Day 6 Homestay - The tour of the village - Silk Worms

Our next stop was to the village silk worm "farm" whilst waiting to enter we discovered that we were stood amongst an ants nest, so 5 mins of squealing, getting bitten, slapping ankles and legs and general discomfort ensued. How can such little things be so mean!

It seems that the villagers receive eggs and then "fatten up" the silk worms, feeding them branches and then sell them on to someone else who lets them pupate and extract the silk from their cocoons.

There were thousands of fat and happy caterpillars audibly munching their way through the foliage.

We then wandered back to the main village to the local shop, where Pete doubled their monthly profit by buying us all an ice lolly, at about 10p each he is a generous man!

One of the villagers offered us a trip up the river on his boat, so Pete and Pok went to check out its suitability, we didn't want to be rude but the thought of sending the girls up river on a rickety old barge was a little worrying. As it turned out it was a large, sound and stable boat on a gentle river. We all headed back to our houses for lunch with the plan of a peaceful afternoon lounging by the river in the shade.