The well trained cockerels and dogs woke us before our alarms but we dozed until our phones chirped at 5:45 then we arose for 6am meditation. It was still dark as we walked past the banana trees with birds of paradise flowers nodding at us as incense wafted out of the meditation shack. Jan the owner was already sitting and welcomed us in before leading us through a 1 hour meditation. The gecko army were still out patrolling the walls. I chose to kneel but hadn’t quite got my cushion height right so struggled a bit with discomfort towards the end of the session, doing what I’ve been taught and sitting with it and not trying to avoid movement. Drilling my focus right into where the discomfort radiated from.
After meditation breakfast was served on the decking overlooking the river. Boats and ships chugged past going about their daily business. Breakfast consisted of fresh fruit (watermelon, mini bananas, papaya and dragon fruit, homemade peanut butter jam and bread). Much to Emma’s delight there was coffee but unfortunately it was of the instant variety. A big blow for her after an hours meditation.
Breakfast done there was a short hammock break before the mornings hatha yoga session (90 minute).
The session was pretty tough and cumilated with an extended fish pose. After the session I lay on my back staring up at the giant canopy of entwined branches above me, leaves gently fluttering. I heard a flip flop next to me and detected some movement on the edge of my vision. I span round and there next to me was a fish, about 5 inches along, alive and flopping across the deck which was raised in stilts 15 ft above the river bank. I have no idea where it came from and the owners had never seen a fish on the deck before. There was only one plausible explanation …….that I had manifested it with my excellent fish pose moments earlier. Either that or the cat stealthily dropped it next to my head. It had quite a few spines so I used a tongs to pick it up and launch it back off the deck into the mighty Mekong river.
The gong rang out declaring lunch was served and we ate a delicious lentil salad, green bean and ginger curry with vegetable rice. Me and Em decided to go for a walk and as soon as we slid the gate open we were confronted with our first dog, the first of many. We strode confidently past it and it settled down back in its shady spot. 30 yards later a dusty little 3 year old girl wobbled barefoot down the dirt track towards us shouting allo allo allo, she had all the swagger and confidence of an airport taxi driver and when she arrived at my feet she held her dirty hand out with a big smile, I smiled back and touched her hand and her face lit up with joy as she said one final allo before rounding on her heels and running back to the safety of her grandmother who was squatting by and fanning a small fire set underneath a large smoke stained cooking pot. Both grinned and waved at us as we walked past. We kicked out onto the road and some boys were playing a game using their sandals as bowls and a pile of crumpled notes (small amounts of reil the local currency) as the jack. We watched for a bit but couldn’t work out the rules so walked on down the dusty track being watched closely by cows staked in shadey gardens the locals continuing waving and smiling at us. We arrived at a temple with golden beasts guarding the gates and young shaven monks resting in the shade in their bright orange robes. Walking down the road one of the mopeds that brushed past us had a large cage tied to the back of it with at least 8 dogs in it. I didn’t dwell on where they were headed. A lot of the homes had stalls outside selling something, old coke bottles filled with petrol or paraffin, drinks or fruit. Some had an assortment of meat hanging from hooks, with an assortment of flies hanging from the meat. One stall had baskets of meat drying on the roof. We stopped at a meat free stall for an iced drink as a man lazed in a hammock pulling a piece of string that was rocking a rope cot with a sleeping baby in it.
We walked back to our place and had a dip in the pool to cool off and then an afternoon snooze before heading for yoga sesh 2 as the sun set. It was light when we started and dark when we finished. Mosquitoes testing my patience as they loudly buzzed cartoon style around my ears sounding like they were propelled by high speed engines. This was a nice relaxing session followed by mushroom soup and onion pizza for dinner and another chat around the table as the insect noise built up. By now I was wearing a lightweight hoody to keep the mozzies off me, they have always been fans of my blood for some reason. It started to rain gently which gave us an excuse for an early night and as we lay in bed Mr G the leader of our shack patrolled the ceiling hopefully scoffing any mosquitoes who had flown in through the rather large gaps in our blinds.
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