10th March – It is early morning 6am in the village and everyone is starting their day. The livestock are on their way out to graze and the dogs are busy trying to get handouts from the kitchens. People are collecting water in old oil containers from the village well and women and men are tidying their yards.
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The food is cooked in a seperate building if you are wealthy enough otherwise it is part of your house divided off from the sleeping area. We don’t understand why they cook inside – the kitchens are full of acrid smoke and it is not healthy – many of the villagers have hacking coughs. We notice some rebar trivets set up in some peoples yards but they don’t seem to be in everyday use.

School starts at 8am – in this village the building was provided by an American NGO the government subsidizes schooling and it costs 50,000k/year to go. Annabelle and I donate 20,000K to the school which the school teacher solemnly accepted and handed us a book to record our donation.

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A new house is being built in the village. Actually it is a renovation the houses only last 3 years as the bamboo sides and roof desintigrate. We are all surprised they don’t burn down – the wall against which they cook in all the houses is black. The whole village helps in the construction taking only a day to build. The owner of the house must prepare all the materials and provide food for the workers. The progress is rapid by the time we leave at 10:15am the frame is complete including the roof, the floor is installed and roofing shingles are going on – at 6am there was nothing on the site at all. The village is also getting ready for a wedding that will occur a few days later.

We trek 1 1/2 hours to the river and get in kayaks. The river trip is surreal – it is like watching a National Geographic movie on the people of the Mekong. We go floating past watching people involved in activities that have not changed in centuries. Water buffalo are swimming in the river and many different types of fishing are going on. I take many pictures.

The rapids are not that large due to it being dry season in fact we decide to add some spice into one by going down it backwards. The physios from the UK managed to fall out of theirs on the last rapid and were laughing so hard they could barely get back in!

We joined our group at the all you can eat vegetable buffet on the street for 5000K (60 cents) it was very good. Everyone there is backpacking some for extended periods. Then we went to the bowling alley – yes a 10 pin bowling alley! As it is outside of town limits it doesn’t have to comply with the 11pm curfew so everyone goes out there to bowl and drink. Annabelle managed to get 3 strikes in a row and still didn’t win the game – not sure how that is possible.