Trying the Local Fish Curry in Odisha, India

  • today When:
    2014
  • place Where:
    India
  • by

A tour in the hills of Odisha and north eastern AP. Two loops starting in Vizag. The first to the NW and the second to the SW. Odisha, inland, is a drier and poorer part of India with many quiet areas. It is great for cycling.

A toddy tapper. They climb certain types of palm trees and extract a liquid that is then fermented.

Climbing up the ghats. The hills here are under 1,000m. Unlike the western ghats which are an unbroken chain, these are more like scattered ranges with quite dry rain shadow areas.

This family is working on the sugar harvest. They have a massive pot of sugar on the boil so as to reduce it down.

A roadworker. It is very physical the way they do things here. These women are really tough.

I’m greeted on a quiet country road by school students.

Big mango trees dot the landscape. It is the dry season. But it is dry most of the time around here.

Although many people think India is all intense and overpopulated it is not true. This is a typical example of the quiet of countryside inland Odisha.

The straw left over from threshing is stacked and then protected from animals with a fence made from local vegetation.

Often the areas around the bigger rivers are quite isolated as it is hard to make bridges that will survive the floods. There is no one around.

It is sugar harvest. Oxen cart the cane to the mills. Often, a 10 year old will be in control of the massive carts being towed.

A young girl scoots past me on her bike, going to school.

The timelessness and lack of dependence on modern machinery and fuel really impresses me.

This fellow rode with me for quite a while and pleaded with me to come to his village. His mum cooked up a fantastic fish curry. A lasting memory on my last day.

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