Drying Cardamom

Maybe you enjoy the spice known as Cardamom? It is grown in various tropical parts of Asia, including Laos. Once harvested, in the form of pods, it needs to be dried. There are various means of doing that, but in this Lao village it was done the traditional way.

This lady is working on a shelf above a smouldering fire, drying out the seeds taken from those pods hanging on the sides of this special purpose hut. It was fiendishly hot (she was bathed in perspiration) and very smoky inside: how she could look so cheerful for the camera was beyond me! I really had to feel for the people of rural Laos, living such hard lives compared to our western world, while in one of the world's lowest income countries.

View this large on black and spare a moment's thought when next buying spices!

I'm very flattered that this image has been selected for inclusion on the Ipernity Homepage.