Munnar is one of those places so green it hardly seems real. Hill after hill, all the way to the horizon, the tea plantations stretch out: a rolling, immaculate blanket of intense, velvety green, dotted with solitary trees and wrapped in the mist that rises from the valleys at dawn. This is the cool, serene India of the southern mountains, 1.600 metres up in the Western Ghats, a world apart from the heat and bustle of the plains. It was developed by the British as a refuge from the climate and as a centre of tea growing, and even today tea permeates everything: the landscape, the economy and daily life.
But Munnar isn't just tea. Very close by rises Anamudi (2.695 m), the highest peak in India south of the Himalayas, and Eravikulam National Park spreads out, a refuge for the rare Nilgiri tahr, a mountain goat that approaches visitors without fear, and the stage, every twelve years, for a magical phenomenon: the flowering of the Nilakurinji, which covers the slopes in a blue-violet blanket. There are lakes and dams for boat rides, waterfalls, dizzying viewpoints, the purest air and the unforgettable sunrise at Kolukkumalai, the highest tea plantation in the world.
This guide helps you make the most of every day in the mountains: which plantations and viewpoints to visit, how to get into Eravikulam park, when to see the wildlife, how to reach Kolukkumalai for sunrise and how much everything costs. Munnar is the perfect counterpoint on a trip through southern India: after the backwaters or the cities, climbing up to these tea hills, breathing in the cool air and losing yourself in the green is pure rest for body and eyes.
The Munnar region, in the mountainous heart of the Western Ghats, was inhabited for centuries by hill tribes (such as the Muthuvan) before the British arrived in the mid-19th century. Looking for cool land suited to mountain farming, they obtained concessions on these slopes from the Raja of Travancore and, after trying other crops without success, discovered that the climate (cool, humid and high) was perfect for tea. From the 1880s onwards the first plantations were established and, over time, the company that would come to dominate the region was founded. Tamil labour was brought up from the plains to work the tea gardens, roads were built and even a picturesque mountain railway (destroyed by the great floods of 1924), and Munnar grew as a British enclave devoted entirely to 'green gold'. After independence, the plantations passed into Indian hands (today largely managed by the Kannan Devan company, owned in part by Tata and by the workers themselves), and tourism joined tea as a source of livelihood. That story of tribes, the British and tea is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The India of the coasts and the Dravidian south: the megacity of Mumbai, Portuguese Goa, spice-scented Kerala and its backwaters, the plantations of Munnar and the ruins of the Vijayanagara empire at Hampi.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name Munnar hints at its origin: in Malayalam and Tamil, 'moonu aar' means 'three rivers', because the town sits at the point where three mountain streams meet. Set at around 1,600 metres in the Western Ghats —the great mountain range that runs parallel to India's west coast—, this region of peaks, valleys and forests remained for centuries a remote, sparsely populated land, very different from the warm plains and the spice coast of Kerala.
The original inhabitants of these mountains were tribal peoples (Adivasis), such as the Muthuvan and other hill communities, who lived from subsistence farming, gathering and hunting in a landscape of cloud forests (the so-called shola forests) and high-altitude grasslands. It was a land of great biodiversity, home to elephants, leopards, gaurs and the rare Nilgiri tahr, the mountain goat-antelope that is today the symbol of Eravikulam National Park.
For centuries, these heights stayed on the margins of the great spice trade routes that made the Kerala coast famous and rich. They were nominally part of the domains of the kingdom of Travancore and the neighbouring Poonjar region, but they were barely developed. Everything would change in the mid-19th century, when the British, looking for cool upland territory for agriculture, set their sights on these green, misty mountains and discovered their enormous potential.
In the mid-19th century, with the British Empire firmly established in India, some settlers and officials began exploring the mountains of the south in search of cool land where they could escape the heat and try out highland crops, as they were already doing in other hill stations. In the 1870s and 1880s, British explorers and planters reached the hills of Munnar and negotiated with the local ruler of Poonjar a concession over large stretches of these highlands, in what would become known as the Kannan Devan Hills.
At first they tried various crops —coffee, cardamom, cinchona (the source of quinine) and others—, but it was tea that found its promised land here. The cool, humid climate, the high altitude, the mist and the soil turned out to be perfect for growing tea, and from the 1880s onwards the first commercial plantations were set up. Success was quick and overwhelming: the slopes were gradually covered by the green blanket of tea bushes that defines the landscape today.
Working the plantations required a huge amount of labour, and thousands of Tamil workers were brought in from the neighbouring plains of Tamil Nadu. Their descendants still make up a large share of the plantation population today, adding the Tamil language and culture to Munnar's mix. Roads, factories, bungalows for the British managers, churches, a club and all the infrastructure of a community devoted entirely to 'green gold' were built. Munnar was born, then, as a British tea enclave in the heart of Kerala's mountains.
In the early 20th century, Munnar's tea industry was thriving, but it faced a huge logistical problem: how to carry the tea produced in the mountains down to the coastal ports, across rugged terrain with no good roads. The solution was as ingenious as it was picturesque: a transport system was built that combined an animal-drawn tramway and, later, a small narrow-gauge railway, the Kundala Valley Railway, which linked the plantations with the plains and was one of the highest lines of its kind in Asia.
For years that charming mountain railway was the pride and lifeline of the region, bringing tea down from the heights and carrying supplies up. But its story ended abruptly and tragically. In July 1924, catastrophic monsoon rains —remembered in Kerala as the Great Flood of 1924, or the 'flood of 99' according to the local calendar— struck the mountains with devastating force. Rivers burst their banks, massive landslides followed, and much of Munnar's infrastructure was destroyed, including the railway, which was never rebuilt.
The region took years to recover from that disaster. The plantations were restored and roads were built to replace the old train. The 1924 floods remain etched in Kerala's memory as one of the greatest natural disasters in its history, and they are still a reminder of how vulnerable these mountains are to the monsoon, something seen dramatically once again in the great Kerala floods of 2018.
With India's independence in 1947, Munnar's large tea plantations, until then owned by British companies, began a slow transition to Indian ownership. The companies that dominated the Kannan Devan Hills gradually passed into Indian control, and in the second half of the 20th century the large Tata industrial group became the main player in Munnar tea, through Tata Tea, which managed thousands of hectares of plantations and employed tens of thousands of people.
In 2005 an interesting and unusual change took place: Tata Tea handed over the management of the Munnar plantations to a new company, Kannan Devan Hills Plantations (KDHP), in which a very significant share of the ownership went to the workers themselves, who became shareholders. It is one of the largest examples of an employee-owned company in India, a model that aimed to give plantation workers —many of them descendants of the Tamil labourers brought in by the British— a real stake in the business. That same year the Tea Museum opened, telling this whole story.
Life on the plantations, however, has been and still is hard, and it has not been free of conflict: in 2015, for example, the women plantation workers of Munnar led a remarkable strike, known as 'Pombilai Orumai' ('women's unity'), demanding better wages and conditions, a spontaneous women-led movement that had a major impact. Behind the serene beauty of the tea hills there is, as always, a story of human labour.
Today's Munnar combines its two great riches: tea and tourism. The plantations are still producing, and the landscape of rolling green hills remains its hallmark. But since the late 20th century, tourism has become a huge economic engine: Munnar is now one of the most popular mountain destinations in South India, especially loved by Indians themselves, who come up from the plains to enjoy the cool climate, the views, the lakes and the nature. Hotels, resorts, homestays and agencies have sprung up everywhere.
Beyond tea, the region is a natural treasure: it is part of the Western Ghats, one of the most important biodiversity hotspots on the planet, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco. Eravikulam National Park protects the Nilgiri tahr and is home to Anamudi, the highest peak in South India; all around there are shola forests, high-altitude grasslands, waterfalls and, every twelve years, the spectacle of the Neelakurinji, the flower that turns the slopes blue-violet. All of this makes Munnar a paradise for nature lovers.
But that success brings challenges. The growth of tourism and sometimes unchecked construction, the pressure on a fragile ecosystem, litter, high-season traffic and the vulnerability of these mountains to the monsoon and landslides (as the tragic Kerala floods of 2018 reminded everyone) all call for more responsible development. Munnar faces the challenge of growing without destroying what makes it unique. For travellers, it remains one of the most beautiful and refreshing corners of India: a sea of tea hills under the mist, fresh air and a story of mountains, tribes, the British and green leaves that you can taste in every cup.
