display.
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