Munnar

Munnar, set high in the Western Ghats of Kerala, is the best known of South India's hill stations, a place where the steep hills are combed into endless rolling plantations of tea, their bushes clipped into a continuous carpet of the brightest green, laced with silver-oak shade trees and threaded by winding roads and streams. Developed by British planters, it retains cool, misty air that is a relief from the tropical heat of the plains, and the landscape of tea-covered ridges, with women picking the leaves and mist drifting through, is its great draw. Beyond the tea, the surrounding hills hold the Eravikulam National Park, home to the endangered Nilgiri tahr, a wild mountain goat, and to a rare mass flowering of the neelakurinji, a blue-purple flower that blooms only once every twelve years and turns whole slopes violet. Viewpoints, waterfalls, spice gardens and a tea museum fill out a gentle few days.

History

The name means "three rivers", for the meeting of the Muthirapuzha, Nallathanni and Kundali, and the hills have long been home to the Malayarayan and Muthuvan peoples. Tradition says Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, was the first Briton to pass this way; by 1894 there were 26 estates in the hills, a ropeway was built in 1900, a new railway opened in 1909, and by 1911 around 6,500 hectares were under cultivation (Wikipedia, Munnar).

What's there

• The tea plantations - the emerald hills carpeted in clipped tea bushes.
• Eravikulam National Park - home of the endangered Nilgiri tahr.
• The viewpoints and waterfalls - the outlooks over the tea hills and the cascades among them.
• The tea museum - the story and processing of the region's tea.

When to go

September to March is the cool, drier and clearest season; the monsoon greens everything but brings heavy rain and leeches, and mist can hide the views. Mornings are freshest and least misty for the tea-hill vistas. The neelakurinji bloom, when it comes, is a once-in-twelve-years event worth planning around.

Good to know

Munnar has grown popular and its centre and main road can be congested and a little untidy, with traffic and unplanned building jarring against the beautiful plantations, so it pays to stay out among the tea rather than in the town. The winding drive up is long and can be slow. Mist and monsoon rain can obscure the views for days. The tea landscape is the real reward; the town itself is a means to it.

Nearby

The spice hills of Thekkady and the Periyar wildlife reserve are within reach; Kochi and the coast are a few hours down.