Today Celeste and I went on this boat/canoe ride through the swamps and canals here in Kerala. The whole excursion took the entire day. I actually had more fun on yesterday's outing where the tuktuk driver drove us to random places all around the city. But I guess that you can say that today was a peaceful day.
The boats were powered by a man with a big bamboo stick. He pushes the boat using the stick to push off from the bottom of the water. Because there is no motor, the ride through the canals was really peaceful and quiet. I literally fell asleep at one point because the chairs were really comfortable. We saw some of the little villages that live in this area and our guide explained that the two big industries here are rope making and calcium making. Really interesting. The women work all day to make ropes made of coconut and the men work to get clams out of the water which is burned to make pure calcium oxide. The process to make the calcium I actually understood from chemistry. Kinda neat that I can actually apply all my school this summer to something.
This is a picture of the women making the rope.
This is a picture of the massive amounts of pure calcium after the whole process is completed. To think that this is made from clam shells is amazing.
A scenic route through the canals and swap land. Peaceful and tranquil.
We went down to the Chinese fish nets to buy some fresh sea food. I went a little over board with the buying of the seafood, but I couldn't help myself. These people work so hard, and they all want you to buy from them so they can support the family. Overboard isn't really all that over board though...I purchased a whole lobster, a whole white snapper, tiger prawns, and two small fishes that I don't know the name of for 300 rupees. That's about 7 dollars. Yummy, we are going to go enjoy our fresh seafood dinner tonight.
This is me at the Chinese fish nets just after sunset.
0 comments:
Post a Comment