Ban Pippa!

Ban Pippa!!!

I think that Caitlin and I should move all our things to Ban Pippa! We are spending another night there - this will be the 5th night in a row, and only 2 days last week (I think) were spent at our own house! Love it!


We were going to just be here for the weekend for Loy Kratong, but we had an emergency trip here on Friday night - there was some drama with the German and chocolate was necessary, but all is good now! After staying for the weekend we just sort of... didn't leave. Either Pippa or her brother (who has been here for the past couple of days) gives us a lift to Nakae in the morning, or we cycle early which is actually quite fun!

Loy Kratong was great fun - while some of the other volunteers had to get up at 3am to get hair and makeup done to be part of a parade, me, Caitlin and Pippa had a lovely lazy day and got up at about 10am. After lazily getting dressed we went to Wat That Phanom at about 12pm for an hour or so, and then back to Ban Pippa. Wat That Phanom is really pretty, it's one of the seven pagodas that represent the seven days of the week.

The winner of the Kratong-making-contest - just for show, it doesn't actually float :(

For the afternoon we went to the lake in the village (the village is called Ban Phon Sanuk - translates as Enjoy/Fun Hill!!) and met with Tomtom and his mum, Khwan and some other people from the village and relaxed. It was really pretty there, and it was great to just chill with everyone with the help of Whisky and Pepsi! We didn't have much though, don't worry!

Khwan next to the lake

Me and Caitlin with Non (Pippa's brother)

In the evening we went back to That Phanom to float our kratong in the Mekong. Me and Caitlin had made stunning kratongs at St. Joseph primary school, but they didn't survive the bike ride to Pippa's too well, and sort of went a bit crispy in the night so we floated the one that Pippa and her brother bought instead. When we got to That Phanom there were huge fireworks going off - they were really beautiful! The firework setting on my camera looks like it could have been quite good, if only I had aimed properly! Instead of lovely big fireworks, I have the wiggly remains of dying ones... We also floated a lantern which was really fun, took a couple of times to get it to keep floating, but we got it going and it disappeared up into the sky nicely! Then it was time to float our (Pippa and Non's) kratong!! We all put a tissue with a small bit of hair and nail clippings wrapped up in it into it before we made our way down to the river. It was quite difficult to get down to the river because it was really steep. I thought I was getting down the slope alright, until Pippa called from behind me becauise she wanted a hand and I realised that although I was getting down quite well, stopping was going to prove difficult. I managed it though and we all got down safely. Getting up was much easier thankfully!

Our Kratong!

We got back to Pippa's at about 11pm-ish and takled to Butschi (Pippa's German) over skype before going to bed.

The last few days have been spent relaxing at Pippa's after school! We should really be planning lessons, but that's much less fun :)