Exploring Munnar – Part 2, Into the Wild at Chinnar

Chinnar is around 50km (30 miles) from Munnar. Its a low lying area and hence not as pleasant and cool as Munnar. Especially during the summer (which is when I visited) #Baddecisionalert

How to book

Confusing website but can be done

Book forest accommodation through munnar wildlife website There are options like river lodge (Pambar and Koottar Log house), tree-house (Karakkad), other etc.

The online booking system for Chinnar works in a weird way – if you choose your FROM date as 1st and TO date as 2nd, the system thinks that you are here to stay for 2 separate nights. Anyway the lady at the reception said its a common issue, and did not raise a hue and cry about it.

What to expect

Don’t expect too much hospitality

Nobody contacted us with the itinerary of the stay. When the booking was done, we got an confirmation email. That’s it. No calls and frills.

We reached Chinnar Wildlife around 4 PM after having lunch from Marayoor (a town around 20km before Chinnar) We realized if we had come early we could have got a ‘complimentary’ trek. Of course, if somebody had picked up our phone calls, we could have planned better. That’s when we realized ,

The whole area has 0 connectivity on phone.

So ensure you call your family or whoever it is that you are spending the night here atleast 15km before you reach Chinnar.

No Toilets in the Treehouse

We had a booked a tree-house (1 gent, 1 lady). When we inquired how do ladies manage nature’s call at the tree-house, the woman at the reception just blinked. Talkabout wholesome forest experience but would appreciate if such constraints are mentioned on the website, LOUD AND CLEAR. Anyway, when I suggested switching of our accommodation to a river lodge, they obliged

Long trek to the river lodge

Ok, it was’t a long trek. We were just tired and the May heat was killing us. After parking our car at the check-post, we had to trek for 2-3 km. Nobody offered to hold any of our bags – which is fine, except that it was boiling hot! We had to remind the office to give us the complimentary 2 Litres of water.

By the river

The walk by the river Pambar and Koottar was pretty scenic as one would expect. Once we reached the river lodge around 5:30pm, we realise that there was no water supply. The solar bulbs were fine, but there was no water supply. We may have to go to nature for our ‘calls’ after all we thought!

Alone in a jungle? Scary experience

So our guides – 2 of them who stay next to the lodge, disappeared into the forest to check the pipes.

It was kinda scary in a fun way because we were alone in the cabin for like 2.5 hours, but we were never really alone, if you know what i mean.
Anyway the water started coming by around 8PM.

Food
We were served chappathis and vegetable curry. Thats it. Next day before morning trek, we had some black tea. After the trek, we had amazing puttu and kadala which was the only good food we had there.

Morning trek

We started for our trek around 6am in the morning. We saw few wild buffaloes as seen in the above pic. We also managed to witness the sunrise. We were disappointed that the elephants were on leave that morning.

The trek was easy and moderate but it started heating up soon enough and around 8, we were sweating like crazy.

We had a good view of the landscape from atop a watch tower. And by the time we reached the front office, there was hot puttu and kadala waiting for us.

How to get there

You keep traveling on the Udumalpet road for around 50kms from Munnar. Expect possible traffic near the Eravikulam National Park area. You find small tea shops beside the road where you can enjoy some hot noodles. The only town on the way is Marayoor which itself is 1 hour from Munnar.

PROS

The forest looks gorgeous. We stayed by the river and the entire night we could listen to the hymns of the river gods.

Cons

There is no Phone signal around 10km radius. So let your loved ones know in advance if u plan to stay here overnight.
Don’t expect professional treatment. Don’t get me wrong, the forest guide we had was good, but he wasn’t conversational. I had to keep probing him for information on the landscape and jungle.
Very hot in summers. Please plan visit during November / January period