More tea Vicar?

On our way to the next destination we stopped and visited a Tea Factory. We had to wait at the gates with all the other visitors in a scene that was reminiscent of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. Unfortunately, there was no Willy Wonka to welcome us.
Once inside, we weren't allowed to take any photos or steal any everlasting gobstoppers, oops - we mean tea.
We were however, allowed to wander fairly freely amongst the machinery and workers - no worries of "Health & Safety" here! We did learn that India does tea factories in similar fashion to how they do everything else - organised chaos!

Kathikali

We also visited a Spice Garden and Kathikali show whilst in Thekkedy.
Rather than put lots of photos of plants on the blog(as interesting as they were), we decided to show you the more colourful Kathikali performance. As per usual with Shivani, we got there early and were able to see them put on their make-up and costumes.
Kathikali is a traditional South Indian form of story telling through dance, costume and music. Crucial to the performance are the facial and hand movements, which we tried to capture.

Thekkedy

We then went further south to Thekkedy and did a boat safari into the wildlife park.
There we spotted Deer, Wild Boar, all manner of Birds and a herd of Elephants.
This was definitely a safari Indian Style - check out our boat!

Munnar Town

Just a few more shots of Munnar including an actual Tea Factory, Munnar Town Centre, Andrew enjoying Tea at a Chai Wala and Tea Pickers returning with their leaves to the factory.

Munnar - "I Gotta Go Tea"

Tea. Tea, Tea......
That's right, we're surrounded by Tea.
Up in the mountains it is much cooler and the perfect environment for Tea to grow and provides an opportunity walk amongst the clouds.
Okay a couple of phrases to match the photos:
"Moos in the mist."
"Temple in the Tea."

Have a look at the photo with our driver; Mani, who had the unenviable job of not only driving us around, but driving over all the pothole ridden Indian roads.

The photo of Shivani outside with all the stalls is just more evidence that you cannot fault the India sense for an entrepreneurial opportunity. At any given spot for sightseeing you'll see various stall holders touting their wares.

Cochin to Munnar

We stoppeed at the old fort town of Cochin, which was very quaint and like stepping back into an old fishing village. Cochine is famous for it's use of Chinese fishing nets, which we went to check out. We quickly left though, without even so much as a photo, due to the fact the smell of rotting fish was so overpowering. The fishermen had on display their catch of the day for people to buy, but didn't have any of it in refridgeration - lovely!
We carried on to Munnar; a hill station famous for it's tea plantations, aand we took some snaps along the way.
Check the mountain goat - there are loads of these all over the place here.
Buses are definitely not boring in India and here is a shot of just one of the brightly coloured buses which can be found ploughing the roads.

Waynard - Sightseeing

The scenery was beautiful; we were very high up, driving through tea plantations, stopping at lakes, waterfalls and lookouts.