Munnar Trek

Finally get a chance to write about what we've been up to!!! The trek was brilliant!!! Started out on Saturday morning, only us, a couple Brett and Jenny (from Oz and California living in Japan teaching english) and our giude Shyam (23, really nice guy). Did a few hours trekking in the hills around Munnar, scenery is amazing, tea plantations every imaginable shade of green. Our guide was brilliant, explaiing the tea picking and pointing out loads of flowers and plants and spices along the way. Saw wild coffee and pepper, flowers that only bloom every 12 years, and fresh tiger tracks.... Our guide said he'd never actually seen a tiger up there but one had eaten a few cows once and he looked pretty nervous scouring the forest for anything that moved.... Tense! Was brilliant fun though, loads of tracks around and wandering through the plantations ws really cool. Everything was provided for including water which was well needed cos in the heat we were sweating buckets!! We had dinner and tea in a forest hut near the top of the mountain, amazing views and they set up tents for us for the night..... tiger tracks!!! Eek!! As per India protocol Brett and Jenny were mild grade hippies, think we're the only non-hippies in this country!! So while we drank tea Brett went and practiced breathing, to give him energy, well it mustn't have worked cos he was nearly falling asleep into his dinner... So off they went to bed while me and Der had a couple of beers (carried up the mountain by sherpa, no not really!, but kind of...) beside the campfire, ah the life. I have to say though I was a little nervous standing in the dark for an alcohol induced pee, peering through the darkness for tigers, what was that crack!!??? Aargghh!!!! The next day we opened the side of the tent and watched the sunrise over the mountain, wow!! Spicy omlette for breakfast and loads of tea, they sure make a nice cuppa. It was a shorter trek on Sunday, though up and down incredibly steep inclines, thank God for the trekking shoes! And ended at Top Station, a viewpoint, British built (more accurately Idian built..) but the mist had rolled in that morning so not much of a view, still pretty cool, tried out loads of fruit, passion fruit, chicu, tree tomato (yum), guava, banana... And there was lemon grass growing everywhere, smells lovely. Brett and Jenny were getting progresively pissed off cos they wanted 8 hours trekking a day... and worse the paid over twice what we paid for just one more days trekking, so while we relaxed Brett fumed over his masala tea. You should have seen poor Shyams face when he left to continue trekking with them... So that was it, back we went to town on a public bus, during which we burst a tire (and carried on), smashed a lorry's sidemirror, caused a traffic jam and a woman puked out the window, not to mention the speeds on hairpin bends!!! Eventful and all in all a very good couple of days.