As the cold dry season moves into the hot season the mercury rises and by 1 o'clock it's getting too hot for comfort outdoors. Long walks are not an option. Fortunately, indoors with the fan on (we don't use air-con) it stays closer to 30 which is lovely.
We've settled into a peaceful daily and weekly routine, eating at home some days and walking into town for restaurant/bar meals on others. Thursdays is shopping day when we take a tuktuk to the supermarket to buy expensive western style stuff like milk, butter and olives! Most of the fruit and veg - and beer -comes from the village shops.
We give ourselves a weekly 2.5 million kip budget for food and drink from the ATM. That's about £100 for the two of us. Rent $400 a month, electric and water about 140,000 kip (about a fiver) a month. Seems to be working out OK. Of course the big expense is the flights back to the UK (£2200 or so there and back).
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| More butterflies coming into the garden now we have more flowers |
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| We woke one morning to find that an unwelcome guest had tried to gnaw its way through the ceiling hatch in the night! We called Da and asked for pest control. I just didn't want to go for a pee in the night and find it running round the bathroom! |
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| In other news, Trevann had two new mdf "canvases" made by a local carpenter. Ready for painting |
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| This two-tone mango tree in our front garden was interesting with its new leaves. Two weeks later it's all in full leaf. |
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| Next doors' chickens like to scratch around in our garden |
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| We made a salad and took it round to share with our Brit friend Ian. David Kiwi joined us to say farewell before setting off for a 3-week trip to Europe |
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| The umbrella makes a good sitting spot at the top of the garden but I haven't got my hammock yet |
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| One of the bourgainvilleas doing well |
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| Our unwelcome guest came to a sticky end |
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| These guys are really fast |
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| Burning season has started. Air quality is dreadful. |
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| I'm intrigued by this conglomeration of honeycombs that hangs from a house in the village. It doesn't appear to be alive so I'm not sure what its purpose is |
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| In town, looking upriver. Our old garden is now one of just three remaining on the banks of the Nam Khan. All the others have been bulldozed away as the banks get shored up with gabion cages and rock embankments |
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| Looking downriver |
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| I've spent hours trying to work out what this plant is. I think it's a guava of some sort. Time will tell |
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| This is the indoor temperature. No worries |
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