{"id":143,"date":"2023-03-01T03:45:53","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T11:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wanderingwithme.travel.blog\/?p=143"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:41:08","slug":"a-pause-amidst-the-cardamom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"A Pause Amidst the Cardamom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part of the adventure of travel is how the best laid plans can be thwarted by an unexpected twist. In our case, the twist was a nasty round of norovirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the end of our houseboat tour, our next destination was the Amaana Plantation Resort near Periyar in the mountains of eastern Kerala. At first the drive was flat and easy along a highway. Then we reached the hills and it began to wind. Up and up we went, back and forth, darting around slower vehicles and trucks. It was hot, and the AC weak. Both of us felt car sick as the ride dragged on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we reached our destination however we started to feel better. The mountain air was clean and outside the car there was a nice breeze. Amaana resort is beautiful. It is located on a cardamom and pepper plantation owned by one of Mervin\u2019s college classmates. It has only nine rooms total. Three are in standalone cottages, one two story cottage, and one larger building with four units. In the center is a pond stocked with fish for guests who want to try fishing, and there is a path you can take to walk through the cardamom plants. We did this little hike before dinner and it was a nice way to stretch our legs after our lazy day on the boat and long car ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our private cabin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Walking through the cardamom plants<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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There was a paved walking path around the pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cardamom pods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

We discovered that we were the only guests at the resort that night. When we came for dinner, we were surprised to find they had set a table on the deck outside for a candlelight dinner – just for us! After several days of eating mostly with our hands, it was a little shocking to find a places set with a formal silverware. We didn\u2019t end up using it much though as we had asked for rotis with our dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately it was that night was when I became sick, and Mervin as well by that afternoon. Miserable as norovirus is, I am grateful we were in a comfortable, very private room. The staff took great care of us, checking on us and making us simple foods even when they weren\u2019t exactly on the menu. The view from our cabin was lovely and the breeze refreshing after the humidity near the coast. We were far enough from the road that we didn\u2019t hear the beeping and could relax listening to the songs of the many birds around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from our balcony<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Looking toward the cabins from across the pond<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Originally we planned to stay for two nights but we ended up extending to three because we weren\u2019t ready to face the long winding road and four hour drive back to the airport. Fortunately they had room to book us for the extra night and Mervin was able to find a flight with seats back to Bangalore the next day. Our driver wanted to go home and we were not on good terms with him after the uncomfortable drive up the mountain, so the staff at the resort also helped us book a new taxi to get us back to the airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t the stay we had envisioned and we didn\u2019t get to do most of the activities we had planned, but we were very happy with our decision to stay at the Amaana resort!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the adventure of travel is how the best laid plans can be thwarted by an unexpected twist. In our case, the twist was a nasty round of norovirus. After the end of our houseboat tour, our next destination was the Amaana Plantation Resort near Periyar in the mountains of eastern Kerala. At first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,35,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-india-2023","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-scaled.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-scaled.jpg",2560,1440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-2048x1152.jpg",2048,1152,true],"blogarise-slider-full":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-1280x720.jpg",1280,720,true],"blogarise-featured":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"blogarise-medium":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230224_120954567-720x380.jpg",720,380,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Elizabeth Soule","author_link":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Part of the adventure of travel is how the best laid plans can be thwarted by an unexpected twist. In our case, the twist was a nasty round of norovirus. After the end of our houseboat tour, our next destination was the Amaana Plantation Resort near Periyar in the mountains of eastern Kerala. At first…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}