Thursday, November 27/2008

Wake to overcast sky and rough sea, although the wind is a fairly warm one. Mumbai hostage taking continues (we listen to a remarkably controlled mobile phone report from a man barricaded in his hotel room without food, much water or tv as a news source. And in Bqngkok protestors have occupied the other airport as well.

Good drying weather for the wash - the clothes dance wildly above the balcony. Go for a walk in the mild wind. The café round the corner has a number of men drinking coffee and smoking water pipes (sheeskas), including one of the German men from our hotel, answering in one case the question of where the others go and what they do when it's not sunny by the pool. Past the drugstore where we first bought bottled water. Nothing would look less like a drugstore. The local pharmacies are European drugstores with pharmaceuticals, skin creams and such, mostly behind the counter. This 'drugstore' however is a grubby cubbyhole about 6 by 8 feet, with dusty cardboard boxes and grimy jars, looking more like a disused toolshed - the proprietor pleasant enough but the last person one would think to consult on a medical problem.

Discover the local covered market, a lively place full of fruit and vegetables - heaps of oranges, pomegranates, bananas, purple-black aubergines, cauliflowers, lettuces, courgettes. The central area is a huge square composed of tables covered with fish, whole fish of a variety of shapes and sizes. We must look impressedas a man tries to sell us some. There are also alcoves selling eggs, cheese, and meat, some with carcasses hanging above the counter. Next to small carcasses of lamb or kid, there hangs the full unskinned head of a cow, facing into the market, a baby's dummy pacifier in its mouth.