Munnar - wrong direction

6.30am is no time to be making friends, let alone a time to be sat on the lap of a stranger - 4 of us had been squished into the back seats of a pokey car (we became so sweaty that we had to peel ourselves of one another if we wanted to move) for the 5 hour journey to Munnar. I had the fortune of being sat next to an entertaining Canadian (a paradox outside of India), who recounted a time when, at my age, a Sri Lankan couple had proposed a threesome in want of a white child. Watch this space.

We stopped by the Kudanadu elephant training camp (I'm not entirely sure what they're being trained for nowadays...), to see the young elephants having their morning wash. It wasn't as cute as expected: the elephants were pinned down and sat upon by the whooping scrubbers; I sympathised with their being mounted whilst having a morning wash, having had similar experiences in my early school days...

With a collective sigh of relief we arrived in Munnar - 1850m high, and covered in plantations of tea, pepper, cardamom etc, the hills were an otherworldly green, so epic views were in all directions. Speaking of directions, we were jumped upon by the local incarnation of 1Direction as we wandered through town, who wanted an impromptu photoshoot - I've come to learn the routine when being asked for a photo:

(1) get asked for photo
(2) engage in excruciatingly awkward conversation before
(3) someone plucks up the courage to suggest getting on with it
(4) their friend walks over, return to (1) and repeat.

A quick note on Indian "bromance" - guys of all ages engage in a hyper-developed form of bromantic activity: walking hand-in-hand, hugging at inappropriate moments, back-seat-motorbike fondling etc. In short - less Band of Brothers, more Brokeback Mountain.

Walking back to our homestay, we were swamped by hordes of children who'd just left school - it was fine preparation for my future fame, but still pretty curious: "hello white man!!!" they cried, to which I (in hindsight, pretty crudely) replied "hello brown children"! Eloquence comes naturally.

We detoured through the tea plantations: I thought it a wise idea to infiltrate the rows of trees, seeking revenge for the awful tea adverts on Indian tv - I hadn't realised quite how very steep the plantations are, and was almost lost to the sea of green.

With love