Word: thicke
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...created a fabulous garden city surrounded by vast palaces. The King was clearly obsessed with irrigation, designing a lake so immense it came to be known as a sea. Parakramabahu's main palace retains only three of its original seven stories, but judging by its three-meter-thick walls and vast floor plan, it was once a noble edifice. Superb stone lions at the top of the entrance steps were symbols of royal power, as was a frieze of elephants around the outer wall. A short hop away is the royal bathing pool, a stepped tank with evil-looking crocodile...
...From first light on Sunday, women in thick brown veils, families on donkey carts and men dangling chickens from bicycle handlebars throng the streets. A riot of headgear?Mao caps, white Kyrgyz ak-kalpaks, woolly Turkmen telpeks and the black-velvet hats of local Uighurs?reveals the diversity of the traders. Behind food stands, cooks dish out noodles; grinning barbers with wicked blades offer death-defying shaves. This is the place to buy a fur coat or an intricately inlaid knife. Or, less exotic but well traveled, a bottle of Head & Shoulders shampoo...
...insists, the result of a run-in with a disgruntled taxpayer. Sure, Veltchev has had some awkward encounters during his 15 months as Bulgaria's Finance Minister. There was the time his barber, after haranguing him about a licensing-rate hike, left him sitting in the chair with his thick black hair dripping wet while the barber went next door to fetch his daughter, also a hairdresser, who gave Veltchev another earful. As one of the most recognizable figures in government and the architect of a series of unpopular reforms, Veltchev has become used to such situations. But impassioned...
...this Saturday night, the restaurant was deftly crammed to capacity, with an additional 20 or so people spilling out onto the sidewalk, mostly cliquish undergraduates. Spirited conversation thrummed. And yet, despite the thick sheet of ambient noise and constricted seating, it slenderly avoided becoming just another frantic Oriental eatery with flagrant fluorescence and brusque service. Dark wood panelling. Sparing, warm lighting. And a host of perfectly poised waiters dexterously weaving in and out of the non-spaces between tables, taking orders and refilling glasses with a bit too much of a graceful flourish...
...plump hold that for centuries have sheltered fishermen from the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal. The Mecca had the usual rusted rigging and smoke-blackened stern. And the crew too was like most others working off Chittagong: pure Rohingyas?stocky Muslim refugees from western Burma. Only the thick salt marks high on the Mecca's bow hinted that it was ending a voyage longer than most fishing trips. But this was Chittagong, South Asia's premier hub for pirates, gunrunners and smugglers. When the dockworkers saw the Mecca anchoring on a sandbank three kilometers...