Prasat Khao Phra Wihan

Two friends, Mike and Terry came over to Thailand for a holiday and visited me while they were here. We went, with Mac and his wife Bee, to a Khymer temple on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Its actually in Cambodia but one can go over just to look and no passport is needed. The price for westerners is 10 times the price for Thai people. The usual pricing for not Thai people is twice or so. This was extreme.
The temple has suffered a bit from the various border problems over the last 10 centuries, and the minefields that were there until very recently according to the signs. Three countries can be seen on the walk up. Laos is visible in the distance. The views over the Cambodian forest are great. The actual buildings, the three Temple complexes on the way to the fourth complex at the summit, are fantastic. These pictures dont do the temples justice really, but give you a clue to their magnificence.

The Village Well

Most people get their drinking water from the village well. It became infected with "black from a pond" I was told. So after a couple of weeks with no water, they got round to pumping it out. It is OK now.

Rice Harvest

The rice harvest has all but finished here, just the brown rice to go I think. A couple of pictures. One of the truck taking rice to the store. The other putting rice in sacks after drying it on the road. The roads are some of the only flat surfaces where rice can be dried. There is no stealing around here, so the rice is safe. Generally half the road is used to dry rice, occasional passing points are left so that one doesnt have to drive over the rice. It is then put in special bucket, 4 buckets per bag. Paa's mum is at present, cutting rice in the fields by hand for money 160 bht per day (70 bht to the £1). Back breaking work, like picking potatoes when I was young.

Eating

I usually dont eat village type food. I did when I first arrived but I only eat it once a week(ish) now. Anyway here is a picture of me eating rice and fish, on our drive. They wanted to eat on the drive for some reason, I know it's cooler outside but the drive!

The garden

The garden is starting to look great. The first banana tree to fruit is doing a fantastic job. One mango tree is flowering and one Guava tree is fruiting. Everything is starting to sprout leaves. We have a couple of self seeded tomatoes and papaya. Nong (dad) is digging the garden to make an allotment style garden, I'm looking like I am helping, but its hot. In a year it will look fantastic. Paa has a Dengthai (sp) similar to a watermelon but less watery yellow fruit inside.

My new friends

As you will have seen before, there are scorpions and snakes, here are just a few of my new friends. I have started colleting dead insects and am pinning them to a deep picture frame thing. Looks good to me anyway. Outside I have a snake that was run over by many cars and a buffalo skull.