I cannot say enough good things about Munnar.  Well, not Munnar town exactly, but the area around it which is comprised of the Western Ghats mountain range.  This geographically-stunning area is suffused with lakes, rivers, waterfalls, tea plantations, rolling hills, and green, green, green everything.  Everywhere you look is picture-perfect.  It’s beautiful, clean, and chilled out.  It also has Colorado-in-the-springtime weather, with days in the 70s and nights in the low 50s.

I stayed 8 km outside of Munnar in a small hill station called Devikulam.  The only drawback to staying there was having to take a tuktuk into Munnar for meals, as there were only two tiny (and dingy) restaurants in town.

The Munnar area is also home to Eravikulum National Park, where a highly endangered species of mountain goat called the Nilgiri Tahr live, and also where you can hike up South India’s highest peak, Anamundi (2,695 meters).  My tuktuk driver told me that a lot of locals commit suicide by throwing themselves off this peak.

The photos really do the talking here, though, so I’m going to shut up and get to ’em (it was hard to narrow it down to just a handful of faves, so get ready to see a lot of green):

Anamundi Peak

Tea leaf picker; they’re all women.

Honey bee hives high up in a tree

Kundala Lake

Top Station; the distant hills are in the state of Tamil Nadu

Lakkam falls

The only photo-worthy thing in Munnar town

Eucalyptus trees everywhere