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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, 189
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in front of the relic of the Buddha, people come with ‘monk offerings’, the women next to me have toilet rolls for theirs – ‘why not?’ she’d say. * In sunshine over forested hills, a stain of clouds rises and falls. At the temple, on the plate that describes the lintel, a spider makes a web. The mynahs in their cage clean their mute from their feet; the family dog is dry, atavistic, scruffy, testicular. It seems that only finches squabble in the bush and only little egrets fish in the salt pan. The butterflies, black and gold, come dipping down the far side of the hedge, round the gate post to probe the cautious florets of deep orange on the garden side. A pair of pied fantails (Rhipidura javanica) - ‘The pied fantail ends with three white half dots on the edge of its tail; most charming and sweet little birds.’ - skitter and play round trees in the garden. If one is feeding the other, oh, it is difficult to know which is which as food seems passed from one to the other before it is swallowed. * 190

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in front of the relic of the Buddha, people come with ‘monk offerings’, the women next to me have toilet rolls for theirs – ‘why not?’ she’d say. * In sunshine over forested hills, a stain of clouds rises and falls. At the temple, on the plate that describes the lintel, a spider makes a web. The mynahs in their cage clean their mute from their feet; the family dog is dry, atavistic, scruffy, testicular. It seems that only finches squabble in the bush and only little egrets fish in the salt pan. The butterflies, black and gold, come dipping down the far side of the hedge, round the gate post to probe the cautious florets of deep orange on the garden side. A pair of pied fantails (Rhipidura javanica) - ‘The pied fantail ends with three white half dots on the edge of its tail; most charming and sweet little birds.’ - skitter and play round trees in the garden. If one is feeding the other, oh, it is difficult to know which is which as food seems passed from one to the other before it is swallowed. *

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