After our family visit, it was back into the mini-bus to drive to a village where we began an interesting walk.
The fields were full of people cutting and threshing the rice harvest.
This rice crop had already been harvested and was regrowing.
When we arrived in the village, we saw rice spread out to dry.
In the village we also we saw palm sugar being made, that dark brown sweet and distinctively flavoured sweetener used extensively in Asian cooking. The palm sap is cooked for 3-4 hours before it becomes palm sugar. I didn’t take any photos of this process, it’s a bit uninteresting looking at a slowly bubbling cauldron of dark goo, but I took plenty of other photos as we walked around the village. I’ve added a few of those.
What a peaceful life – the morning chores done – now it’s time to sit and watch the world go by. And on this day, there were some interesting looking foreigners to watch.
We were also the centre of interest for these two little boys. Cute, aren’t they?
A lovely portrait.
Sculptural bracket fungus were growing on a fallen tree branch.
More fungi, this time growing out of the cut end of a tree branch.
Oh what a tangled web! But effective. The hunter watches over its larder.
Who would have thought a spider could be such a work of art!
A mother and her brood.
A big fat snail, something the duck was no doubt looking for.
The outside kitchen of a village house. I can’t imaging how uncomfortable that chair must be to sit in.
The washing up area of another house.
Perhaps this is a wok full of palm syrup in the early stages of heating to turn it into palm sugar. I hate to think what it might be if it isn’t!
What a wonderful face. How many stories are there behind those eyes?
Seems every boy makes mud pies, no matter what their heritage is.
A pigeon coop – I could almost smell the pigeon curry! And I could small the poop!
A beautiful bird one day, curry the next!
We were all quite surprised when a pet fruit bat was produced. This friendly bat, called Michael, hung around lapping up the attention…
… and sweat from various peoples hands and foreheads… but not mine! Although I’ve never been so close to a bat before, and I did have plenty of sweat on my forehead, Michael didn’t get any of it! They are quite remarkable creatures, particularly this friendly fellow.
After this unexpected experience, we continued our walk through the village on our way to visit a family of puppeteers. More of that anon.
David
All photographs copyright © JT and DY of jtdytravels
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