There are a lot of impolite assaults on one's senses when one is abroad, certain stimuli that have largely been scrubbed away from the sterile Western world, the acrid, tear-stinging smoke of burning trash that finds you even on the 9th floor swanky bar of the hotel, the rank and yet somehow nauseatingly familiar reek of sewage that wafts by you on the street. But every so often you get the unfiltered beauty of the physical world, the lovely bone-cutting chill and damp of the winter rain here in the Middle East, the sweet, cloying smoke of the water pipes that stick to your clothes for hours afterwards, the brilliant colors of a coffee cup left, unexplained, on an electrical junction box:

I couldn't find my camera in time for this trip, so this photo was taken with the Best Camera (that is, the one that you have with you), my iPhone, with the Jewel filter.

Almost makes up for the stink of poo...