The Open Market

                Remember the first time you smelled it from four blocks away? The closest I could get to in the first time was three blocks. I almost wretched. I was three weeks in country and since I hadn't been to town yet my cube mate who was rotating soon took me to town insisting I had to see/ experience the open market.
    We rode the baht bus to where ever it was we got off  and then walked around  town before heading for the open market. I'm an old farm boy and the worst smell I'd ever experienced was pitchforking out several doors of a silage silo that had leaked air and rotted. The stench of the open market nearly made me ill. The closer we got the worse I felt until I had to call a retreat back to the base. Of course in time it was just part of the olifactory experience that was Ubon and I was shopping there before too long. What I could never endure though was the stench of the dried squid carts. Before I'd venture down a street I'd check to see if one of those carts was in the street. If it was I'd walk around the next block to get to the other end of that street or not go down it at all. That stench was absolutely impossible for me to endure!  Bon Appeite!