How bad could it be?

Trip Start Dec 10, 2006
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17
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Trip End Jan 07, 2007


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Where I stayed
Erumadam Tree House
(Munnar hotels)

Flag of India  ,
Sunday, December 31, 2006

For New Years we planned to stay in a honest-to-god tree house in the mountains of Munnar.  We assumed (hah!) that since we paid a pretty penny for it that the place would be halfway decent.  You know what happens when you assume....
The Erumadam Tree House is about 14Km south of Munnar on NH-49. 
Strike 1: Bold Mice.  We can handle a few mice crawling around in the walls, but this one was fearless. 
Strike 2: Copious amounts of mold.  The floor was damp pretty much everywhere so this isn't surprising how it happened.
Strike 3: Extremely unhelpful staff.  It got to the point where we felt they were hindering us from leaving even after we had prepaid in full.  There was no phone, and they would not call a cab for us to leave on NYE.  Since we are in the middle of nowhere it was quite inconvenient Eating on bannana leaf plates
Eating on bannana leaf plates
 .  Our only alternative was to walk several Km down a dark twisty highway on new years to find the next hotel.  The next morning they finally called us a taxi and then had the nerve to tell the taxi driver to not drop us off at a nearby hotel, that we should only go sightseeing.  Again, seeing as we had pre-paid this was out of line.  Fortunately the taxi driver listened to us and not them and we are now staying at a much nicer establishment called "Poopada".  He he he.  How would have known with such a name?
Strike 4: No phone. 
Strike 5: Way out of town (half hour)
Strike 6: On NYE the chef was off duty so the only food they had available was non-vegetarian.  It would have been fine had we been informed, but we had no idea until we arrived that night and had dismissed the taxi driver.

In conclusion, we wouldn't have minded the mice and the mold had we not paid $70 US per night, and had known ahead of time what to expect.  Regardless, the staff was out of line with their lack of help and at times hindrance.

On a positive note, Erin and I rang in the New Years (US time) at a lovely riverside cafe while eating ice cream floats! It all ends well.
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Comments

bur08
bur08 on Jan 2, 2007 at 01:06PM

What an adventure!
OH MY!!!
Your next stop on the itinerary looks grand....can't wait to read about it!!!!!The website looks very interesting!

ats516
ats516 on Jan 5, 2007 at 05:22AM

WOW!!
The pictures of Munnar are amazing! Sorry about the mice though. That's kind of like when we got served dog food while hiking the Inca Trail. Or traveling on a 'cruise ship' for four days down the Yangtze river only to find out that they have no toilets on the boat. ha,ha. The things we do to have an amazing experience, eh?! I'm green with envy. You two look so happy together. What a wonderful honeymoon! Come home safe and sound and Godspeed. Love, ash

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