More tea vicar?

From the madness of Allepey and Kochin we have retreated into the tea plantations of Tamil Nadu. High up in the hills, the weather is cool and the air crisp and pleasant. The British planted the tea here in the early 20th century and there are still miles and miles of these plants still alive and giving us a crop of tea every 10 days.

Munnar is a small town full of plantations. We went with a guide around his plantation and saw how they live and work. A simple life, but certainly not a poor one. The work is difficult in the monsoon when it rains constantly and the leeches come and attack the pickers.

The biggest town in the area is Ooty, where we stopped with our friends the Nibletts who work at a school here. We had a great time catching up with them - eating their food and drinking their tea and beer!

They recommeded we go to a small town via a miniture railway called Coonoor. We stopped at the Brookland Christian Guesthouse set in the tea plantations. We were waited on hand a foot and had some great walks. CMS have an orphanage here which we looked around and met some of the kids.