One thinks of a “route” as a means to get from one point to another.  In ancient times throughout history, spices have been as valuable as gold and silver. According to a 15th century saying: “No man should die who can afford cinnamon.”

Think about that the next time you sprinkle a little bit of this sweetness into your coffee or tea.

The spice trade was a commercial activity of ancient origin which involved the merchandising of spices, incense, herbs, and other drugs between historic civilizations in Asia, Africa and Europe. What oil, agriculture, stocks and free markets are today….is what spices, medicine, herbs and other aromatic pleasures were of yesterday.

As our group of Amazing Journeys passengers return home to their normal routines, what they just experienced in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India was quite the contrary.  Life in these parts are not just figuratively worlds apart.  Life is a different order here. The value system is vastly different from the western world in so many ways.  Rich people live in homes with dirt floors. Poor people have satellite dishes and cell phones.  Washing your clothes at a river is commonplace.  Creamating the dead along a river is custom.  A road is means to get where you’re going, but it doesn’t matter how you get there or by which means.  Camels, rickshaws, trucks piled high with a hundred laborers, tuk tuks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw), bicycles, motorscooters, cars, busses and anything that moves, moves on these roads. And in any direction where there is an open space.  Western folk tend to cringe at every turn on the roadways, while the locals are just navigating their way through another day in the life.

Men wear turbans, women wear saris.  Kids play cricket on the side of the road like we shoot hoops in our driveway.  Laundry hangs out to dry; sometimes in a window, sometimes along the median in the road….sometimes as an full-fledged business along the highway.  Goats and cows roam freely, but they are all owned by someone; someone who just let them out for the day.  At the end of the day…yes, the cows do come home.  You have something to sell? Just bring a table and set it all down on the sidewalk and start selling.  Or, just hawk the tourists when they come by. Need to pray?  The nearest mosque, shrine or temple is closer to you than the nearest Starbucks in Seattle.   Want to see some wildlife (beyond the cows)?  Just look up – monkeys abound like unsupervised children.

And food!  Oh, the food.  How about Pani Puri (a crisp doughy cracker dipped in spicey water)…or Aloo Tikki patties made up of mashed potatoes and masala deep fried in oil?  You can buy that off the side of the road.  Nan that is freshly made in a fire pit is about the closest one can come to heaven of the tastebuds.  Thirsty?  Have a freshly squeezed sugar cane to drink–literally right off the cane, pressed between two rotating metal wheels. Want to spice up that meal? India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia have thousands of spice variations that can diversify and intensify a diet more than most easterns would care to dare.  But its there!  Spices and herbs and aromas are an essential part of the culture and of immense important to commerce.

Spices are used in different forms – whole, chopped, ground, roasted, sauteed, fried and as topping. Locals blend food to extract the nutrients and bind them in a palatable form. Some spices are added at the end as a flavouring and are typically heated in a pan with ghee or cooking oil before being added to a dish. Lighter spices are added last, and spices with strong flavor should be added first. Curry is not a spice, but a term used by western people and refers to any dish in Indian cuisine that contains several spices blended together and could be with a gravy base or a dry item. A curry in Indian cuisine typically consists of whey cooked with gram flour, chopped onions, turmeric powder, and several spices blended together and some that are fried and added in the end as flavoring.

Spices and herbs are used for medicinal purposes too.  Any ailment or hygenic enhancement can supposedly be aided or cured with an herbal concoction.  Your’s truely had a hair removal treatment on my leg, at no extra charge. Or pain for that matter.  You can ease digestive challenges….smooth your skin….get rid of hemmeroids….cease balding….increase your metabolism…build muscle tone….and look 20 years younger, just by taking a few natural herbs.  We saw the garden of eden…and the man who would say so.   And yes, my hairy legs were smooth as a butter.  It must work.

Its not easy to get there, but it is so worth the trip.  It puts life into prespective and opens your eyes to a whole new world (and sometimes it opens your nostrils too…and makes your eyes water with all that spice). If  you live in a developed country, be grateful.  Its all relative, but I’m happy to have what I have here in the good ol’ USA.  Life along the Indian Ocean isn’t necessarily a bad life; its just a life that I am glad to have visited.  But with well over a billion people all vying for space its a bit overcrowded for me.    Its so interesting in so many ways…and so different in even more ways.  I’ll go again.  Will you?