Indian cowboy poseurs!

Well perhaps not but they were extremely proud of their appearance and I failed to photograph them walking up the beach holding hands - the men and boys do this frequently and it is just friendship although it looks like something else to western eyes. No one ever sees a man and woman holding hands except perhaps in a honeymoon resort.

I watched the fishermen haul in the nets this morning with a huge catch of small fish - they hauled and sang and grunted and hauled to keep in time - the boss was hugely irate with locals who wanted to have some and kept on gesticulating and speaking in a very fierce voice. Box after box was taken to a truck which would take them to market. A poisonous stone fish was thrown out carefully and then covered in jellyfish so I did my saviour bit and picked it up by the tail as I'd seen it handled before and made sure it swam off into the surf.

Then I had another wonderful but very hot walk going north today first entering a beach that was fed by local buses and as it's a Sunday and a Diwali holiday to boot it was filled with family groups of Indians. The women and girls were in their best finery and they stood looking at the sea - I couldn't make out if they were envious of the boys who were all disporting themselves in the water or not. Some did paddle, none showed an ankle while doing so and the bottom of their sarees or kurta trousers just got wet!

The beach further on then became totally deserted - possibly 5 kilometers long - I shall certainly return for I think I might be able to swim more pleasantly there as the surf was much lower due to it being such a long beach with no rocky outcrops such as there are where I am at the moment. At least I could walk there and get a bit brown - there are too many people here and I'm feeling rather shy!

The lifeguards whistled frantically and waved their red flags to get everyone out of the water just as a huge storm with thunder and lightning started . I just managed to get back to a stairway up to some letting rooms above a chemist's shop and there I sat it out with one or two others. The path to my hotel was an ankle deep river when I finally reached it.

There are a couple more pics here