New Internationalist. The people, the ideas, the action in the fight for global justice.

The view from the Shanti Café is, undeniably, spectacular. Beach, fishing boats, distant Shore Temples rising from the spray of the turquoise sea. And as the café is one floor up, there are additional advantages to the view, as the European owner points out: 'It's better up here where you don't have to be watched by poor people looking at your food as you eat.' Being one storey up means that customers are inaccessible to the women plying the scorching sands trying to sell bedsheets, or the men determinedly trying to interest tourists in stone carved elephants.