We Came for Munnar, But Kerala Had Other Plans 🌿☕ — 6 Days With My Girls

The journey

There are trips you plan because you've always dreamed of a destination.

And then there are trips you book because someone drops a random reel in the group chat and says, "Girls, please can we go here?"

Our Kerala trip was definitely the second kind. 😭

This one was me, Shanaya and Myra—three girls, six days, way too much luggage and a very optimistic itinerary covering Kochi and Munnar.

We flew into Kochi, and honestly, I originally saw Kochi as just the airport before Munnar.

Big mistake.

We had kept one proper day for the city, and it ended up being such a nice start to the trip.

We headed towards Fort Kochi, where everything suddenly felt slower. Old colonial buildings, colourful little streets, cafés hidden inside heritage houses and the sea basically following you everywhere.

Obviously, Shanaya spotted a cute café within approximately fifteen minutes.

"Guys, just one coffee."

I've travelled with her enough to know that sentence means we're losing at least an hour. 😭

We walked around Fort Kochi, saw the Chinese fishing nets, explored the streets around Mattancherry and somehow turned every colourful wall into a photoshoot location.

Myra deserves an award for patience because Shanaya and I probably said "one last picture" twenty-seven times.

By evening, we were sitting by the waterfront eating snacks and talking about how Kochi deserved way more than the one day we'd given it.

But the next morning...

Munnar.

We booked a cab from Kochi, and this drive was honestly one of the best parts of the entire trip.

The city slowly disappeared.

Then came little villages.

Then forests.

Then waterfalls.

And finally...

tea plantations literally EVERYWHERE.

At one point Myra asked the driver to stop because she'd seen a gorgeous viewpoint.

We took pictures.

Drove another fifteen minutes.

Shanaya saw another one.

Stopped again.

Our poor driver eventually understood that our estimated arrival time meant absolutely nothing. 😂

When we finally reached Munnar, the weather was perfect.

Cool enough for a light jacket, mist moving through the hills and that smell of tea and rain that immediately makes you want to stay forever.

Our hotel had this gorgeous view overlooking the hills, and we made the classic mistake of sitting on the balcony "for five minutes."

Forty-five minutes later, nobody had moved.

The next couple of days were basically us exploring tea gardens, driving through ridiculously pretty roads, finding waterfalls and drinking enough tea to personally support the entire Munnar economy.

Top Station was probably my favourite.

The drive up was beautiful, but when we finally reached the viewpoint and saw layers and layers of mountains disappearing into the distance...

Nobody spoke for a minute.

Which, considering the three of us, was genuinely impressive. 😭

We also visited Mattupetty Dam, Echo Point and the tea plantations.

Echo Point obviously became an opportunity for three grown women to shout random things into the mountains just to hear them come back.

Very mature tourism.

One afternoon, rain completely changed our plans.

We were supposed to cover another viewpoint, but instead we found this tiny café, ordered Maggi, pakoras and chai and sat there watching the rain.

And weirdly...

that's one of the moments I remember most.

No pictures.

No itinerary.

Just three friends sitting together while everything outside disappeared into the mist.

Our evenings in Munnar were slow.

We'd return to the hotel, change into comfortable clothes, order dinner and somehow spend hours talking.

About relationships.

Work.

People we shouldn't be discussing.

Future trips we probably won't book.

Basically everything important. 😂

On our final morning, we woke up early and went outside with coffee.

The hills were covered in mist, everything was ridiculously quiet and none of us really wanted to say the obvious thing:

We didn't want to leave.

I thought Munnar would be the highlight of this trip.

And yes, it was gorgeous.

But looking back, Kerala wasn't really about one place.

It was Kochi surprising us.

That long drive into the hills.

Stopping the car twenty times.

Chai in the rain.

Balcony conversations.

And six days where three friends got to disappear from normal life for a little while.

Sometimes that's literally all you need. 🌿🤍