Ul's tale of woe for this holiday will be that I push him out of bed each morning: mine will be that my movements are heavily prescribed.

We cross the river on a rusty car ferry driven by a 12 year old. It is suddenly rural. Autumn trees, dirt roads, grazing buffalo, hundreds of baby chickens, and a mother hen sheltering her brood in the hollowed space beneath her puffed out blackness. (Amazing how many ugly chickens there are - road runner variety dominate). Multiple small temples charming amongst bamboo, chickens, bougainvillea and stark black trees. Blissfully fewer tourists and it would be wonderful to take the back pack and head out somewhere on the local transport and explore. It is verbotten.

And it rains. An afternoon of rain and rain. And rain.

I visit the Red Cross Sauna and massage - pragmatic income generating activity. A cultural experience: women rush in and out while men, bellies out, hang around watching attractive scantily clad girls in game shows and drinking tea, escaping family wet afternoons.