Book Your Trekking Experience in Kannan Devan Hills, Devikolam (Munnar)

Summary: Our visit to the Lockhart tea plantation started with a jeep drive bringing us up to the gorgeous green hills in Munnar. The Esplendent Experiences tour guide Hudson was so nice and was able to give us very valuable explanations about everything around the tea plantation like history, nature, plants, processes and today's life conditions of the workers. Visiting the tea factory we learned about the production processes of different tea types. I recommend the tour to everybody!

Summary: This was a fantastic 4 hour trek through the Lockheart Tea Estate. Our guide Seegirl was incredibly knowledgeable of both the history and nature of Munnar and the tea plantation. The Trek is not difficult with both my wife and I enjoying the wonderful scenery. At the end of the Trek Seegirl guided us through the old but still fully working Lockheart tea producing factory, this was such a highlight to see the production of tea in such a unique factory, A fantastic tour that will provide memories of a lifetime!

Summary: Hadlee and his wife Seegirl who run Resplendent Experiences planned our whole 2 week India trip for us. We initially found Hadlee through his Instagram page showcasing his wildlife photography. It was a bit of a gamble to contact someone from Instagram and send them a bunch of money to organise a trip but my god did they deliver. They absolutely made the trip, far surpassing any expectations we may have had. My primary interest is in wildlife photography, specifically reptiles and amphibians but my partner also had a keen interest in seeing the real "authentic" India. We started our trip at Athirappally waterfalls for a night then headed on to Valpari where we met Hadlee and a couple of other guests and spent 3 days on a tea plantation photographing Giant hornbills and other wildlife at the edge of the surrounding Shola forest. From here we headed up to Munnar where we did some excellent Herping (Reptile and amphibian spotting) by both day and night. The highlights included the resplendent bush frog (from which they take their company name) and large scaled pit vipers to name a few. It is also worth pointing out that Hadlee is a professional photographer and was very helpful with his tips and advice during our time with them, my photography skills came on in leaps and bounds thanks to Hadlee and Seegirl. It was also my partners birthday while we were in Munnar and on her birthday Seegirl took us into town to visit the temple and markets and then to walk the tea fields (a breath-taking experience, no wonder it regularly makes a list of top sights to see globally) and visit a working tea factory. The whole time sharing a wealth of knowledge that far surpassed anything you may get from a standard tour guide. From here we had to bid farewell to Hadlee and Seegirl as we carried on with our trip to Periyar national park, followed by Kumakarkom where we stayed on a houseboat and then to Mararikulam, Alleppy and up to Fort Kochi. Hadlee and Seegirl organised all our accommodation throughout (we let them pick places for us based upon some rough guidelines for what we were looking for and it has to be said their choices were excellent, in particular the houseboat and the Windermere estate hotel at Munnar). The grounds of the Windermere estate are also excellent for nocturnal wildlife spotting for frogs and harmless shield tailed snakes. They also organised us a driver (well 2 actually) that were with us for the duration of our trip so we always had transport on hand. They organised the guides and hiking for us in areas when we weren't with them but they were always on the end of the phone to help make last minute bookings for us throughout our trip including seeing a traditional show at Fort Kochi which they booked for us with less than 24hrs notice. Their friendly and helpful demeanour cannot be overstated, truly they are some of the nicest and most helpful tour operators we have ever dealt with (and yes we are very well travelled globally so have a lot of prior experiences to compare them to). Its easy to see why everyone leaves them glowing reviews when they do such an amazing job. Thank you for making our trip so magical.