The Tea Plantations
The town of Munnar isn’t much to write home about, but the hills surrounding it are covered in tea plantations. Almost every square inch is utilised and it’s incredibly beautiful. We’d booked a hotel with a balcony facing the hills and loved watching the ladies picking the tea by hand with a pair of sheers. We visited the tea museum which was fascinating and explained that all the plantations were planted under the British and prior to this the area was forested. Eventually one of the largest companies here remaining from British days was sold to the workers and is...
Read MoreMan down
I’ve had trouble with my back all my life. I can pick a pair of socks up and then be unable to get out of a burning building as it hurts so much. Over the years treatments have changed from 2 weeks rest to have a cup of tea and carry on. For the last few years this has worked fine, but this time it really didn’t make much difference so I was hobbling around our resort hotel looking like a 90 year old who’s just pooped himself. To make matters worse my knee, which again has caused me issue for a while now, has been playing up. It needs a deep tissue massage...
Read MoreBest we stay another night
Varkala Cliff The whole point of coming to Varkala was to walk along the cliff edge restaurants and ‘posh tat’ stalls and obviously we didn’t make it having got waylaid chatting in the restaurant the night before. So when we woke up we booked another night at the other end of the town and had a very strenuous 4.7km ride to get there that thankfully we managed to break in to two with a stop for a iced chocolate coffee – yummy! We checked in to our new hotel and adjourned to the pool. We had a brief swim and another English couple turned up and we got...
Read MoreReligious wars
Surprisingly the area around Kanyakumari is Christian and full of churches, big brand new immaculately kept, expensive and very impressive churches. It’s impossible to get a full night’s sleep here as one or other of the religions, or in an unheard of unifed religious movement, all 3 of the religions will endeavour to wake you up from 4.45am. First the Hindus start with their music, then the Christians start with their service which is more chanting and then the Muslims pipe up with the call to prayer by which time the Hindus are at it again and we go on like this until the...
Read MoreAbout turn…
After an excellent 4 night stop in Madurai we left at 6.20am to get through the city before the madness begins and try to avoid the heat of the day which begins around 11am. It’s not so much the heat that drains you but the sun. Once that is on full power then you’re basically f@#!*d. Hence the dawn starts. We weren’t looking forward to the next few days cycling. It’s very flat and a bit dull and being inland extremely hot. We also had to zig zag from hotel to hotel as there was very little accommodation. But once clear of Madurai and off the main road we had a...
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