After checking out of The Princess Inn, I ambled to the Post Office in order to mail some of the contents of my backpack to my mum, it’s getting beyond a joke how much stuff I have in there. I have only bought one pair of trousers since being here, but it has become clear that I had packed too much and need to get rid of some clothing, so I posted stuff home.
As well as the unwanted clothing I posted home a USB stick to my mum who wanted some photos, she is having trouble copying the photos from my blog and Facebook. So I decided to combine them both and kill two birds with one stone. The Post Office was a bit of a nightmare, in India you have to have your parcel properly wrapped, this means going to the nearest Tailors shop and getting them to sew it into a piece of Muslin. Whilst there I got chatting to two lovely ladies from New Zealand, they had a parcel about ten times the size of mine and I sat discussing packages while the two lovely Indian ladies sewed the life out of our belongings! It was rather pleasant.
I auto-rickshawed to the ferry to get across to Ernakulum and then again to get to the Bus Station, here I found the platform without even needing to ask. How grand I felt! I did have to ask when the bus was due, but other than that I bought some biscuits and settled down to the Bollywood themed television programme.
Once on the bus I had issues trying to fit my bag somewhere, the luggage racks above me were TINY! Eventually I managed to wedge my bag up against the side of the bus next to me, so this meant that I spent the next four hours wedged at a funny angle. Oh the fun.
Ernakulum to Munnar costs just ₨80, for a journey of five hours!
Munnar isn’t actually that far from Cochin, it just takes FOREVER due to the bus struggling to get up the side of a hill. Add that to the million-and-one people getting on and off every ten minutes and you don’t get very far very quickly. That said, even if I don’t find anything of actual interest here in Munnar, the bus ride would have been enough to keep me happy. It was amazing, there was a person in front of me eating a lime. She was eating it like an orange. I saw rubber trees, obvious by the skirt of plastic sellotaped to their trunk, in rows in small sections of the jungle.
You get out of the city and all of a sudden you are faced with as many shades of green as you can think about. I didn’t even know that there were that many. Then you add to that the way that every tree and bush seems to be vying for your attention with interesting bark (yes! There is such a thing) or a gorgeous orange flower, a trunk that stretches up into the sky or a strange sounding bird chirping from its branches. It feels like I have stepped through Alice’s looking glass and jumped into Wonderland.
As I exit the bus I am besieged by Auto-Rickshaw drivers who all want me to go to their (commissioned) hotels. I decide to go with ‘JJ Hotel’ as it’s in the Lonely Planet. At first glance it seems nice and as I get inside it also seems friendly and bright! The room is painted very yellow with yellow pillows and yellow sheets; I also have a blanket, which is a first for me here in India, and leads me to believe that it may get cold here!
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