At the fishing port

The fishing port is over the hill and down the coast a couple of kilometers but the tourists haven't found it for I was the only female and only westerner there. It belted with rain, thunder rolled and lightning flashed as I sheltered in a huge open shed with fishing nets all neatly bound up, each ready to be put into a boat, and lots of fishermen doing what they do when the day's work is over - smoke (possibly ganja), play cards, chat and sleep. The port is in a basin surrounded by heavily wooded hillsides from which smoke curled up from palm thatched huts. Many of the latter are made from concrete but I did spy a few made of mud and bamboo. It is a multi-racial area so on one side a huge church looked across the harbour full of beached and floating boats to 3 huge mosques on the other side - the muezzin call to prayers was not answered by any in the shed with me but later two immaculately dressed boys in white strolled past who had obviously been to the mosque. After the rain stopped other boys came out to play cricket and two rode huge adult bikes that were almost impossible for them to sit above the cross bar let alone on a saddle and a soon as they saw me started the game of trying to intimidate me into giving them rupees or pens for school. In such a well educated state (99.9999 literacy they claim) it was sad that even women put out their hand to me too.

I got down to the beach in front of the hotel to see the local boat emptying its nets of hundreds of large purple jellyfish - each fully 15 inches across. Apparently they come to this area to spawn (if that is what jellyfish do) and a large English man came and stood beside me as I took a photograph and told me to paste it on Facebook to show what terrible things are being done here. He said it had gone on for the last 12 years that he had spent each winter here and it was damaging the ecology, the fish were too small too. He really bent my ear but I had to say to him that we in Europe don't have a leg to stand on with reference to our own fishing practices with quotas when we throw back edible fish to pollute the seas because it is illegal to land them.

Today is Diwali - the Festival of Lights - and tonight I expect lots of fireworks and firecrackers and general hoo-hah. However it is pouring with rain again and all the little pathways are quagmires or impassable floods. It will be nothing like in north India where it is hugely celebrated.