Dantokpa Market

We had an opportunity to visit the Dantokpa ('Snake out of the water' in Fon), Benin's largest market. We went with a purpose, to purchase inexpensive supplies in preparation for Christmas decorations at school. Our resident Beninese, Liliya (who is really Ukrainian) knew just the places to go.

This is the entrance from the parking lot. Looks like any other market to me!

 
The market is over 40 hectares (a bit shy of 100 acres) large. Apparently the stalls are arranged by items being sold. Our first stop was the fabric stalls.

Hundreds of pieces, called pagnes, were hanging all around. A pagne is about 2 meters in length.

Liliya knew which sellers were willing to cut a pagne in half for us. I was too overwhelmed to make my own purchases, there were so many choices! Apparently there is a fabric district in Cotonou that has a larger variety of pagnes as well as longer sizes of fabric. Yikes!

We were told to be wary of pick pockets. The market is known for petty crimes if you're not careful. We are also a bit wary of taking pictures, so some of these shots were taken from the car as we drove through part of the market after we were done.

The woman in the foreground is a good example of someone selling their wares door-to-door. She balances her tomatoes, in small bowls which are loaded onto a large platter, on her head and walks around, hoping someone will want some.

Here's another example, this time it's a traveling clothes rack! The clothes are on hangers, so it's easy to see what's for sale.

And more!

People sold many different kinds of items: shoes, jewelry, hair products, fruits and vegetables, cooked food, dried fish, housewares, belts, electronics, imports from Asia. This market is also known for selling fetishes used in vodoun (voodoo) practices. We didn't even get close to that part of the market; it's a place that US embassy employees aren't supposed to visit. That's not why we didn't go there, though. Liliya didn't want to take us there, and we were running out of time.

It is very common to see people selling gasoline. It is purchased on the black market and sold in small quantities everywhere. It's not what you'd want in your car.

Rush hour(s) on the bridge.

It was very difficult to get to and leave the market area in Liliya's car. As you can see from the picture above, traffic was quite congested heading east toward Nigeria. Luckily we were headed the opposite direction.

I'm sure we'll head back to the market again. Although we were the only fair-skinned people I saw, Donn noticed some Lebanese men walking around. Needless to say we, too, were a sight to see!






 

Sea Kayaking in Phang Nga Bay

Donn and I were fortunate to spend about a week in Phuket, Thailand. This business/pleasure trip was an annual meeting of school directors for the school organization we work for. We arrived a couple days early, due to available plane connections to and from Cotonou. It's a difficult place to fly out of and in to, folks. This time it worked to our advantage!

For one of Donn's "open" days, I booked a sea kayaking trip. Included in the cost was transport to and from our hotel, water and lunch, and a local guide.

We were picked up bright and early, 7:15 am, and driven from the southwestern tip of the island to the northeastern side. Once we safely arrived (our driver was not a safe driver!) at the marina, we waited to meet our guide for the day. While we were waiting Donn spotted a local inhabitant, a gibbon, I think. He had walked(?) into the restaurant directly underneath where he is sitting, grabbed something from a table, and then climbed up onto the tin roof.

An opportunistic monkey!

The marina was teeming with activity, mostly with boats arriving from other places. The marina itself was primitive. Boats just pulled up to the dock to unload and load. Boats that were moored there tied on to other boats closest to the dock.

Many of the boats are powered by motors that look like they belong in a truck or car engine. The propeller is attached to the motor by a long drive shaft (20 feet). The boat is steered by the person who can wield the motor-propeller. It looks like a lot of work to me.

He eventually straddled the rod and used his leverage to steer and speed up.

Our ferry to the island where the kayaks were was a more modern one, to be sure.

On our way to meet up with the kayaks, we saw in the distance many of the islands that dot Phang Nga Bay. If you've seen the James Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun", then you'd recognize the area we kayaked.

Cue in James Bond theme song.

It took us about 45 minutes to get to the kayaks, which were on another boat called a longtail. It's mostly used as a traditional fishing boat for the area.

Donn and our skipper of the longtail.

It was fun trying to figure out which island we were headed to first.

This is the first island we kayaked around. Doesn't the sandy beach look inviting?

The first island we went to had an inner lagoon. The tide was too low for us to kayak into it, so we walked into it instead and saw and heard some unusual things. Fruit bats! They were quite noisy, making screeching-like sounds. If we moved closer we would've disturbed them, so use your imagination!

Cue in "When U Love Somebody" (some of you might get the reference) :)

We kayaked around three different islands, stopping for lunch at the second one. We had some open-sea traveling to do between islands, which was fine (easy, wind at our backs, etc), until the last open-sea paddle.

The longtail boat met us at the 2nd and 3rd islands. This is where we had lunch. The cicadas in the cliffs were very noisy! We couldn't see them, though.

I selected this particular guide service because the trip was advertised as one for people who want to get away from the tourists. Well, that certainly was the case! We only saw local fishermen in their boats. We had the islands to ourselves! It was great!

Open-sea time!

In a lagoon . . . Our guide, Bao, was hoping we would see some monkeys come down from the cliffs. I think they were napping, though.

 

If you look closely, you'll see a water monitor lizard on the rock. They were very shy; we had to take a picture quickly before they crawled away.

Taking a breather before the final open-sea paddle.

At our last inlet stop, we were fortunate to see a sea eagle fly around. It came into the inlet, glided around a couple times and then soar away. It think it was checking us out. I was too awe-struck to take a picture!

We spent a lot of time in or on the water, whether in a ferry, longtail, or kayak. The last open-sea paddle took us into the wind with some swells to contend with. This was also the longest paddle (at least it seemed like it!). Safety was not a concern as well. Did you notice that we didn't wear life jackets? If I had a chance to do this again, I'd like to try a two- or three-day camping trip. I think we'd get to see more wildlife as well as experience camping out next to the warm ocean waters.

When we arrived back at our hotel, we were extremely salty and wet and tired. All in all, it was a great day!