Comfort

Six hours of hiking yielded two caves, two villages, and a scramble up jungle creeks and waterfalls to an amazing little hanging valley.

Home again, home again, to the comfort of a bungalow. There is nothing quite so secure as a night spent slumbering under mozzie netting.

This was also the best bed in Lao to date. Best be asleep early though, for the roosters go off at five AM, the monks start drumming at six, which causes a second domestic avian cacophony. The monks drum again at seven AM, which seems to be the signal for all village animals to copulate.

Between the village dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, cattle, goats and water buffalo, the sheer fecundity of the village critters borders on the improbable. It takes Louie Armstrong's classic, "Let's Fall In Love" to new levels of public display.