Day 75: Tuesday 19th of January 2016

Day 75
Tuesday 19th of January 2016

Today started with a trip out to a newly grown watermelon farm. Not ideal but it will do for samples.
Afterwards we went hunting for another plot. After driving around and getting mixed directions and suggestions from locals we headed towards Champassak where we stopped for lunch (at one point a local kept giving us directions to watt phu instead of to watermelons (maak morr) assuming that's what we actually wanted).

The restaurant Overlooked the Mekong river as well as a large island which houses 5 villages on it where home staying is possible. None of this is listed in any tour guides for some reason.

After lunch we asked a woman with a cart of watermelons where she obtained them and headed in that direction. We found a watermelon farm and got to introduce ourselves, they were most accommodating and even offered to help us with data collection, I think they are just happy to receive any professional assistance. They cut us up a watermelon in hospitality (and refused our offer to pay).

On the way home we found a multi hectare watermelon farm with everything we needed to start with. decided on 3 sample plots out of spite.

We headed back to Pakse with enough time for me to get changed and head to Lao language lessons for the first time.

For dinner we were invited to dinner at the Grand Champasak Hotel (most upend place in town, western designated Hilton style, short memory) with head representatives from DFAT. Meal was covered and as usual I wasn't sure why I was there. Nice place though.

View from lunch.

Second field site.