Marchés sur terre - The best markets on earth - 2 ª Season

Flowers bring colour to Indians' everyday lives, as well as being part of every major life event. They are deeply rooted in the entire country's cultural and religious traditions, but nowhere else are they as important a trade as in Mysore, in Karnataka state. The region boasts fertile soil that produces more than 75% of all flowers sold in the country. For 120 years, the Devaraja flower market has immersed more than 20,000 daily visitors in a sea of vibrant colours and intoxicating scents. The market opens at dawn every day of the year. It has some 150 flowers vendors, offering chrysanthemums, jasmine, roses and other blossoms sold in bulk or in garlands for women to wear, honouring the gods or celebrating rites of passage. With a flower auction every morning, small vendors' exuberant stalls, hand-crafted garlands, a nearby vegetable farm, offerings to the gods and the making of rose-petal jam, the market is an entire community that lives and thrives around the bustling flower trade. In India, flowers please the gods as much as they do people; their ubiquity brings communities together and fills the air with sweet harmony. Get ready for some flower power with this colourful episode.

The city of Mandalay, Myanmar, is known as the "city of jewels." And for good reason. This is where you'll find the world's largest jade market, where some 100,000 vendors, buyers, brokers, cutters and jewellers congregate every day to make and trade the coveted precious stone. Opened in 2000, the market now has more than 1100 shops offering raw and polished stones, jewellery, statuettes, figurines and medallions. In every case, the item's quality is indicated by the stone's shade of green and level of translucence. As we follow the brokers who negotiate trades, the workers who mine the stones and the artisans who cut and polish them, we see how important jade is to the country's economy, only recently freed from the yoke of military dictatorship. And yet the trade is controlled by the country's superpower neighbour, China, where jade is a key symbol of Chinese culture and identity. Some visionary Burmese want to turn jade into a true driver of economic development for the whole country. One Mandalay merchant, for example, dreams of turning his city into "the world centre of the jade trade," while another businessman used the precious stone to build an enormous pagoda intended to burnish the country's image and delight tourists.

The pagne, also known as the wrapper or lappa, is an iconic African garment. Traditionally worn in West Africa, it comes in countless colourful patterns, and each country has its own version. One of the continent's biggest pagne markets, the Dantokpa market, is located in Cotonou, Benin. Every day, the vast 15-hectare market welcomes one million visitors. Shaded from the sun by large parasols, Dantokpa market's 5,000 stalls sell jewellery, clothing, food and drink. Inside the main building - known as the temple of wax hollandais - is where we find countless pagnes. The name is derived from the technique used to make the garment, which involves soaking in wax to preserve the fabric's vivid colours. Women, men and children of all social classes wear pagnes, which were originally made in the Netherlands. Squares, circles, floral patterns, seashells, everyday items, animals, gods: each pattern has a message, sometimes highly communicative, or may be a symbol of cultural belonging or a memento of a special occasion. In Benin, women are the main players in the pagne trade, having developed participatory and creative relationships with their suppliers. Dantokpa market also has 80 Vodun shops whose wares include bones, feathers and furs. Here, the religion's adherents can purchase the items they need to make an amulet, or the ingredients for traditional medicines. Both soft and sturdy, symbols of perseverance and success, the pagnes of Dantokpa market reflect not only the different cultures that call Benin home, they also embody the history of Africa. Come read the silent story in the patterns, a story told every day under the Cotonou sun.

Tea is both accessible to all and highly sophisticated. It is everywhere in Chinese culture, and people respect and revere it as they would an emperor. The enormous Maliandao tea market embodies the rich tradition, with 6,000 shops covering more than a kilometre. Tea merchants and vendors of supplies like teapots, utensils and boxes share this great commercial hub. The carefully organized shops transform into steamy teahouses, because here one must know how to separate the ordinary from the exceptional and sample teas as a connoisseur, immersed in the moment. Showing off delicate covered bowls, vendors entice customers with tea leaf braids and delicious samples. Green, black, white, red, yellow, oolong: there is a tea for everyone, and each has its own unique character. Whether calming or energizing, the infusions were part of the Middle Kingdom's pharmacopeia before becoming a refined part of everyday life, a symbol of the core Chinese values of authenticity and harmony. Hundreds of kilometres from Beijing is Mount Wuyi, the home of camellia sinensis, the tea plant from which all six varieties of tea grow. After harvest, the leaves are aired out, dried and toasted, before being shipped to the rest of China and around the world. While a qin player plucks his instrument, stroll through the calm, serene passages of the Maliandao tea market. Follow your nose from floral to woody aromas, and succumb to the charms of the art of tea.

The dark, gleaming black of ebony wood reflects all Tanzanian culture. The Mwenge woodcarvers' market is located in downtown Dar es Salaam, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Ebony carvings, masks and boxes share crowded shelves under the stalls' corrugated roofs. Twelve hours a day, the Mwembe market's 150 shops offer locals and visitors a wide range of objects carved in ebony wood. Originating in the traditions of Tanzania's Makondé people, there are three main styles of ebony carving: ujamaa or the tree of life, tall and richly detailed; shaitani, composed of imperfect shapes often alluding to the afterlife; and modern works, depicting the people and animals of the savannah. While the merchants dust, shine and varnish their wares, artists toil patiently and meticulously in an open-air studio, well-sharpened tools in hand. Mwenbe market also has jewellery, clothing and antiques, as well as paintings of the tingatinga movement, a folk-art genre known for the use of brilliant colours. Despite slowing business and the gradual disappearance of raw materials, ebony carving continues, deeply rooted in ever-optimistic Tanzanian tradition. Wander through the Mwembe art market and behold the strength and subtlety of ebony thanks to these precious, vibrant carvings.