The journey of the bamboo bed

I jumped at the chance to inherit Emma’s bamboo bed as you can only get them from a few places and they are great to have for visitors. But there were going to be some logistical barriers involved in me actually getting the bed to Soma from its home in Kerewan. Emma and Carol very kindly agreed to bring the bed to Farafenni on the top of a gelle. Which left me and Kate to transport it from Farafenni town to the ferry port then over on the ferry and then from the ferry port to Soma. We braced ourselves for a day full of challenges. We were envisioning having to negotiate ridiculous prices, maybe having to hitch a lift on a lorry, and with the very real possibility of rain adding complications. We made a pact that whatever came up we were just going to go with it.
But for once, everything went remarkably smoothly. Not very interesting I know! First stroke of luck was Carol and Emma had managed to get a lift with the bed to Farafenni from Emma’s landlord. We stored the bed in Eddie’s hotel while we had a look around Farafenni. After having chicken and chips and a julbrew or two we embarked upon the journey home. We first managed to get a big taxi with a kind of roof rack and then got off at the ferry and carried the bed over much to everyone’s amusement. We did get some help from a random Gambian man who announced that he was happy to help on the account that the bed was a locally made product. At the other end there was a man with a wheelbarrow ready and waiting and then we watched skeptically as a taxi driver crammed it into his boot and tied it on. I had indeed cost me quite a lot in taxi fare but the process couldn’t have been smoother. It makes a change. The last time we went through farafenni it was only ourselves we were transporting and we caused a fist fight amongst the taxi drivers and then had to wait hours and hours to get a bus to Janjanbureh so we don't really have a great history with travel.