Munnar

"I met death and two weeks later I was in heaven". This statement seems perfect to me when I close my eyes and try to recollect the picture taken by my "eye" capture, the ideal camera. After resting for one weekend, we planned for Munnar. Not wasting much time in the epilogue, let's go directly to Munnar.

It is a small hill station in Kerala, about 160 kms from Coimbatore. There is a direct bus service from Bangalore to Munnar. It is now emerging to be a famous hill station as the present and well known hill station are aging. Hill stations also have the life span as humans do. They take birth, they are in there childhood when they are not known to many people. They are pure and clean at that time. Slowly and slowly the disease of urbanization starts effecting them which finally results into their death. The best time to visit is the time when these hill stations are just infected by this disease. Munnar is at this stage.

Their is no sense in trying to explain the scenic beauty, as I won't be able to do so. The only thing I want to state is that this place is miraculous. Every region in the sight is covered with green. We reached there at 11 in the morning of friday, hired a cottage (it was a great place and also large enough to accomodate 5 people). Then we hired a "jeep" to take us around the place for next three days. First day was not a great exprience, though it was nice but nothing special to mention. After going to many hill stations and getting to "spots" there I think that even I can make a "spot" with my name, say "Manpreet's Spot". I have never heard any echo at any of the "echo points". Anyways spotting some "spots" in Munnar is same as limiting god to "temples" or other religious places. Beauty is scattered in whole Munnar.

The next day we went to see the "spots" again. Here I was for the first time on an Elephant ride. While on my ride, I was thinking that Munnar would not have been this way, the local traditions are disappearing in the darkness of urbaization. They are hiding themselves from the changed world. "Convienience" has always been the enemy of "Originality". We distort the orginal thing according to our convinience and then we keep on doing this and finally, there is nothing original. This is a severe disease that effects all the "tourist spots". Believe me the future 'hill stations" would be "Rajmanchi"( near Mumbai), "Nandi Hills" (near Bangalore). They are currently in their infant state. After say 20 years no one will call Ooty a Hill Station. Urbanization is destroying that city. Convinience has won the battle against Originality.

Munnar is just a "teen ager" so it is a nice place to visit.