Breakfast is deep in the hotel area; Eggs fried in a shallow dish and heated bread with sugar and ‘margarine’. She draws a map then drives to park. I cross the street to the fish market. Many of the fish are still alive; a catfish moves, its body slashed, its innards open to the air. Toads and crayfish move in their nets. In some cans, there is water. * The monastery complex is garish and crude, the lake fetid and torpid. In the shallows, snake fish hang unmoving, terrapins paddle slowly on the surface. All the fish, it seems, turn at the surface to gasp for air. On tiled terrace, in bare feet, I tread on the headless moth red ants are scavenging and carrying noiselessly across the tiles. It’s raining quietly on the temple, on all nine storeys: the first floor praises rural life, a mouldering, broken loom, a fish trap, cabinets with farming implements. The murals, largely blue and white with rural scenes; in one, a couple share a bed, the woman asleep and the man wielding a large sword. The floors above have statues of gold abbots. On the ground floor,

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