Still heading south we arrive in Wayanad, situated just inside Kerala state. It is a beautiful place full or tea, coffee and spice plantations. Here we are staying at what is called a homestay, this is essentially what we would call a B&B but you can have all you meals here and you eat with the family. It is a really great idea as you get the chance to see and experience what it is like living in India, you can talk to them about their lives and the differences between here and home. The families that provide homestays are at the wealthier end of the scale, our home was a large house situated in its own plantation with helpers in the kitchen and with the cleaning. So it is not a glimpse in the life of the majority of Indians, but it is still just as interesting learning about their culture and the way the family runs. There appears to be more Muslims in these southern regions and at 5 o'clock each morning we were greeted by the Mosque calling for the morning prayer.

On the afternoon we arrived, we headed off on a drive in a land rover exploring the stunning scenery. Our first stop was at a beautiful waterfall, unfortunately the water is not clean enough for us to go in, but there were plenty of locals enjoying a refreshing dip during the intense heat of the day. On our way back we stopped to have a closer look at the tea plantations and our local guide Sabu showed us around. As we were driving through the hills earlier we had seen groups of women working the plantations and now we were learning about the process we had seen. The tea is hand picked by women, it is hard work! Something I had not appreciated before when getting a tea bag out the box.

The following day we had decided to trek up to the top of Chembra Peak. Sabu had told us it would take about 5 hours and we managed it in pretty much exactly 5 hours. It was a pretty hard going trek, especially as we had been sitting on a bus for the last 2 weeks. I think the walk itself is only 5km, easy you think? Well it is pretty much straight up the mountain, unlike usual hiking where you traverse up the side here it would appear straight up is the way to go. The way up was like walking up stairs for 2 and half hours. So naturally we took quite a few breaks, stopping to take photos of the spectacular views and of the unique heart shaped lake. It really did feel like an achievement to reach the peak and when we finally made it back to the land rover.

Staying in Wayanad was a wonderful experience, we enjoyed the luxury comforts of a home, superb authentic southern Indian food and joined a lovely family for a couple of days.