We like to share some market experiences with you! A market here in Asia is like Hema in the Netherlands - a big store where you can get everything. The last great market place was the Indochina market in That Phanom: at 6 o'clock in the morning people start to build up the stands, tuk-tuks full of mattresses and boxes arrive, lorries with bicycles and cupboards are unloaded, on the Mekong lots of boats moor up with more stuff. Busy place! Next to these more professional market salesmen lots of rural people from Laos and Thailand prepare to offer their goods. This is the most peculiar place on the market for us! Claudia could spend ages there and there will be a moment where she will be limited in time for markets and temples.

The greatest thing is to watch out for moving plastic bags. We saw toads (nice big ones) and small frogs, grasshoppers, snails and eel - alive, trying to escape from their plastic prison. But also outside the plastic bag you'll find interesting things: try dried skin from the water buffalo with the hair still on it, or boiled eggs, or better, boiled baby chicken. If you feel the urge to ask some spirits for help, just buy some ritual utensils like dried monkey feet or some roots, stones of again quite unknown stuff to us. It is great to see some of the old women just selling a few bunches of coriander or men selling a few self-made farming tools.

In between all the stands you'll find the typical little car with its charcoal BBQ, baskets full of rice and all kind of vegetables providing food for all people: noodle soup, grilled meet (who dares?!), fish, pancake, curries, etc. With it goes a plastic bag of cola - you can't get the ice cubes in a bottle (it is not moving!!) .... Sometimes the smell is incredible; it takes all our concentration to breathe without looking disgusted, best thing is not to breathe at all. The worst are dried and flattened squid or a brownish sauce with whatever floating in there - unbelievable! A few meters further the most delicious smell meets our nose and we always find something nice to eat, definitely avoiding the frogs and buffalo skin.

When we walk on the market we are quit an attraction, too. Poor Sil, literary every fifth person tries to touch him, preferably his hair and if he is really unlucky, they succeed in giving him a big hug. 'He is so handsome!' He is doing a brilliant job in just letting it happen. People take lots of photos, too. So there is a sort of balance in looking at each other and being surprised and fascinated by the things one sees. It is win-win, with a big smile .