Today was quite a day. We were up at 6am to get read for an outing. Water buffalo races! Can you believe it? It was the culmination of a 4 day festival marking the end of the Buddhist lent. It was on the order of a county fair in the US, but the buffalo races were really interesting. These young guys rode on the very end of the back of a water buffalo and raced down this muddy track and jumped off just as the crossed the finish line. The races were done in sort of a round robin system. It would be too dangerous to have too many buffaloes racing down this muddy track at the same time. Sometimes the riders did fall off into the mud and God only knows what else.
After the races we walked around and saw boys about 12 years old sitting on a beam facing one another wearing boxing gloves. They punched one another until one fell off the beam. The were also kids climbing a greased pole to get money that was pinned in various places up the pole. Lots of Thai snack foods to sample too.
Then when dinner time came we headed for a local seafood restaurant. We had pork and egg tofu soup, deep fried battered prawns, mixed vegetable with seafood and rice vermicelli, and mixed seafood fried rice for two of us for $15 including tip. A bargain at twice the price.