060107 home improvement

Staying with this family usually means sleeping together with Mrs Barber & the 3 youngest kids (& YK & Aya if they're around) on the women's half of the house. On this visit the cat was puzzled to find itself having the entire house to itself come the family's ~21:00 bedtime every night. It'd leave the light on for them while wondering where on earth the entire family (save for the Master Basket Weaver who was away visiting another son in another village) could have gone at such a late hour (by village standards)...only for Mrs Barber to reappear at the usual 04:00 timing the next morning to start the fire for cooking rice...& the kids & Mr Barber to appear later...

& then it realised that the family had shifted over to this new hut they had built directly behind the house...



...in preparation for the dry season task of replacing the roof & making other repairs to the house.

Materials for home improvment - wood:



Bales of imperata grass stacked in every spare corner:




To be folded & tied around lengths of bamboo:




Fresh bamboo piled outside:

050107 the long (wrong) way to Ban Apa

Getting a ride out to the highway - because he specifically asked for big fat photos of himself:



Giving him directions to Ban Apa, with Mr T slowly pushing the vehicle backwards:


Photo by the other HY

The driver brought us to another section of Mae Yao subdistrict where the tambon administrative offices were - along the way we noticed that we appeared to be travelling along the road to Ban Ruammit instead. Managed to redirect him to Thung Luang intersection & recognised the turn-off beside the temple to the Huay Mae Sai area...but ended up reaching Ban Apa after dark for one of the coldest showers ever (coldest is still the cold shower during the cold season cold wave in Oudomxay, Laos) :P

Just as the cat emerged from the house, a surprise was waiting outside - Mr Nailpolish Plant! He'd bumped into either Dr AFECT or Mr K in town, heard that we were back in Chiangrai, & stopped by Ban Apa on his way home to Ban Jalae to see if he could find us :)

At Big Mama's house again:



Photo by the other HY