{"id":3985,"date":"2015-04-15T16:13:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T13:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelstoriesfromyworld.com\/?p=3985"},"modified":"2017-03-21T17:25:39","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T14:25:39","slug":"keralastories-the-press-conference-the-temple-the-bus-eng-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/keralastories-the-press-conference-the-temple-the-bus-eng-version\/","title":{"rendered":"#KeralaStories: The Press Conference, the Temple & the Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201c30 travel bloggers from 21 countries on an enchanting journey across Kerala!<\/strong>\u201d The bus that would help us explore one of the most exotic areas of India had this phrase written all over it. Yes, that\u2019s right; we had a bus exclusively for our transportation, a bus that was meant to become our \u201chome\u201d for the next 2 weeks. <\/a> A pleasant surprise awaited us on our 1st<\/sup> day, as we began this journey with the Minister of Health of India welcoming us at Mascot Hotel and quite a few journalists taking brief interviews from all the bloggers, plus asking us to present our blogs. Until next morning we were on every newspaper and news website around the country! Wohoo! <\/a> <\/a> We then had lunch at the hotel and prepared to hit the road to explore the city of Trivandrum for the very first time! (On food now; that\u2019s a whole different and really, really \u201cspicy\u201d chapter \u2013 A separate post about it is on its way!) <\/a> <\/a> So, Trivandrum was the first city I fully came in touch with in India. Some of its features?<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/a><\/a>I\u2019ll stick to the last one as it was what draw my attention the most. Huge eyes, intense looks and shy smiles. People in India are pretty shy, low-key, willing to offer their help even when communication stands between them and a tourist\/foreigner. They love vivid colors, drink a lot of tea, have at least 7 different types of bread (pie), love their families and are devoutly religious. <\/a> Having mentioned religion let me talk to you about the \u00a0Padmanabhaswamy Temple \u2013 the wealthiest temple of the world. It was one of the highlights of our tour and as our guide mentioned, the locals only understood its worth a few years ago \u2013 they prohibited entrance to anyone of other religion since then. <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> Several hours of heat and exhaustion later, my reward was the most beautiful sunset I\u2019ve seen in years, as seen from the garden of the Uday Suites hotel at Kovalam Beach. I shouldn\u2019t waste one more word on it; just look at the pictures! P.S. My 1st<\/sup> day at Kerala could sum up in one word; Pure happiness! <\/a><\/a><\/a> #KeralaBlogExpess #KeralaStories<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201c30 travel bloggers from 21 countries on an enchanting journey across Kerala!\u201d The bus that would help us explore one of the most exotic areas of India had this phrase written all over it. Yes, that\u2019s right; we had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1152],"tags":[223,614,616,926,519,521],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3985"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18574,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985\/revisions\/18574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tstories.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n