It was time for my convocation, and my parents visited me in Chennai. We had about three days and decided to go for a trip hence. Munnar was always on my bucket list, and it was finally time! We boarded a train at night from Chennai Central and reached the temple cit of Madurai early morning.
We spent the entire day in Madurai, spending quite some time roaming around in the Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace, erected n 1636 AD by King Thirumalai Nayak, who ruled Madurai from 1623-59.
The Palace is a classic example of the fusion of Dravidian and Rajput architectural styles.
We spent the evening visiting the famous Meenakshi Amman Temple, which was reconstructed in the 17th cntury by Thirumalai Nayak, after being looted and demolished by the amies of Delhi Sultanate in the 14th century.
Photography is prohibited inside, so I managed to get some quick snaps from the outside.
After the visit to the temple, we returned to our hotel, ofcourse not before trying out the famous Jigarthanda of Madurai and warming ourselves with the delicious filter coffee!
The next morning we were off for Munnar. Munnar is roughly at a distance of 150 kms from Madurai, and takes about 6 hours to reach. The road is beautiful, and I guess biking would be fun in this road!
It is a quaint little hill station in the western ghats in the state of Kerala and is usually stormed by tourists throughout the year.Once you reach Munnar, you can check in to any hotel you want, based on your budget. There are ample hotels/homestays here and pre booking is not necessary.
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Our hotel was near to the Pothamedu view point and we visited it along with the Attukad Waterfalls. We spent the evening in the mall road, and spent some time at the Mount Carmel Roman Catholic church near the mall road. There are quite a few restaurants here, and we had an authentic Kerelian dinner in one of these places.
The next day, we decided to go around and visit the local sightseeing places. We started off with the tea museum and the Kolukkumalai tea gardens. Munnar is the third largest tea producer in India after Darjeeling and Assam. Tea gardens are definitely the best thing about Munnar!
Do try out the exquisite white tea that is grown here, although it is somewhat an acquired taste. We had our cups before setting out for the other places!
Another famous spot is the Kundala Lake and Dam, which is as majestic as it sounds! There are a lot of shacks for street food here which you can try out. The flowers growing here also looks stunning!
Another cool spot to visit is the Mattupetti Dam.
There is a grand view point called Top Station, which technically falls under Tamil Nadu but can be visited from Munnar, also being the highest point you can visit in Munnar. The road to Top Station gets extremely beautiful towads the end.
From Top Station, we headed back towards the town and got back to our hotel. It was the end of a beautiful couple of days in Munnar. We headed back the next day to Madurai and then back to Chennai, the same way we came. We had booked a car for the entire trip from Madurai to Madurai, online where you can get several cheap deals. Just a couple of weeks after we came back, a deadly flood occured in Kerela and Munnar was devastated. I hoped every single day that things come back to normal very fast the entire country had Kerela in their prayers.
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