The town extends along some shallow valleys between the
hills. A 400 m wide strip of small farms and gardens separates the town from a
bend of the river which is about 300 m wide in the dry season and 1.3 km
wide in the rainy season, sometimes inundating a floodplain 10 km wide on the
opposite bank, which consequently is uninhabited save for a few small villages
or farms on higher ground
