A walk to remember - Post 1 in Munnar Tea Gardens, Kerala

11^th April 2013

I have promised my wife last night that I will wake up before her unlike every day because I love long morning walks in the scenic places. And in spite of managing to sleep at 1, I woke up at 5 am. The weather was very cool. I went to wash room and begun reading one of the novels by Ruskin bond. Ruskin writes quite well about nature and that is why I love to read him at such places. I was reading 1 story about ghosts and also getting scared as the silence in such places are deafening. 

At 5:45 am, my wife also woke up. It was very dark outside. Finally, at 6 we went for a walk amidst the amazingly beautiful Tree plantation in Munnar. We breathed deeply to gift our lungs lot of fresh unpolluted air absent in cities. 

There were not many people and vehicles on the road and that provide us the opportunity to walk hand in hand without worrying about anything in life. Such simple pleasures of life amidst nature are actually the true gifts of life and should be appreciated and relished to the maximum. The beautiful nature trails surrounded with Tea Gardens on both the sides makes you realized that this place is tremendously gifted and bestowed with beauty and enormous number of panoramic views. It seemed as if God had created the beautiful green carpets and rolled them over the Munnar valley. 

"An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day." - -- Henry David Thoreau

After Sunrise

Believe me, this was the most beautiful part of our complete trip. Peaceful walk was the biggest advantage of booking our Hotel 10 km. before the Munnar. If we have booked the Hotel in Munnar, I am sure we would be devoid of this lifetime walk amidst the tree plantation. We did a lot of photography, laid down on highway and also saw the sun rising. 

At around 7 am, we saw lot of children going to school and asking for lifts from the tourists. Life at hill stations is no way easy. We came to know that children need to walk some 4,5 kms each way every day to go to school and perhaps that is the reason that people are healthier in hilly areas. 

Road is wet due to the heavy fog in the early morning

At around 7.30, we came back to our Hotel and got ready by 8 for the sight-seeing. I also told my cab driver that I want to come back to hotel 1 hour before it get dark in the evening to enjoy my evening walk and thankfully, we also enjoyed the evening walk but on a different trail. In the evening, we asked him to drop us 3, 4 km before the hotel and can park the car in hotel and if we were tired or anything, we would call him. 

There was 1 church very near to our resort Nest. While coming to hotel, we sat on its terrace for 30 minutes and it was really very pleasant experience and the pure vibrations we felt are perfect setting for introspecting. 

Captured from the terrace of Church

Also, on our way, we heard some voices of people but nothing was visible. There was 1 dense route going downwards from the road, we thought of traversing it. It was getting dark and we also confused whether to go down or not. We decided to go on this route for 5 minutes and then come back if we did not found anything substantial. After 10 minutes of walk, we uncovered 1 big field where local people were playing cricket.

Local People enjoying the Cricket

  It was a very beautiful field blessed with trees on all the sides.

The one thing about such places that always attracts me is that people here have lot of time unlike in cities and life here is not like rat race. Instead people are very friendly here. 

Lastly, I would like to add that Early Morning walks in the Munnar tea gardens is 1 such thing that I strongly recommended for everyone.

Check my another post in this series walk to remember here.

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