Day 4 :
After our breakfast, we checked out of Pine Borough, bid goodbye to Kodaikanal and started for Munnar, in the last leg of our vacation.
As soon as we were out of the Tamil Nadu border, the climate felt sunny and mild and I was happy we were not in cold, chilly climate.
N stopped at a random eatery for his breakfast, while Mr.Bee and I had a coffee and tea respectively. The stall had photo of Amma, Jayalalitha and somehow, that reminded me of Thalaivii movie of Kangana Ranaut! (Beats me! Why did they cast a pahadi North Indian to play a pukka South Amma! Incidentally, I also loathe the Chandramukhi 2 of Kangana. What a royal waste of time!)
Anyway, on our way to Munnar, just as we entered the Kerala border, we stopped for lunch, we were famished. We halted at Safair, which serves the worst food ever. We could hardly eat a mouthful of food. It must be heaven for non-veg customers, because, they were lining up like bees, but it is absolute bekaar and tasteless eatery for vegetarians. We could hardly finish eating the two dishes we ordered, lemon rice and curd rice!
N was surprised we returned in less than half an hour. We ate the fruits we bought, before exiting Kodaikanal.
I also saw a restaurant which was Bethel Suji restaurant and I remembered the famous dialogue of Phoebe, “Who names their child Bethel?” LOL. (I am FRIENDS fanatic!)
GBee began counting bikes, all those which he saw on the highway and his score reached 1757. ( He entertained himself this way, because KBee would sleep as soon as we were inside the car!)
Even though we knew there were not any good restaurants, we stopped at Safair because we wanted to take a scenic route to Munnar and NOT the shortest route. We took the Gap road. It is the best! ( Always go for the scenic route, not the shortest route!)
Gap road – Munnar, the most scenic road with tea plantations!
We stopped at many viewpoints, took photos and had fun. Munnar is basically heaven and just looking at it is not enough, you should also be mindfully present to enjoy it! Here, cell is just a distraction.
We saw all the tea and coffee estates, most of them belonging to TATA group, who have them for a lease of 999 years! Trespassing is prohibited, so, no photos from inside the beautiful tea estates.
At one viewpoint, since we hardly had a good lunch, we stopped for sweet corn, which is easily available along with Maggi, along the road at all the viewpoints. All the 4 of us were happily chomping our sweet corn cobs when Mr.Bee saw a group of monkeys running towards us. I swear they were at the top of the hills when we started eating. As we started eating, they came down hill, waiting to cross the road to snatch our precious corn.
Mr.Bee wanted to buy us some time, so he threw his cob towards them. They got distracted for a bit. I asked the kiddos to eat their corn, fast. I chomped as much as I could before throwing mine too, at the hunger- striken monkeys. (Situation called for a sacrifice!)
We then rushed towards the car. N banned us from eating in car and monkeys won’t let us eat in peace!
We also had to throw away the kids corn cobs, before going ahead. The kiddos found the throwing away of half eaten corn cobs towards the direction of monkeys, very entertaining! (They were like, mom let me throw, let me give it to monkey.)
We took in as much beauty as we can, staring at our surroundings and all. Kerala government is strict about the cleanliness, which means we get to see wire bins in unique shapes at almost all important locations, for collecting plastic waste like bottles.
Plastic disposal bin
After spending most of our afternoon checking out the streets of Munnar, we checked into the White House hotel.
The kids were highly impressed with the White House hotel. KBee was so sweet as to believe we were staying there forever. GBee was laid back and knew, we were only on a vacation.
After quick baths, changing into fresh nightwear, we reached the in – house restaurant, ordered our dinner.
We also made plans for the next day, after discussing with our hotel manager.
We went to the kids play area, played for sometime (kids had fun) and returned to our room.
The room service brought our dinner, which was simple as ever, fried rice, watermelon juice for all.
Since the weather was not cold like Kodaikanal (Oh, how I hated wearing socks in the hotel room in Kodaikanal), we had fan running at full speed and AC on, we slept like logs!
P.S:
1. Gap road in Munnar is the best. I remembered all the movies I had loved, thanks only to the beautiful tea plantations and estates which were in the backdrop, demanding my attention!
Remember Chennai Express and Life of Pi?
2. India has huge potential, but maintaining the cleanliness is the problem. Let’s hope for the best!
Till the next post, bubye!