great photos. The best are always the ones showing the local people aren't they?

Hi lovely photo's, you have a talent there
I know i sound stupid but what is making jaggery?
crystal xx

Palm Sugar.

I think

lez

Jaggery is sugar.

In the photo you can see the stripped cane which they used to fire the 'stove'.

Apparantly it is a process that has existed in India for centurys. It was pure luck in coming across this 'plant' in rural Karnatika.

Jaggery is so tasty - funilly enough I put some in a rice pudding a couple of hours ago. We brought a kg back from Goa - it is like dark brown sugar and tastes like the bonfire toffee we had in Yorkshire when I was alot younger. We bought it at the indoor part of Mapusa market.

Keri, Sonpaliye, Bhaide and Deusua are some of the villages in Pernem where the elderly renders have kept alive the tradition of toddy-tapping. The toddy is distilled into coconut feni or used for vinegar or coconut jaggery. (Suhas Parsekar, GT)

Hi Neil

Great photos! What camera did you use? The quality of the pics are pretty good.

SteveM

Thanks for the comments.

The camera is a Fuji S7000 which I like. It doesn't perform very well with low light, that means Goa is fine. It's really a 6MP camera although it interpolates to 12MP which is OK. I've printed out at 10x8 and the result are great. I think I could get a pretty good A3 print.

I think you could probably get a good deal on them now since the 9500 is out and isn't really worth it.

The s7000 is rugged, i dropped it the first week I had it on a marble floor ... not a scratch.

I've got 100's of images from Goa, I've thought of putting a small gallery together and seeing if I can display them somewhere in Edinburgh (a restaurant maybe!) and give a donation to some Goan charity.... just a thought.

A nice thought Neil!

Pictures in India are always worth looking at...better than looking at red and gold velvet wallpaper in some restaurants I know

I know CWT would welcome any charitable monies.

HI big neil the pictures are super I love looking at all the pictures on the goa forum now I will be able to go and look at the ones you have put on too. for sharing them with us ...

Absolutely stunning photography, georgeous colours, I want to go back now!!!!
Did you travel to Karnataka by train , do you think it could become like Goa in a few years??

Karnatika, I can't imagine it turning into Goa. There is no tourist infrastructure, no English road signs (not much English anything!). You know when you have crossed into Karnatica as the road conditions change instantly to very poor standards and all signs are in Hindi. Don't overdress and women should cover up. Nothing like Goa whatsoever. You would really have to stay at a tourist hotel to get any sort of liveable standard by western terms and even so it's not great. POW camp conditions in guest houses

I travelled with my partner by driver and 4x4, an incredible 10 hour journey to Hampi. Up into the Ghats (2000 ft plus) to the Karnatika plateau, beautiful but eerily strange, people live a very primitive existence but life goes on. Great seeing 6 foot high piles of chillies and hay sorting on the highway! (this used to happen in Goa!).

The roads are incredibly dangerous (our driver would not drive in the dark on the highway, understandably so!). The Ox and cart still rule! but there are an incredible amount of trucks lying abandoned where wheels have fallen off/broken.

The drive is not for the faint hearted but nonetheless incredible, life seemed not to have changed for 100 years or so.

If you want to go to Hampi maybe train is better (I prefer a bit of adventure). If you do decide to go by car take plenty of food, both ways!