Photo Gallery

A palm grove near the village of Induruwa on the south-west coast of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Like a circus acrobat, a man walks along the ropes stretched at the height of the tree tops, linking around a hundred palm trees together. Twice a day, he harvests the milky, sugary palm sap, which is extracted through incisions in the fresh flower shoots and, when fermented, produces the much sought-after toddy or palm wine. If the palm wine and rice are fermented again, distillation yields the strong arrack or palm spirit, which is particularly popular among the Sinhalese. – 1990