Life in the villages
Village life is simple with a focus on the nearby fields. Most families seem to have a small rice paddy and maybe a few cattle or water buffalo. Houses are small and there are small markets in most villages.
Interestingly most markets have a huge range of crops, but when you cycle or walk through the countryside all you really see is rice paddies. Not sure where the other crops are being grown.
In common with much of Asia, there seem to be a lot more women working in the fields than men. I suspect it is the case that the younger men all go work elsewhere and the women and children stay behind in the villages and the women work the fields.
And again the motor bike is ubiquitous, but you do see some older people on ancient push bikes and younger children on bikes. Older school age children seem to migrate to a bike that is half way between a motorbike and an e-bike.
In the photos below watch for the young girl playing a variant on traditional skipping you would see everywhere. She has a rope tied to her ankle with a weight at the end that she spins around her body and skips over as it does a circuit past her feet. I would point out that she is wearing thongs (for our American friends, I am not referring to her underwear - that is the Australian use of the word thong - you call them flip flops).
Lady weeding her rice paddy
(again click on one of the images to open a slide show)
