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  There are multiple spice gardens along the Spring Valley region in Kerala, and they more or less follow the same blueprint: a family-owned estate with an optional tour of the medicinal herbs, followed by a detailed exhibition of the products extracted from the garden. These can range from raw products such as cardamom pods to more refined oils for skincare or back pain relief, which their in-house pharmacy would be happy to prescribe. During this garden tour, we enjoyed discovering just how many varieties of the same plant exist in the wild. In the case of peppers and bananas especially, we realized how differently these plants fruit compared to the versions we are used to seeing on commercial farms. It is admittedly quite an interactive and engaging experience, so as long as you can avoid purchasing medicines you do not really need, this informative tour is definitely a must-do for nature enthusiasts!

 If I don't go and explain it, you might take one look at this majestic architecture and mistake it for a church — and who could blame you? Even the local Dutch nickname, “Spoorwegkathedraal,” recognizes the church-like features of Antwerpen-Centraal railway station. When I first arrived here, I had to take three escalators just to reach mean sea level. Above, a bright naturally lit roof guides your eyes toward the higher levels of the building, and justifiably so, because there is so much detail to unravel. From a purely architectural standpoint, these design elements cannot be defined by a single word, but rather by a blend of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque styles. These are characterized by striking angular facades, ornate symmetry, and rounded arches. Even within these visuals alone, you can grasp the lavishness and grandeur that this building boasts. It is as admirable as it is unfortunate that much of its financing was tied to the colonial exploitation of the 19th-century Co...

Truthfully, we began this day with a long car ride around Kerala, but soon enough I fell carsick and needed a reason to take a breather between these scenic mountain roads. Perhaps a word of caution as well: if you plan to catch a glimpse of a few waterfalls along the way, definitely do not come during the early months of the year like we did, because we only got to see dry stones and sticks instead — albeit with a bit of greenery. But during the monsoon season after June, you could witness something amazing like this.  We were lucky enough to catch a view of Valara Waterfalls, which, even though distant from our viewpoint, showed just how majestic and eventful these hills can be. And so we arrived at this eco park with no idea what to expect, simply eager to take a walk. We were first greeted by these emu birds, which honestly deserve their own emu-ji considering how expressive they are! Right after feeding one, we were captivated by the birds around us, so I even tried whistling ...

  Look, I started this trip with a rainy morning, so I will make sure you relive it again with me. Sure, I had a couple of cakes and coffee to pump up my spirits when the joyful cloud of grey decided to accompany me on this vacation. And where else would I be headed to, but Gingelom, the most eventful of all municipalities in Belgium. I am being slightly sarcastic, but I actually had a great time—so why was I there in the first place? Let me take you back one month, talking with my friends about how nice it would be to enjoy the summer of Belgium in a relaxing BnB somewhere we have never visited before. And in that research, we discovered Gingelom. The official webpage for Gingelom describes it as a landscape of sunken lanes, orchards, rolling fields, authentic monuments, and much tranquility. That was the bait, and we were hooked. Right, back to the bus we come—fortunately rather empty and peaceful towards this side of town in Limburg—and to be at complete liberty switching seats ...

  One of the many good things in life is cheese of many kinds, and I bring you an experience that I was myself introduced to quite late in life: pairing and consuming cheese. The first one I tried here is a goat cheese with a skin of black ash which, on its own, is rather tangy and acidic, but when you have a fuller bite with the white creamy cheese, it blends in with the fattiness of the goat milk smoothly and deliciously. In terms of pairing, we generally take a small fruit like grape or olive to enhance the chew. At the risk of sounding too pretentious, I should mention that I knew nothing about cheese a couple of months ago but have taken keenly to experimenting with them lately. If you could bite into this block of Saint-Marcellin, you'd know what I mean—it is soft and creamy on top of this crisp biscuit, so every angle of your bite prepares an immersive sour experience. Many times it is difficult to predict what the first and last notes of a cheese can be, especially with som...

  If you sometimes start to wonder how a crow serves its purpose in the world, please let it not be on a plate for dinner, as I recently discovered. And yes, perhaps I am a prude to savour eccentric flavours, but an intelligent creature like a crow does not seem appetising to me at all. And I am better described as a stalker of birds, but I am fairly certain they know I'm around. For example, this crow—let's call him Adam—finishes his crushed walnuts, which he had earlier used the car to crunch down and snack on, and now I see Adam hopping off towards the sidewalk. So of course, I follow him. I am being silent as a leaf, analysing Adam's strategy for foraging in the roadside mulch and bushes. At one remarkable instant, I even had my hopes up that he discovered a new walnut, but alas, it is just another leaf. One never to be upset by rejection, Adam moves on to the next pile, and the next one after that pile, which is an honourable hustle and drive—something to learn from Ad...

  While walking towards Leopold Park in Brussels, something caught my eye: this footbridge that joins two giant buildings right above a busy thoroughfare highway. And if it's not gone yet, you'll also spot a pigeon nest under a lamppost. Towards the right, we have an office building which also reflects the incremental architectural developments of the 19th and 20th century. I say this because towards the left, we have the more institutionalised and modern glass building known as the Jacques Delors Building, named after the former president of the European Commission who was involved in the creation of a single market and the euro currency across the 27 member countries of the European Union. The figure we see here is actually from Greek mythology, known as Ariadne’s thread, symbolising the guiding line for Europe across the labyrinth of social and political issues. With the two figureheads placed on opposite ends, this expresses the poetic desire to be unified in their mission,...

The Bourse recently opened to the crowds with a renovated look and appeal, and I was eager to check it out since I had seen the giant wells close to it that display ruins of a convent from the 13th century. So yes, this building stands on some heavy ground, and it held much relevance for modern-day Brussels as well, being the official floor for stock exchange operations that were active as recently as 2015. Inside, however, the façade has ornamental sculptures and figures from various artists such as Rodin and Jacques Jacquet. It is now lit in colourful LED lights but still reflects the industrial rise of Belgium from the past century. I also took note of the colour choices of marble on the floor and pillars, being quite reminiscent of what I saw in the Egmont Palace in Brussels, which is to say that similar neoclassical architecture can be found across multiple buildings in Belgium, and it is quite fascinating how it stamps a certain period of progress and culture in time. The buildin...

  If I only showed you the outside of this building, would you be able to guess where I am taking you inside? Well, if you've read the title by now, this video is shot at one of my favourite food spots in Brussels called Kabuki, and as long as you come with an open appetite and curious tastebuds, you will certainly appreciate the gifts of this menu. Which include, among many delicious plates, service by miniature trains at your table—I mean, how cool is that! I am already satisfied by the freshness of the sushi and fried foods being served, but when a train comes in with all these options, it is so difficult to choose which one to begin with. If you're here, I recommend keeping a bowl of soy sauce and pickled ginger at your table so that you refresh your palate whenever needed. There are sweet options among sushi as well, including fruit and mango-salmon pairings, which are surprisingly an amazing play of textures. At the centre of all the train tracks, you can feast your eyes ...

  The Leopold Park is at the heart of Brussels, both in terms of geography and history. When I first discovered this open garden, I took some time to read the information boards and am still quite surprised that this place was a zoo in its early days. And after a couple of decades of poor maintenance, it was reintroduced to the city as a science park in the 19th century. And now it is visited by not only seasonal flocks of birds but also students, professors, and academics who visit the research schools and institutes surrounding the park. This park is visited by both tourists and locals with equal enthusiasm, so you will find well-trodden pathways, well-sat and sinking benches, and quirky artworks all over the place. The pond in the centre freezes partially in the winter, but the ducks and geese still make it feel more active. And of course, you will find a dedicated flock of ducks guarding each patch of land, so tread carefully and at your own risk!

  If you also succumb to your whims and pick up a bouquet of flowers for your fiancé, join the club. I found this brilliant bundle of orange and decided to set up a vase at home because you can never have enough plant troubles in the world to evade getting more plants. My tips for successful longevity for any flower bouquet is to immediately chop off the bottom section of the stems which was exposed to the previous bucket of water. This allows the flowers to delay any potential decay as a healthier section of the stem is now open for work. As my vase has a thinner neck, I decided to also pluck away any additional leaves around the bottom half of the stems to allow them easy access into the vase. This also prevents the leaves from being exposed to the water and potentially rotting sooner. I put a cup worth of clean filtered water along with a few pinches of flower fertilizer. This is optional, and I have had success without it too, but since it is available to me, I do want to take ...

You know how you sometimes see something so beautiful you begin questioning reality? Well, this was that for me. It is snow season in Belgium and I was out for a walk at sunrise and serendipitously walked into a desktop wallpaper. And I know it sounds silly, but the fact that this warm orange/pink cloudscape was immediately followed by snowfall made the experience even more magical. And as any magician would say, it is not magic, it is physics. Well, I'm paraphrasing—I don't know many magicians—but out of curiosity I began reading about cloud iridescence and atmospheric scattering of light, and despite my aversion to physics, I actually find the science of this pink snow cloud fascinating. In essence, at sunrise the light actually travels a longer distance through the layers of Earth's atmosphere to reach my eye, where the smaller wavelengths of colours like green and blue get scattered or redirected from following a straight path. On top of this, heavy clouds of snow right...

  I think parrots are the orange cats among birds, because what else can explain how captivating their nonchalance can be, especially amidst the litany of crows, pigeons, and ducks that patrol each city. Sometimes I am able to get a response from a few of them, but these green citizens of Belgium are rather smug and settled with their complicated history of invasiveness. As one story goes, tropical ring-necked parakeets were first released into the city by an amusement park in Brussels wishing to contribute to developing birdlife, and over the last five decades, their population increased by 250-fold. This is no surprise of course—parrots are basically green pigeons, and they are smart in surviving urban environments. Now it does become a concern for Belgium's native bird species like the wood nuthatch, who cannot successfully compete against these big parakeets to find burrows in trees for nesting. From a Darwinian context, it is only a matter of time that parakeets dominate the b...

Right at the center sits an homage to the railway workers who were victims of the two World Wars, and then above the entrance, a fresco that depicts some Belgian cities. If that doesn't attract your attention, then these runaway balloons will—just kidding, although it's good to know Spiderman is always looking after you. If you look up at the ceiling and become engulfed by a giant painting of the Smurfs, you know you are at Brussels Central Station. Despite its vast open design to welcome enormous crowds, you are easily drawn towards artworks like the relief of the old Putterie district at the entrance, or the vast artificial lighting that welcomes you in. The station is bathed in a calm white light and sandstone from local quarries, which Belgium has many of. If you've read Asterix and Obelix , that part of course wouldn't be news to you. There are boulangeries, kiosks, and train schedule information boards all over the premises, which is basically built underground. A...

  I woke up this Saturday afternoon with a great desire to have a heavy breakfast, and I had this one image of a Spanish omelette in mind. And so I commenced the chopping, the slicing, the dicing, and lamenting the fact that my handheld dicer recently broke down, and although I eventually fixed it, the shock was still palpable. I digress—this omelette is essentially potatoes and eggs along with any number of seasonal vegetables you can chuck into your bowl. My friend had recently handed me a basket of eggs from his farm produce, so I was glad to use them while they were still fresh. I have read a lot about preserving the freshness of eggs in recent times; many debate whether they last longer kept within a fridge rather than outside, or in a dark shelf away from prying eyes, and whether harmful bacteria can spoil them in certain spaces and temperatures. What is the optimal solution? I propose: eat them ASAP! No eggs, no problem, right? Coming back to this dish, add herbs to the pan ...

Early this February, I found a national park to visit in Munnar, and truth be told, if you were also boxed in a car dreaming of stepping out into the lush green tea estate that fences all the roads up and down these hills, you'd share the sentiment. Munnar itself is located in the Western Ghats mountain range in Kerala and is home to the nearly two and a half kilometre-tall Anamudi mountain peak, a view that we actually see during our hike. We started with a masala mango snack and coffee, which rapidly woke us up for the workout as we made our way up to a waterfall around the boundary of the park. Unfortunately, the park itself was closed for a few months since it is the breeding season of the Nilgiri Tahr goat, which this park is known to protect. As a rule of thumb, any hill town in Kerala is flush with rolling tea greens, misty temperatures, and waterfalls. However, Munnar was a princely state that fed into the industrialisation of Kerala as it built railway tracks and exports f...

While walking around Thekkady, I booked an evening show to witness some cultural art forms, beginning with the Kathakali dance. It combines storytelling, dance, and music, often enacting stories from Indian epics. Since it is so expressive, we barely need much narration around the story; in this particular one, we witnessed a story around Indra Dev. All through the show, I kept wondering how much time and effort these dancers have put in since their youth to become adept at expressing lore via dance, and that too with so much sincerity. We can see the coordination from both the dancer as well as the percussionists on stage, which is quite mesmerizing as they all contribute to the mood of the story. There are so many emotions that this artist can show clearly on his face. Some expressions are ever so subtle, but at the very least, the intelligence of the audience is not mocked at any point, and it is left to us to interpret what we see—how we see it. At one point, the dancer invites an ...

  I have always been a fan of Leuven as a city, so when my friends invited me to visit Louvain-la-Neuve, I had my expectations riding high for the space and energy that it exudes. And sure, art is subjective, but I personally found Louvain-la-Neuve brimming with artistic and architectural marvels, almost as if to break the monotony of a college-driven town, which it very well is. The city feels young and more colorful than most other Belgian towns. A benefit of which is great restaurants as well, and while we planned on a small lunch, we spent well over 2 hours poring over a variety of crêpes, milkshakes, and cheese platters. The best flavours we found were with artichoke and spinach, both being new dishes for all of us, so that's a good sign if we all like it. This was followed by a much-needed walk towards the city park, where we found the Hergé Museum. The best news here being the fact that it is completely free to visit every first Sunday of the month, so we just had to take th...

If the thought of arrowing through narrow leafy off-track roads amuses you, this safari in Munnar would aptly suffice. This iron-rich soil is reddish brown and contrasts so well against the green tea plantations, coconut trees, and groves of bananas that you might as well live in the moment—there is no way your camera is ever capturing that vividness! Our driver, Mr. Shaji, was a wise old man when he pointed to broken bridges from past floods and wear, and also a smart youthful soul as he wildly plunged us down steep hill tracks, all the while explaining how Munnar grows and exports a bunch of spices like black pepper, which we saw drying under the bright sun, and rubber trees dripping gum into buckets and bags. Our first stop in this safari happened at the hanging bridge, which offers a lush green view of the Western Ghat mountain range. Along with a slight swaying of the suspended bridge, you also hear the continuous roar of the Panniyar River below. Since it is a popular tourist loc...

  Thekkady is a town in the Western Ghats of Kerala that is known for its scenic plant life, spice gardens, and the Periyar National Park, which is one of the most important wildlife sanctuaries in India. Since I was short on time to explore Thekkady, I decided to first inspect the native coconut harvest, which, spoiler alert, turned out super delicious, and we also had the coconut pulp to munch on afterwards. This kickstarted my appetite, so I raided the first general store I could spot and grabbed a bag of bright red beetroot tapioca chips and homemade murukku, both equally crunchy and salty snacks which, in their own way, mark a memory on my tongue—and I was thanking God. Fortunately, we were right next to a giant statue of Ganesh ji, so you could say he preemptively granted my prayers. With a bright halo and glittering aura cast by tiny water droplets, my eyes went right to the person cleaning the statue—it's always those little things in a trip which remain with you in the end...

 Recently, I found myself staring at the most common visuals of Belgium, which are these fantastic moss colonies on concrete walls. Intrigued, I began zooming in with my camera and discovered all kinds of shapes and color formations, sometimes with loops and crevices that otherwise the rest of macroscopic Belgium does not easily show. As I read later, mosses are actually plants that grow on these building surfaces and need very little soil to thrive. They can even remain dormant for months until enough moisture revives them, and unless you use a legally permissible limit of acid to burn them off, moss colonies can spread over a large area and often coexist with other organisms like lichen. Lichen are quite an interesting phenomenon, basically being a partnership between a fungus and an alga that absorb pollutants from the air. This is especially useful because researchers have managed to use it as an air quality indicator in cities! These funky blobs of moss do not root very deep, ...

  A couple of weeks ago,  I was gifted a DIY terrarium box, and I'm not gonna lie, I got a whiplash of my future years when I'll have kids and there will be nothing but patience and tears cheering me on because nobody else believes in me <Katy Perry's meme plays in the background - you have to pretend you're fine>, and the only coping mechanisms that remain are the memes of my end results. But we started from the bottom and we reached somewhere, And to think, terrariums were actually an accidental discovery in the 19th century when Dr. Nathaniel Ward first saw ferns and grass thriving inside a glass jar with their own recycled moisture, which was important for trading plants across empires. And the fact that I can now simply create one at home is a marvel of science, which brings me back to the 30 minutes of torture that I spent stabbing this block of soil. The journey, of course, begins with the seeds of a coleus plant that are showered over some rehydrated soil,...

I'll be honest, I found this trip as a suggestion on my GetYourGuide recommendations in Kochi, and I was only attracted by the number of activities planned within 6 hours, but it turned out way more immersive and memorable than I ever hoped—and here's the evidence. We boarded a bus in Fort Kochi and headed towards a small village as a group of 12 people. We had two drivers manning the boat, and although it's a river, we had barely any resistance, so all the information from our guide was loud and clear. We were being introduced to new beneficial fruits and trees left and right, which is why the next part came as a total surprise (wild mango turned out to be toxic and used for suicide purpose!) So we clearly had a lot of learning left to do. It still surprises me how we all live on the same Earth but are filled with different realities. For example, the existence of this pool of backwater and those tufts of grass makes no sense to someone unaware of Kerala's unique lagoo...

I first saw Jatayu Earth Center on social media and always wanted to be there in person, so here I arrived in Chadayamangalam to witness our very own marvel of architecture. As I began this journey of 800 steps in the sweltering noon heat, I kept reminding myself of the real essence of this holy structure built in this place, as the story of Ramayan goes...Despite his old age, Jattayu fought Ravana valiantly, but Ravana severed his wings, causing him to fall to earth. Before passing, he informed Ram of Sita’s abduction by Ravana! The journey for us to reach the actual Jatayu is not nearly as tumultuous, and I promise it's worth it for the excellent views of nature and the satisfaction of completing the climb. At many locations, we see people resting in the shade and gathering at cold water points, so you never feel worn out by the sun. At the summit itself, one thing I was not expecting was the speed of the wind, which managed to steal my cap and toss it up towards the sky, so you ...

  Early in April, you begin to see something really wonderful in Belgium. Many neighborhoods, especially around Brussels, transform into a shared canopy of bright pink under the heat of a summer sun, and you begin to appreciate many of those otherwise non-conspicuous empty trees on the roadside. These were initially brought to Belgium by the Japanese embassy and have now successfully taken over as ornamental patchwork of trees in multiple cities. What I find even more interesting is that many of these tree varieties do not produce any real cherry fruit, so the one way they are propagated is by using stem grafting. This can lead to some pretty interesting shapes and colors in the ultimate tree. We have a wide range from white to white-pink and pink, and you can bet all your money that they all bloom at once in one week and then leave just as quickly. From a distance, these trees do not seem to have any leaves since they have a collective umbrella of pink, but zooming up close, you c...

  This is Europe's biggest Japanese garden, originally gifted to the city of Hasselt in Belgium by the city of Itami in Japan. This is a heritage site celebrating Japanese culture, tourism, and year-round events such as calligraphy writing or embroidery classes. The first thing I noticed here is the painstakingly crafted water channel that runs in between green patches of shrubs and trees in the garden. There are koi fish which are fearless and curious, much like pigeons in the fish world, and their skin glistens along with the water reflections in tree canopies and waterfall rock formations. The track to walk goes up and down some memorable spots such as the Japanese cafeteria where I tried my first delicious onigiri and then towards a museum of residence and architecture. In between all the captivating sights, I could hear the peace gong in the air, which elevates the experience akin to actually being in Japan. The garden describes Hasselt and Itami as sister cities as they signe...