{"id":174,"date":"2023-03-01T23:26:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T07:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wanderingwithme.travel.blog\/?p=174"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:41:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:41:39","slug":"kerala-spice-garden-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/?p=174","title":{"rendered":"Kerala Spice Garden Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

On the last day of our Kerala trip, we travelled from the resort near Periyar back to the airport, which is about a four and a half hour drive. The resort helped us line up a new driver since our previous one had not wanted to extend the trip. Although the new vehicle was smaller, it had much better AC which made for a far more pleasant ride. The new driver drove at a very reasonable speed for the winding roads and we had a rather enjoyable trip through the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our flight wasn\u2019t until the evening, so we were able to fit in one of the activities we\u2019d missed out on while sick – buying spices. At the Deepa World shop, they offered us a 30 minute tour of their demonstration garden. Our guide was friendly and enthusiastic. While some of the tour had an herbal medicine infomercial spin, we did learn a lot about the different plants and their properties.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Coffee bean pods. This bush was taller and ganglier than the neatly pruned ones we\u2019ve seen on plantations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Indian Bayleaves grow on a tree related to cinnamon, and so the flavor has hints of cinnamon. They are different than Mediterranean laurel bay leaves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The large green ovals are cocoa pods. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Cute flower pot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
Bottle brush flower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Pale green nutmeg fruits. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Scarlet clockvine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Shoe flower, named because of its shape when turned sideways.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The garden was arranged along a hillside, with a path leading from the parking area down to their shop.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The tour ended in their shop, unsurprisingly featuring a sales pitch for all their herbal medicines. We were eventually able to redirect them to the spices and bought several things to bring home such as black pepper, cardamom, green tea, coffee, chaat masala, and tea masala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After our tour we continued our drive back to the airport. It was a clear day with a bright blue sky, and everything around us was vibrant green. We passed many large and beautiful houses although it was too hard to catch any pictures of them through the car window. There were also some very impressive churches rising above the hillside towns. Our driver seemed determined to take us on scenic routes which had us beginning to question if he was putting too much trust in Google Maps as the pavement broke off for gravel, but we always found another main road before too long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"\"
Tea plantation interspersed with shade trees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Jackfruit is in season and we passed several trucks stacked high with them.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
We passed many large colorful churches.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

We made it back to the airport in good time. Check in went much more easily than in Bangalore, but we had a momentary scare in security when Mervin\u2019s phone disappeared! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Security here is separated between men and women, with women having a curtained area and a female guard to do the wand metal detector scan. I had to leave our bags and go several rows away for this check point. When I came back, they had told Mervin to take the camera out of his bag for examination, also forcing him to leave our bins on they conveyer belt. I hurried over to repack everything, put my phone and our iPads inside my bag. His phone wasn\u2019t there so I assumed he had grabbed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hadn\u2019t. It was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started frantically checking pockets and bags in case it had been slipped inside. Nothing. I have no SIM in my phone because I\u2019ve been borrowing Wi-Fi from Mervin, and they make it extremely difficult to get on the airport Wi-Fi here without an Indian phone number, so I couldn\u2019t call it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as the security agents were starting to search behind the counter, a man came hurrying back with it. We didn\u2019t quite catch what happened but it seemed he had grabbed it off the belt by mistake. Good thing Mervin has my photo as his lock screen! Crisis averted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, the rest of the flight home was thankfully uneventful. We are now rested and recovered and back to eating regular food. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the last day of our Kerala trip, we travelled from the resort near Periyar back to the airport, which is about a four and a half hour drive. The resort helped us line up a new driver since our previous one had not wanted to extend the trip. Although the new vehicle was smaller, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157,"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":[32,35,42,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-india-2023","category-on-the-road","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-scaled.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-scaled.jpg",2560,1440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-2048x1152.jpg",2048,1152,true],"blogarise-slider-full":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-1280x720.jpg",1280,720,true],"blogarise-featured":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-1024x576.jpg",1024,576,true],"blogarise-medium":["https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pxl_20230227_064426542-720x380.jpg",720,380,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Elizabeth Soule","author_link":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"On the last day of our Kerala trip, we travelled from the resort near Periyar back to the airport, which is about a four and a half hour drive. The resort helped us line up a new driver since our previous one had not wanted to extend the trip. Although the new vehicle was smaller,…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","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=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wander-with-me.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}