Munnar to Madurai - The Long Way Down

Thursday, 25 September 2014

From Munnar to the plains is a drop of about 1800 m (6000 ft) in something like 40 km, with most of the descent in the last 20 km. It's quite a ride! It would be "interesting" enough if it were just car-sized vehicles, but trucks and buses of all sorts make this trip daily.

Near the top: our full-size conversion van holds the driver plus 7 passengers, one of which is our guide.

As on the way up, there are waterfalls along the road.

The view from the front. It's raining and the road is narrow. The video screen in the middle is the van's rear-view camera for backing up. Glad I'm not driving!

Self-explanatory! Remember, there is two-way traffic on this road.

The rock face is jumbled and full of fractures. It all looks like a landslide waiting to happen.

We call them "switchbacks" the local term is "hair-pin bends" or HPBs for short. On each bend is a yellow painted sign numbering the turns, for example "HPB 8 of 17". They went by too quickly to get a readable photo.

Rock debris. Whether a landslide or construction I couldn't tell.

Road construction. Not only are they not using protective equipment (eye protection, ear protection), but they're barefoot!

Road construction -- paving to be precise. There's no such thing as traffic cones or barrels here -- just large rocks placed in the roadway. If construction is in an area that doesn't have rocks available, sandbags are used. Note that the yellow truck has confronted a white car where there is clearly no room to pass.

Resolution: white car loses. While there was no collision, the white car did have to pull over a rock that must have damaged the oil pan (at best).

Tea pickers have on-site housing. Spice pickers make the way up the mountain daily in jeeps and buses. I have no idea how many women are in this jeep, but it is at least a dozen.

The rocks at the bottom of the slope look even less structurally sound than those at the top.

Almost done -- we can see the plains. The first 40 km of our trip took about 2 hours. The last 120 km to Madurai took just over 2 hours. Whew!

A Google Maps view of a small portion of the road.

Except for having the convenience of modern vehicles (good suspension, good transmissions, good brakes), and far more traffic, I suspect this ride was how early motorists experienced the Smokies and the Rockies in the U.S. Of course, that was nearly a century ago! Airport road back home will now seem quite tame!