Once again I am here near the border with Laos, at Sophisai, Thailand where we arrived late Wednesday evening....about eleven. One of the family members was moving back to Sophisai after a number of years in Bangkok, so a family member living south of Bangkok at Pattaya did the move on Wednesday. I helped with the loading, then rode with six family members in a two seater pickup truck for the eleven hours here. We stopped several times for refreshments, and made about half the trip in the darkness.
The driver decided to do a short cut, so we went right up to Kong Kaen, which is across the Mekong River from Vientiane, Laos, then south east to Sophisai..about two hours longer than the usual route. I do not ask questions when I am getting a free ride. I would like to point out also, that place names have different spellings...so beware...different map makers use their own way of naming places.
Last evening, after the truck was unloaded and we had assembled the furniture, we went to a water festival about 30 kilometers away. It was dark, and most of the water gun/spraying etc was over for the day. This is a Thai way of celebrating, and "making merit"....where they look at the good things life has to offer, and be happy. The use of a pickup truck to carry passengers is perfectly legal here, and even those in the back seat do not need to use seat belts. We had 18 in the truck...two seats up front with six, and about 12 in the back,,,on old mattresses, etc. It is 30 degrees, so no worry about the weather.
When we returned to this town, we went to a buffet BBQ, of the fish variety. We were seated at a long table, about nine to a side, and a briquette BBQ at each end, and four down the middle of the table. The idea is you go to the buffet, get what you want from crab to shrimp, squid, and all imaginable things, and cook it yourself...live music playing in the back ground. A great way to end the festival activities. We have it hard here!. All kidding aside, it is a hard life anyplace in Asia where rice is grown. Today, we went down to the farm, about four kilometers from the family home in the town. 12 ladies out in the hot sun, bent over and harvesting the rice crop....for about 12 dollars a day.and 12 hour days. Because this farm has no irrigation, they have one rice crop a year. Planting will begin in May, the wet season. Where irrigation is available, they get three crops of rice a year.
I will have more in about a week. Thank you all for the interest.
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