Fort Munnar Resort

... a jumper). When your in Munnar it gives the town a rather gloomy feel, but when your out amongst the countryside, it gives the whole landscape a more mystical feel.
Its a big change from the coast of Kerala and a welcome one at that.
We fly to Bangalore the day after tomorrow, so are taking the long bus back to Fort Cochin tomorrow morning... Fun.

Kieran

... to be angry. Women here do not exchange rings when marry but are given a gold pendant to wear around their necks. With his mother in hospital Tony was looking after his mothers and it has been stolen.
Indians love theories, drama and black magic and after drinking a bottle of Bacardi, we took to the NH47 to meet a wizard who cut off chickens heads and made things happen.
I will admit being disappointed he looked like a ...

Alas the journey was better than the destination. Munnar moaned and I moaned in Munnar. With sore feet, a killing head cold, a cold shower and an unlock-able door I burst into tears arriving here overwhelmed and exhausted but knocks at the door offering buckets of hot water and Chai soon woke me up and I explored the best Munnar had to offer- good chai, homemade chocolate and marshmallow's or even chocolate marshmallows and an eat as much as ...

... i had a chance to crack out the layers, alapaca jumper and retro style, BMX bandit, brown leather fingerless gloves and we found the refreshing, pure air was a welcome relief after the hot lowlands. Nice opportunity to rid myself of the respiratory infection i got from being in the polluted cities and maybe from smoking too much. Every morning in your paper thin walled hotel rooms or just on the street across India you can hear all the Indians doing the big whooping cough ...

... tin can ever, with no glass at the windows most people pull the black canvas down to give them some protection but we thought we would hack it! The journey, although we had numb bum's from sitting on metal seats and were being thrown all over on the bumpy mountain passes through national parks, was amazing! We usually had our eyes closed on the bends as the driver took them at great speed and it didn't look like we'd get ...

... that are made in the trees - they look like something out of aliens. We eventually came accrosss some black monkeys throwing themselves all over the place and making the distincy...oohh oohh in a deep male voice. Fun to watch. It was hot work even though we were shaded by the trees. The guide would tell us about the plants and trees and feed us some wild spices and tree bark (see later). There was also loads of frogs camoflaged in the leaves hopping ...

... planned, that seemed to be the theme of our traveling together (somehow by the time you get food, shop, internet, chat, etc.. it is 2pm and you planned to leave at 10am!) on what turned out to be a avery long, windy, roller coaster bus ride up the mountain to Munnar. We arrived Munnar about 8pm and were greeted by many "touts" as they are usually called who rush up to tourists to sell them on where to stay. Most cities/countries I avoid them, but I must admit, here they seem to ...

... the spice markets, churches, mosques and synagogues! and attending a local kathakali dance show, where heavily made up indian men dressed up as women and performed incredibly expressive and complex dances to tell some of the more important stories of hindusim. we were suitably entertained for 45 minutes and then left. yesterday we took a bus away from the coast, climbing up into the hills to munnar, an oasis surrounded by tea plantations as far as the eye can ...

... one or two of the elusive fellas. On the drive up to the park we stopped to observe a family of wild elephants on the hillside. When we returned to the auto-rickshaw, Sarah noticed some red liquid on her toe. She shrugged it off as the juice of a berry, but when our driver told her that it was probably the blood from a leech bite, she went into a panic. I had discovered one of her biggest phobias, and any image I had of her as an intrepid and fearless explorer was instantly crushed!