As soon as I arrived in Kerala I was reminded of Sri Lanka's central highlands. Rolling green hills and tea trees growing everywhere. One of my favourite things to do in Sri Lanka was trekking so that's what I most looked forward to doing near Munnar, one of Kerala's most scenic towns.
Unfortunately I was told that it was not possible to trek alone since it's all private land. You must pay for a guide who has permission to access the tea estates. I'm not a fan of taking tour guides, especially in India where I've yet to find an honest guide in any part of the country but I had little choice if I wanted to get out and explore those beautiful green hills I could see from my hotel room balcony.
I paid 1,250 rupees for 4-5 hours trekking, the first half hour of which was spent walking along a main road. I was puzzled as to why we hadn't just paid 50 rupees for an auto rickshaw to do that part of the journey.
An hour into the trek, the guide, who hadn't paid me much attention up until then, despite me being his only guest, suggested we go on a different trekking route that would take 4 hours. It sounded appealing until he asked for an extra 2,000 rupees for it. If I had gone on his detour we still would have likely finished the whole trek in less than a total of 5 hours, but I'd have had to pay an extra 150% surcharge on top of what I'd already paid at the office.
Obviously I rejected that and immediately lost the small amount of trust I had for him. But I was stuck with him. It's not as if I could just ditch him in the middle of nowhere like I would do if I was in a city and my guide started getting all scammy. I'd just say goodbye and that would be that.
Unfortunately the detour wasn't the end of his nonsense. He wanted to take a break every 20 - 30 minutes and at each break tried to convince me to go on another route that would take extra time (a lie) or try to get me to book him again tomorrow or ask me to give him some British currency, or even one of my t-shirts. Who asks someone to give him their clothes, I mean, seriously?
In the end, even with all the 10 - 15 minute breaks he took trying to string the trek out, the longer route he took me on (I think that was a lie and we were always going on that route) took just 3 hours and 40 minutes.
I knew what was coming at the end of the trek. He started telling me about how poor he is and how low his salary is, setting me up to feel sorry for him and tip him well. They all do this. Every one of them. It's as if all Indian guides follow the same guide textbook on how to scam as much as they can out of their guests any way they can with begging and trickery.
Sure, he makes a low amount of money, especially by western standards but how about instead of trying to scam and beg and ruin his guest's trips that he instead actually provides a good and honest service and earn a tip for that? I don't want the up-selling, the begging, the laziness and the outright deceit. That makes him deserving of no tip at all in my opinion as he's done less than actually provide the service I paid for to a minimum standard.
However I did still tip him. It just doesn't feel right to have a personal service lasting hours and not give him something. It did seriously cross my mind though.
So despite trekking in one of the most beautiful areas of India I ended the day feeling frustrated. I have good memories of trekking around Ella and along the rail tracks to Ohiya in Sri Lanka, that all cost me nothing and I enjoyed a lot more. Unfortunately the Munnar hiking experience couldn't live up to that.
* TIMESTAMPS *
0:00 - Start
1:30 - Tourist Office
3:26 - Chocolate Stall
6:10 - Entering the Tea Plantation
10:25 - Christian Grave
16:40 - "Extra 2,000 Rupees"
23:46 - Escaping the Guide
28:19 - Welsh Friends
32:04 - "Extra Time"
34:19 - Reaching the Peak
41:20 - Treehouse Hotel
47:07 - New Yorker Friends
49:00 - End of the Trek
52:22 - My Thoughts
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