Tea Plantations and Fog

In Munnar's hillside tea plantations, the fog starts rolling in most days around 3:30 or 4 pm.  Sunset is around 6 pm, but by then it's as gray and bleak as an English moor in the Baskervilles.  These shots are within 15 minutes of each other, so you can see how quickly the fog envelopes everthing.

There was a light rain while we were walking, though it rained heavily that night.  We were with a couple from Chennai, and the woman asked nervously if we might step on snakes while walking between the plants.  The boy who was guiding us laughed at the thought.  "Only leeches," he said.  The decision to wear open-toed sandals and shorts wasn't looking so good at that moment, and in fact, the second time we did the plantation evening walk, while we escaped with no visible leech attacks, the young Indian woman with us had several on her pants leg by the time we finished.