Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sites around town...

Everywhere we went we attracted attention. Apparently seeing someone with white skin is something equivalent to a celebrity sighting. At one of the restaurants we were photographed about 30 times by a guy at a neighboring table. When we wandered through neighborhoods, kids would come running to say "Hallo" and then follow us around.


This group of kids formed across the street from the center as we were packing up to leave for the day.


Vendors wandered the streets each making a unique sound to call buyers to the streets. They would start mid-morning and go till well after dark selling their food.


Gas stations were found in the center of town, so people would set up stands along the rural roads selling bottles of gas to motor bike drivers. What amazed me is that it wasn't just one stand here and there, but stand after stand selling gas along the same road. I noticed this "everyone should do it" concept in the neighborhoods that we wandered through. Not just one house had a mini convenient stand selling candy, cigarettes, drinks, and other such items, but four within a few houses of each other. Not sure if this is another example of "group think" and limited creativity in coming up with profit making ideas or a working concept.


I can't say that I have ever come across rice fields in my other travels. I found the countryside to be beautiful.


More pictures of the temples we visited.


Did I mention that I got dressed first that day...


Our one free Sunday morning we went to the local country club. Believe it or not the pool was heated, the evenings get cool so they keep the water from getting too cold. They also played music underwater. It cost us $4 to get into the pool. That's more than most of the people make in a month... making the gap between the haves and the have nots very large.

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