Munnar to Varkala - Angela's take on things

I think poor old (and he does look old now he has a fully cultivated beard!) Chris is getting tired of writing the blog!

We left Cochin for Munnar in an old Ambassador car, it was a cop out. We should have got the bus but we saved a few hours and the driver stopped at some amazing waterfalls, here we had a warming cup of cardamon tea, which we probably wouldn't have been able to do had we got the bus.
The countryside around Munnar was truly amazing and we were staying right in the heart of a tea plantation. I loved the scenery so much i would go back in an instant, would be a great place to retire (except for the lack amenities) . Unfortunately while I was there I ended up with food poisoning, I think a fresh oj in our expensive accommodation was to blame (it did taste a bit watery) and I had thought it would be ok since it was a posh hotel...no such luck and i spent the night and the next day in bed watching BBC world news and Animal Planet (this is all I could get in English), I will forever relate nature programmes to throwing up.


Chris on the other hand (who had opted for a pineapple juice) was in fine health and went on the 5 hr trek which sounded amazing.

We left Munnar and visited Top Station on the boader with Tamil Nadu, again the views were amazing. We then travelled to Kumily where we rode an elephant called Ganesh (he ate a whole pineapple in one go!) and had an interesting tour of a spice plantation (they can truly grow anything here).

The bamboo rafting in the Periyar Tiger reserve was a bit of a let down and the highlight of the day was seeing some giant tadpoles! Not sure we needed the armed guard to protect us from them.
We are now in Varkala, it is fairly touristy but a welcome relief as it has everything we travellers need; namely bars, restaurants, shops to buy shower gel and a beach. We are going to while away the rest of our days in India here before heading to Trivandrum on Tuesday morning for our flight to Sri Lanka where we have an action packed week before departing for Singapore.

We have photos of us on the eleflumps but they are on the other memory card......so will follow later.