Kandy, Sri Lanka
Gannoruwa Road
N/A
+94 771015665
In-store shopping
Tourist trap - stay away from here!!! At the beginning it is an exciting introduction to the herb garden including a "free massage". In the end, however, products are offered at massively inflated prices and a tip is even asked for the free massage. We saw the same products in ordinary supermarkets at a fraction of the price (1/5 to 1/10 !!!).
like
The tour is very nice with a lot of information and free testing. But be aware that the purpose is to sell you expensive products! We bought something but I am not 100% sure it is genuine, thus the 3 stars.
In the beginning it seemed a very nice experience. An old man describing us plants and natural remedies to illness and after a little massage, at the end they take you into their shop which has crazy prices for all the Ayurvedic treatments. We bought few things but we really felt that we were being stitched up.
What a scam! The experience starts with a nice walk through the spice garden. A nice old man explained few interesting facts about the benefits of certain spices and plants. Not surprisingly, those facts were, somehow, related to products they sell in their shop (That was the first red flag). The tour continues with a warm cup of tea / hot chocolate and, in our case, a head massage. Then, very subtle, the nice old man takes you to the shop where they sell the products he previously showed us (second red flag). The first impression was that the products were quite pricy - A body oil was about 4000 rupees (20-25). The nice old guy suddenly became quite pushy (third red flag). Somehow, we ended up expending about 15000 rupees (80). The fourth red flag was how easy was to negotiate the price down from the initial 20000 rupees (110) to 15000 rupees (80). After feeling quite good with our negotiation skills, we headed back to the hotel to try some of the products. We quickly found out that at least two of them were fake. For instance, the hair removal cream was yellow instead of white and smelled of the Gillette hair removal cream that you can buy in the supermarket. Luckily we were driving our car and had the flexibility to come back the next morning. When we arrived the manager quickly recognised us and took us straight to the shop (I guess he didn’t want to have the discussion in front of other potential foreign customers). We immediately asked for a full refund. After few minutes, the manager admitted that “at least” the hair removal cream was fake but claimed that the other products were 100% natural (hard to believe). In the end we got our money back but the whole experience was extremely disappointing.
If your driver takes you here turn around. We didn’t want to go here but our driver obviously had a motive. Went in purely out of politeness and wish we hadn’t! Rude and unpleasant experience. Felt obliged and forced into buying something which we found out later was a 3000% markup of the same product in the market. Unpleasant creepy rude old men who became intimidating and angry when we didn’t want to buy more. Honestly felt shaken and upset after the experience.
Very well explained. Nicely maintained
Horrible scam, our TukTuk driver brought us here even if we did not want to (he had obviously an agreement with the owners), after the tour of the garden they sold us really expensive (17000 rupees) fake products which came straight from the supermarket and were not those shown in the garden. Avoid at all costs, if your driver takes you here get another one.
I ordered a tuk tuk to go to the botanical garden and the driver took us around to get to this place, and of course I was annoyed why he brought us here, and the driver seemed to aggressively direct that this place was part of the botanical garden, I think something was wrong why he want bring us to this place , but after my wife said there was nothing wrong we saw first,lets see! and well they showed the little garden with a guide who explained about the plants from the products they claimed from their plant material, it was quite amazing to know the price of the product was very crazy expesive
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