So what's it like in Southern Thailand? Well refreshingly different from the Asia we have travelled through so far, but still with the street food vendors and open air kitchens on every street. The area is mountainous and lush, the clouds roll around the hills that surround us, always threatening rain and sometimes delivering it in vast quantities. When the sun gains a hold it beats down fiercely and the temperature rises quickly, but when the cloud rolls down and the skys darkens, it becomes very windy and the heavens open with a great deluge that sometimes doesn't seem to want to stop.

The area is really easy to navigate as there is just one main road with the occasional side road off. If we turn right out of our house along the main street it takes us to the two reservoirs north of Phipun. It is a nice ride about 7km to the first one that has a road all around the edge. People are scattered around the reservoir in small dwellings, their houses have the most amazing view of the reservoir surrounded by rolling hills. It resembles the lake district and is very scenic. However, the road around the reservoir is treacherous with massive potholes waiting to catch out the unwary bike rider. All along the roads are rubber plantations, the main 'crop' in this area. It takes six years until the tree is mature enough to cut it for the latex to be harvested. Then it continues supplying rubber for many years after. As we bike along the roads we get the occasional smell of rotting rubbish, this is the smell of the rubber.

We are the only Europeans in the area and everyone is curious about us, as it is very unusual to meet someone who is not Thai riding a bike. We have to ride carefully so we often drive pass dwellings with people outside chatting or eating that want to draw us into 'conversation' in Thai. We just wave and smile and say 'hello' much to their amusement!

The food here has been the best so far for us as our Thai friends have been able to explain about the dishes we are eating and how spicey it might be. There is still the occasional mystery meat product that we find hard to identify. I usually eat it anyway, but I notice that Chris leaves these 'odd' meats at the side of his plate when he finishes, he was never one for offal. He only ever ate liver if it had bacon with it!

Over the weekend we were taken to a picturesque river for a swim and picnic with Wanpen's three boys ( by the way their names are World, Wide and Web, yes seriously!). The water was very clear and had lots of fishes swimming around. We had our picnic under a tree beside the river, which was nice and cool as the weather was very hot. On the way home we called in at Pen's house where her mother was chopping up fruit harvested from the Mak tree, a very tall tree that resembles a coconut tree, but the leaves are not as large or bushy. The fruits are inside a hard husk like the coconut, but are the size of an avocado pip. She was dehusking them and chopping the fruit in half with a large mattock. We were intrigued as to why she was laying them out to dry in the sun. Pen explained that a man calls to collect these dried fruits from all the individual houses that harvest them and they are then sold to a paint manufacturer as an ingredient that is used as the binding agent for the dye used to create colour. In this day and age of synthetic paints, we forget how paint used to be made from natural materials. There are a lot of these small industries which create a thriving local economy in the rural areas of South Thailand and people work long hours and very hard for small amounts of money.

On Sunday evening, Pen took us to a puppet show, slightly different to the previous one, as these were shadow puppets. The Pupeteer, a blind man, was a celebrity in Thailand and used different voices for his puppets and also sang. It was outside with a large stage and the accompanying music was so loud it hurt your ear drums and you could physically feel the bass against your ribs! Obviously the narration was in Thai so we missed most of the punch lines as everyone was falling about laughing and we weren't. Note to self - learn Thai.

We are coming to the end of our time in Phipun and our teaching at Wat Mangkhleram School. This past week we have been taken out every evening to eat with different famiies in their homes. Everyone has been very kind and cooked us their very spicey local specialities to sample. There are two that we eat at nearly every house which are called Den Sum (spicey fish dish) and quaklin a spicey pork dish. Needless to say with rice twice a day we are putting on weight! We often eat outside and sometimes eat Thai style sitting on a large mat with the food spread out front of us and we sample each of them. At the end of the meal we usually have our photo taken with the family.