Saturday 23rd February

I have never spent a day like this before...on the beach, entirely on
my own, for a whole day. Eveno n the rest days during Enduro I
couldn't do it, I became bored after about half an hour sitting doing
nothing. Today, however, it was just what I needed and probably about
as much as I could manage after two days of no food.

the most active I got was to stroll about half way to the mosque and
back, tomorrow I will go the whole way. I got talking to a rather
wizened looking Indian man on my way back. He told me that the mosque
roof was squint because it was hit by a wave '"three elephants high'"
during the monsoon and the roof collapsed, injuring the people inside
praying.

He asked me where I was from, and when I told him, he said "ah, Scotch
whisky. I drinking scotch whisky last night and fall over. Usually I
have three fingers, last night I have five fingers and I fall." He
showed me his wounds, which I had assumed were from shelling coconuts.
People falling over from drinking too much whisky...was a bit like
being in Waternish.

Tomorrow is my first long haul train journey, up to see Lynn in the
chilly north, Chennai. Looking forward tp it now that I'm on the
mend.

Having a quiet rum at the Bates motel tonight, where getting a towel
is obviously a rare occurrence...I asked for one this morning and got
a very strange look, but one did turn up. However, when i came back,
there was a crowd of people getting changed with puddles on the floor.
One of them apologised to me, in a German accent, saying they had been
refused towels so were changing in the hall.

Germans without towels....on the beach too....I'm saying nothing.