Pune to Munnar, Periyar, Cochin and back. Review on Munnar

We Started for our Munnar get away experience from Pune at 28-Mar-2009 23:10 PM Saturday. Train No. & Name: 1097/ERANAKULAM EXP with Distance to cover was 1433 KM which got completed by early 5:30 AM Monday morning.

We got down at Ernakulum JN then it took us 10 minutes by Auto to reach Kerala long route bus station. Language will be always an issue if you are unknown to that place so always bargain for best price when dealing with Auto /taxi guys. After long waiting of one hour finally we got direct KSRTC bus from Ernakulum to Munnar(fare Rs. 82 /person Approx). It took us 7 hours to reach Munnar. One can always get down at last post office stop, which is little ahead of main KSRTC Bus depot. This is the place where you can see lot of hotels and restaurants.

Accommodation:

We did our hotel reservation through travalguru.com. The hotel we checked into was Bella vista Resort. But I would never recommend it to anyone. We got really annoyed by staff by the way there was only one person who manages everything. Moreover Hotel was so far! Around 15 kms away from main Munnar town, I will be posting my complete hotel stay experience in another review but one can definitely find many options in Munnar town for budget as well luxurious accommodation.

What to do and see:

first day as we were little tired sitting in bus all day long journey we only explored nearby market and took short walks near Munnar town area. Had good Kerala food and booked a private taxi for 2nd and 3rd whole day tour(Rs. 1400/- Approx) we started about 8 am on both days, the car driver was a nice old man who showed all places like Devikulam Tea Garden, Rajamala Eravikulam National Park where you see Nilgiri Thar goat, Eco point, Mattupatty dam and tea garden, Top station, etc. which was a pleasant and comfortable experience, though temperature was bit on hot side in the month of May. Munnar is mostly surrounded by thick forests or tea estates. Tourists can trek as much as they want, with breathtaking views of deep valleys ringed by high mountains. Once we finished our Munnar stay we were out for Thekkady on 4th day morning. There were no direct bus around that time, but after asking people around we finally knew our next course of action. Thank god I converse in Tamil as I was in Chennai for quite some time (schooling days).

From Munnar we took a private bus at 8:15 hrs which was going to Madurai, but we need to get down at some small place called Nadikattam Kerala –TN border, then from there we need to take another bus to Thekkady KSRTC bus stand. Somehow we successfully accomplished this mission by 2 PM.

We checked in to our next travelguru booked Hotel: Woodland Prime Castle, Thekkady Road, Thekkady, India. Hotel staff was polite and generous, all in all excellent hotel, serves everything except food. Food was not an issue as there were plenty of restaurants near by. We cleaned up, eat some thing light and rush to ticket counter(Closes at 4:00 PM) for boat ride in Periyar wild life sanctuary which costed around Rs 900/for two of us. Ride was not that gr8, kind of OK as there were only few animals like wild elephant, buffalos etc. Any way after 1 hour ride we were damn hungry. Got into good restaurant had heavy south Indian food then roam around for while before landing on bed. We woke up early morning and went for safari trek in Periyar sanctuary which is trek in reserve forest areas with trained persons from the forest department. This costed us around Rs 800/- for two of us but it was well worth it. We were really excited as we were going through trilling n bit scary experience. This was a Top Slip into a very dense, vast jungle forest for 5 long hours, which was well worth a guided trek. It is difficult to put in words but one has to be there to feel the excitement, thrill and fun. We came out of forest, had our food, relax a bit and were out next day early morning 5:30 AM to KSRTC bus stand which was just 1 Km walk from the hotel. Got immediate bus to Cochin, It was 6 hours journey but mostly cruising through clouds which was very scenic. Checked into next Travelguru booked Hotel "SAAS Tower", C.S. Road, Near Main Boat Jetty, Cochin. We requested hotel people to book our tickets for boat jetty ride into sea then quickly cleaned up, had good food and rushed for boat jetty ride to look around few places in & around new old cochin. Boat Jetty ride into the sea was indeed refreshing when passing through places like big Cochin harbor port, Hotel Taj etc. Next day morning 8:00 AM we were back on return train for Pune. Personally, I feel we have enough time to visit Munnar, Periyar & Cochin regions. One can spend 2-3 days within the Periyar sanctuary and there are endless treks available there periyartigerreserve.org. Incase interested, one can skim through trip report for these areas at https://indiamike.com/india-artic.uide-may-2008/