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here is one of a family getting some fruit ready to sell. they lived on this two room boat. the boat next door (maybe it was a duplex?) had two chickens and a giant fish in an aquarium in it. we crossed from there on a bamboo bridge to an island where a woman let us sample some fruit and play with her basenji puppy.

one other interesting side note. everybody knows the word “hello!” (usually said con gusto). not many other english words, but you’ll hear hello a heck of a lot more than u ever would in america.

also, it (as are many non-american cultures) is a “saving face” culture which can make getting questions answered very difficult bc anything not known or not understood is just a “yes”. example “internet? wifi?” “aaah, yes.” but there is no wifi to be found. i probably prefer the american custom to just shrug our shoulders when we don’t know something (or just don’t care to answer the question : )

so today we headed out from the mekong region for a trip down the river. we rode for two hours on the back of mopeds and then embarked on river boat to the floating market. in the pictures i will post some time in the future, you will see that each boat would stick some of whatever they were selling on the end of a long stick so everyone can readily see what is available. anyway we’re floating around the river and we stopped by a local coffee shop so a. could get some coffee.

oh and the city is a neat, quiet little place on the river. when we got in last night we hopped on the back of some mopeds and went through the markets here and saw a little of the city. two interesting notes…..they damned up a little of the river to make a lake complete with swan boats you can pedal. AND they make signs out of grass and flowers. they’re pretty cool.

hi all (or lillis if she’s the only one reading). sorry i haven’t written in a couple of days (my hubris to assume anyone is concerned by this) but i was out afield yesterday. i took a tour (maybe my first tour ever) of tunnels which were 258 km’s of tunnels north of here that the vc used to live, meet and move supplies (oh and to ambush americans and become “american killer heroes” as they were called in the re-education film i saw yesterday.) it was interesting to see. oh, and when i say tunnel, don’t picture a train ride through the alps, think of a hardened (often by burning gasoline) hole dug into clay with no support structure. also picture yourself walking in a fully squatted position, bc the hole is 4 feet high. these tunnels go down as far as 30 feet below ground. i traveled about 90 feet until i had had enough. it’s got a REALLY claustrophobic feel to it. we also saw tiger traps and b52 bomb holes. we then took a boat down the mekong back into the city. it’s an amazing countryside, passing by dugout boats and water buffaloes sitting in rice paddy water up to their mouths.

so the real highlight yesterday, was the deluge of biblical proportions that hit as we got back home. video will be posted when i get back, but to give u an idea, water actually came into the car and filled my floorboard completely. it was amazing. also, i was in a near-coma by 8 pm bc i hadn’t eaten since bfast and i had slept a total of ten or so hours since i left atlanta on tuesday. so, when i laid down last night i was really hopeful it would be a quiet night. thankfully i slept almost through the night and got a full eight hours. this has improved my mood dramatically and is actually inversely proportional to the likelihood that i will kill a pushy street vendor with my own two hands.

anyway, we’re now off to a small city on the delta. i’m really excited to get out of the city and away from the hordes of mopeds.

oh, and bc i’m posting from my phone and i haven’t taken any photos with the phone, the pic here is a picture of my camera displaying a picture of a little girl on the street.