While in Munnar, we did do some of the touristy things. It’s inevitable, I guess, but still nothing I wouldn’t change.
We took a tour of a tea plantation and its aging, small, yet productive tea drying and packaging. The people were nice and showed us the process from start to finish and then handed out samples at the end.
This guide was all smiles all the time, showing us the furnace that produced the heat to dry the tea leaves on the large trays.
We toured a Spice Farm, or more like a museum. Quite unique actually. It was all outdoors in the forest, in natural settings. Everyday spice plants in their habitat. Ever wonder how pepper is grown? How about cloves? Cardamom? It was in a beautiful setting, tall old growth forest, nice and cool and shaded. Our guide led us down a meandering forest path and would stop from time to time to point out a spice or flower worth noting.
Exotic flowers growing everywhere!
Pepper starting to ripen
Cardamom plant
Coffee beans ripe and ready
Can you guess what spice this will become?! Let me know what your guess is!
Another stop was an orchid grower. While this was before my actual interest in orchids, I guess I always had a fascination with them. Shapes and colors even the nicest seller in the US would never have for sale were everywhere. Mind blow.
Gardeners house in the forest
We say farewell to Munnar as we head for the backwaters of Kerala, next!
Copyright 2019 Michael Roseberry. Photos were taken with Canon Powershot SD750.
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