India: Final Leg

So after Allepey we headed up into the mountains to Munnar. It was a nice little town surrounded by thousands of hectares of TATA Tea Plantations. We spent a few nights here walking around, watching people pick tea, drinking tea, smelling tea leaves and generally enjoying the cooler tea atmosphere.

 

Tea Pickers and lots of Tea

From Munnar we took a long bus all the way to Ooty. We stopped off in Coimbatore... had my wallet stolen and couldn't find anything cheap... so we were happy to get out of there and on to Ooty, which was another nice mountain station. Established by the British, so there was a surprising amount of Pine and Gum trees. 

Pine trees and fresh mountain air... just like home, aside from the Monkeys!

From Ooty we went to Mysore for a few days, mostly just eating coconuts and eating our last meals. Mysore is a easy town to navigate and has a big pretty palace in the middle... our last taste of India really. From there to Bangalore airport and 47 layers of security. Apparently a direct threat was made against a major airport in India for the time we were flying, lucky we got to the airport 6 hours early.

Our last taste of Rickshaws and general Indian-ness in Mysore.

So, contrary to what others say, we have now got India done.... done in the sense that I understand that its a massive country with many, many different cultures, languages, tastes and  types of monkeys. It took two months to see what we saw, and we barely scratched the surface. 

Now we are relaxing in Singapore. Tonight we go to Melbourne, then Auckland to spend some time with the extended family... then home to WHITE ROCK to be with the family for Christmas. I am looking forward to getting back to New Zealand...