Hari Om

We’re currently on the way up a mountain, heading to Munnar, a tea plantation. The drive is about 3.5hrs from the ashram. Fort kochi and Cherai beach will have to wait for the next day off. Despite the long but interesting drive to Munnar, I couldn’t pass on this opportunity. Just stopped at a spice garden for a quick tour. Saw pepper, cloves, cardamon and nutmeg trees amongst other interesting spices. Did you know that black, red and white peppercorns come from the same plant? It’s processes differ to give each type/colour of corns a different favour.

At the end of the tour, Irina suggested we 2 go for the fish spa. We left the group in the shop and headed to the spa. As I looked at the aquarium filled with little fish, I remembered mom saying ‘you don’t know whose feet went in there.’ I had to try it though, Irina was very convincing. :). What an experience – and it’s already off my list. I was a bit grossed out as the fishes skimmed over and had to move my feet just to shoo them away. No fish were harmed during this what-seemed-like-a-long 10 minute session.

We left the ashram at 6:30am and its now almost 12. How does the saying go, enjoy the journey without hurrying to reach the destination. Well, good thing the trip here was interesting because the tea museum was closed. They are closed on Mondays. On the way out, Thomas tried to cheer us up and mentioned that all tea is grown from the same plant specie. We asked him to continue his sharing his knowledge of tea from living in Asia for years, but this was all he knew. 🙂

So, we headed to the quaint little town of Munnar (on the mountain). Irina and I found a bulk tea merchant and got some green tea and vanilla beans.
Then we were off for lunch. I had nan with paneer – made in a similar sauce as butter chicken…but I forgot the name. It was Sooooo good. Irina couldnt finish her indian style spring rolls since it was spicy. Lucky me, I got to help her out. The best spring rolls ever! If anyone is expecting me to lose weight with this training, it ain’t happening! :).

We headed further up the mountain to the ‘honey tree.’ There were ginormous hives on this one massive tree. A few vendors sold honey and combs below but the driver said that they’ve blended the honey with sugar and colour.

After the honey tree, we were off to see the elephants. None of us rode them but a couple of us got to take pics next to them.

Echo point was not too far away. The water you see is a dam…don’t recall the name but its beautiful and the water was cool. Perfect for a quick dive after a hot day and long drive but no swimming allowed. The area was covered by vendors, cars and horse rides. The actual echoing was done by us tourists.

On the way back down the mountain, we saw a couple of monkeys! Just noticed the 2nd one on the top right of the pic. The nicest thing driving down was the cool mountain air was fragranced with coffee blossoms. The coffee trees grew near the roadside. It smelled similar to jasmine.

The drive back to the ashram seemed like it wouldn’t end. It took about 4 hours of driving along the winding mountain roads…and the tea plantation was only about 120km away.