Where the heck are we now?: Munnar to Kumily and Kovalam Beach, India...Part 1

Another day in Munnar we hired a driver to take us around the countryside, drivers here are really affordable and sometimes the only option available.

It is summer holidays in this area so wherever we went there were lots of people, especially families. This also meant many stops for selfies with them as we were one of the few foreigners around....

Yes sometimes the water is green!

Every stop had lots of roadside vendors...

Beautiful looking carrots...

Lots of colours to catch the eye...

As we watched the families we could see the kids bugging their parents to buy them treats...kids are the same everywhere...

We stopped at a large reservoir which was created by a dam system and it seemed to be a popular holiday stop...

Loads of local tourist vans...we were often stopped and asked where we were from and how we liked their country...

We laughed at these signs on the roads as at home they would say Moose Crossing...

In this area there were lots of honey trees that were filled with sacs of wild honey that is harvested by lighting marijuana and smoking the trees so the bees become calm enough to allow it!

Since we had our own driver we could stop as we wished, here was a tea break on the side of the road...

We also stopped to go for a walk through the tea plantations on the other side of the mountains, it was so peaceful and again so lovely...

We came across some women picking and this lady kindly agreed to have her picture taken...

It was tea time so this lady was carrying the lunch...

The highlight of the day was a walk through one of the small villages we could see from the highway. We asked the driver to stop on the side of the highway and we walked down through the village...

Here are some village scenes...

Kids playing ball...on the way out these boys invited Don to play...

They all seemed to have lovely gardens by their homes which they were proud to show us...

These girls came running as soon as they saw us coming up the road. They spoke a little English and we could gather they were in Grades 6, 7 and 8 and seemed to be neighbours and cousins. They showed us their school work and practised their English. And of course wanted their pictures taken...

Grandfather is in this picture and the next picture is Momma and Grandma. Momma was just coming back from the fields and taking a rest. Her daughter told me she was 56.

I love the smiles in this picture!

Another great day in India when you get to meet the people and see how they live. As in everywhere we went the people were warm and welcoming, they even invited us in for green tea..

The next morning we hired the same driver to get us to our next destination which was Kumily. Don did not want to take the bus and we were told the roads were worse in the direction we were going. And they were...

It was early morning and the scenery was spectacular...

The sun was just rising and the mists in the mountains made the landscape seem surreal...

We stopped in Kumily as it was a little closer to our last stop at the International Airport. It wasn’t an overly interesting town but it was full of Indian tourists on school holidays who come to visit the National Park and surrounding countryside. We had hoped to trek in the park but a misunderstanding about where to sign up for the trek meant it didn’t happen but we still made the best of our stop here...