Thursday 1 October

We are up for breakfast before 9. The plan is moon hill and town and back. Each is about 8 km away in a triangle. We head off on mountain bikes for for use by the house. On advise of another guest, a man from hungry working here for a year, we head off 'the back way'. It starts off mainly paved and along the river until we turn off into a small thin path that weaves itself between ppl's gardens and rice paddy's. The all the surrounding hills and the quiet, it's a breathtaking ride. We are thankful the sun us not out blazing along with the high humidity today! We stop at a large cave with two massive openings. It's cooler inside with a nice breeze. We pass many ppl drying their rice and soybeans and a nam walking a cow. Narrow streets and interesting building practices. We stop on a low bridge and watch a flock of ducklings swim together. A man passes on a bicycle with a basket on back with two monkeys! That was unexpected! It's not far from there to the moon hill where we pay a small fee to walk up stairs to the top. It's very sweat inducing work. The moon is more like a large archway. The view is better from below. We meet some students who speak English and they get a photo with us. The ride to town is crazy! Lots of traffic doing what they want. We pass more tourist spots. It's not a peaceful trip. In town we weave through streets to find a train booking agency to get out tickets printed out. We have lunch just down the road of pizza and spaghetti. A man tries to sell us a lovely book of photographs from the area. It's quite cheap but we can't carry a book. We settle for postcards eventually, even though we don't want to buy anything! Then walk around the streets. I buy some envelopes there are lots of ppl trying to sell all sorts of random cheap stuff; balls that loose and regain their shape, connecting magic rings, jumping fluff balls. Eventually we head back to the house, looking for a supermarket on the way. Most of the shops we find don't have what we are looking for, but we find a few things. Sitting in the bike seat has become painful bun this point, so it's not the most fun part of the trip. We stop for fruit and a lady is very persistent I. Trying to sell me a flower headpiece. Eventually we get back and it's nice to shower off the sweat and grime.
We go up to enjoy the roof and for dinner. No one has asked us if we want it, but we do, so we just wait around. Eventually we do get ushered to the table and it's good food again. One family has a laser torch/light and it's impressive and fun! I try to get to sleep earlier tonight.