Carnival!

We took a cab into the old city, carrying next to nothing and slightly nervous of being mugged. In fact everywhere is very very heavily policed and the old city was full of unmugged tourists toting expensive cameras and seeking out skinny lattes in chic cafes.

We had an ice-cream from a street vendor who used a special concave plane to shave ice off a huge block which was then packed into a polystyrene cup. Onto this went coconut cream, evaporated milk, malt powder, cinnamon syrup and grated fresh coconut. The result was an amazing sweet coconut ice.

The Carnival beckoned and we made our way past the bustling fish market to where a crowd was gathering below the motorway flyover. Here the police were gathered en masse manning the entrance where we had to line up in male and female queues, show identity cards and then get very thoroughly searched, even checking inside the girls bras. It was good to see the efforts being made to keep weapons out, and we felt relaxed.

It took a while for festivities to get going but eventually the parade started and it became obvious that this was children's day, with Disney characters as well as lots of tiny children dressed as superheroes in various states of elation or bewildered exhaustion. The Carnival Queen and princesses came by on gigantic floats gyrating voluptuously. They were followed by enthusiastic dancers in yellow tee-shirts who were either astonishingly mobile ladies with huge buttocks or skinny pre-teens, followed by a high energy rabble of very ancient people dancing, shaking tins, rattling bowls of peas, or thumping drums. We are some street food and downed a cold drink before heading home to sleep. Not quite the narcissistic orgy I'd expected. Turns out that's on Tuesday!