"Are you two girls ever going to sleep?"

That was my grandmother speaking. It was 3:30 am, the morning of my marriage. My cousin and I were in the balcony packing for my honeymoon trip to Kerala the next day.

We had met after a long time. We had loads to discuss. We kept telling the elders that the packing was still on. But grandma was a tough cookie.

"Tomorrow you will be dozing off in the mandap," she told me. "And your bridegroom will marry someone else who is awake."

I didn't quite think that would happen, but I went to bed anyway.

I shall skip the details of my marriage -- suffice to say that everything went smoothly -- and transport you directly to Kerala.

A lot of thought, not to mention clothes, had gone into my packing. My mom and aunt kept telling me to carry extra outfits as it was monsoon in Kerala.

A second pair of sandals went in when my uncle told me about his friend who got his shoes mixed up with another's on the train. He, as per that story, had to hobble along with a black shoe on one foot and a white on the other.

An umbrella and raincoat completed the list. Quite a neat work as compared to the standards of Jerome K Jerome and his friends. The end result was a jumbo drag-along case.

We reached Cochin in the afternoon and decided to rest a bit before proceeding to Munnar, some four hours by road. At 4:00 pm, we hit the road, little knowing that it was going to be a steep and dark ride.

At around 6:30 pm, as the glorious sun bade us goodbye, we had something to worry. Suddenly it was pitch dark. We were driving on a snaky road, along steep drops.

We decided that it wouldn't be at all healthy if the driver dozed off and so kept talking to him. My husband and I are Tamilians and aren't really comfortable speaking Malayalam. So we spoke to him in English, to which he responded in what I shall call Manglish.

We were nearly in Munnar when he asked us our mother tongue. "Oh sire, you taaalking to me in Yinglish aall this whyile... " he burst out. "I knowing Tamizh very well, sire."

And he did. Soon, fired by our fluent conversation, we drove into Munnar.

Situated at nearly 1,600 metres above sea level in the Annamalai ranges of Kerala, this tea town is must-visit for everyone.

A valley watered by three rivers ('Munnar' in Malayalam means three rivers), it has unending slopes of manicured tea gardens. The misty sky, the cool, fresh breeze, the crystal-clear lakes, the lush green hills interspersed with pockets of forest rich in wildlife, picture-book houses and pretty estate bungalows -- all are proof of why Kerala is called God's Own Country.

Among the exotic flora found in the forests here is the neela kurinji, which bathes the hills blue every 12 years. It will bloom next in 2006.

Besides tourists, Munnar is a major attraction to ornithologists. The place is a protected habitat for a lot many of our feathered friends.

All in all, if you haven't been to Munnar it is time you packed your bags.

Our next stop was Kuttikkanam, in Peerumedu district of Kerala.

The name Peerumedu is believed to have come by from Peer Mohammed, the Sufi saint, who spent his last days here. I had stumbled on the place and its history on the Internet and believed that it would be the star attraction of our honeymoon.

To avoid a rerun of the Munnar incident, we checked out for Kuttikkanam at 12 pm. But as fate would have it, the bus was only at 2:30 pm. On top of that, it was delayed by 30 minutes.

History repeated itself. At 7:30, in pitch dark, we alighted at our destination after multiple and not-joyful bus rides.

And was it scary! There was a lonely lantern in a toddy shop that offered yellow rays. I was the only woman on the road. To cap it all off, we had our jumbo suitcase and jewellery in tow.

My usually cool husband suddenly realised all this and turned to me. "Why did you have to bring such a big suitcase?" he demanded. "And you make me carry it! And this vanity bag? Do you need to be so vain?"

Men! How they love to turn on us women when things go wrong!

Luckily for us, we managed to locate our hotel soon.

This tranquil hill station, once the summer palace of the Travancore kings, offers nothing more than its proximity to the famous Thekkady, an old Ayurvedic factory and the dilapidated summer residence of the royal family.

If Munnar is the tea town, Thekkady is the spice village. The world's largest auction centres for cardamom is situated in its vicinity.

Sparse tea plantations, pine and eucalyptus forests, and grasslands make up the vegetation. The most popular activity in Thekkady is the boat cruise through the Periyar lake. This splendid artificial lake, formed by the Mullaperiyar dam, offers you wildlife at close quarters.

Our visit to Thekkady was not too rewarding. We were all set to face the tigers that were reputed to be roaming around. Unfortunately, it turned out that there were just 40 of them in that sprawling 1,000 square kilometres! But we got to see a herd of elephants.

The elephant safari, another popular activity here, was not on. For that, the time to visit Thekkady is between October and May.

The best part of our trip was our stay in Poovar island.

It was lunchtime when we reached the location, close to Trivandrum. Now it was my husband's test of fire.

Poovar was his choice, you see, and the last thing he wanted was for my choice to be better than his.

But he needn't have worried. By the river Neyyar on the emerald backwaters, Poovar is absolutely breathtaking. Unspoilt, pristine, and miraculously unexplored, it is a rare Adam-and-Eve find.

We had to row to our resort on the island. Coconut trees lined the narrow backwater strip that we traversed. The serene calmness around and unassuming locals added to the magic. Around us there was only the sound of waves and birds.

The resort was done up to showcase the local resources to the maximum. A huge oachira kala (red bull) to welcome the guests at the reception, traditional chairs of Kerala, doors of dark wood, lamps the shape of tall lunchboxes, cane furniture, matted separators -- a lot of thought had gone into every small thing.

The rest of our honeymoon passed by on, to use a cliché', rosy wings. At the end of it all, I have this to say:

It is no wonder that Kerala is one of the top tourist destinations in the world. No wonder that Prime Minister Vajpayee went down South when he wanted a holiday.

No wonder, also, that a visitor here remarked, "If you're going to write about this place, just don't tell them where it is!"

The last thing nature lovers would want is this paradise disturbed.

Let her loose and Ranjani will fly off to Kerala any day!