Spices, Bricks and Parades

Another thing that G Adventures is good at is just stopping the bus when we are passing something interesting. For example on the road to Allepey we stopped 3 times. The first time was at a spice garden. The man who owned the garden was delighted to show us around and we had a lesson in spices. Did you know that cardamom grows out of the root of the plant or that white, green and black pepper are all the same thing - just picked at different times and processed slightly differently. This nice man also grew lemons the size of your head. Can you imaging the size of gin you would need to go with a lemon that size. As well as spices and fruit he also had lots of exotic flowers.

Back down onto the planes we passed a brick factory where we stopped to watch a lady making bricks out of clay. She would make around a thousand bricks per day and when we passed around late morning she was well on her way to her target. For this hard labour she would be paid around £4 per day.

Lastly, we came across a parade making its way to a temple. The ladies were carrying offerings of fruit on their heads and were accompanied by musicians and priests, making a very colourful sight.