Horse cart to the local village and market

This morning we took two horse carts to a local village and market.  If you ever stay at the Oberoi hotel or anywhere else in the area, I highly recommend that you leave the 'bubble" of a high end resort to do this and get some understanding how the local people live.  This post is going to be mostly pictures because they do convey the feeling of the place more accurately than I can in words.

This is Amy, Justin, Hannah and Whitney in the horse cart behind ours as we were leaving the Oberoi Hotel.

This guy is pretty loaded down with recycling material.  They use their motorbikes for personal transportation and hauling as much as they can.

The local Bike Wash:

The parking lot at the market:

 The vast majority of the items for sale at the market are food items but there are many stands within the market similar to this.

 This guy is smiling because he was sizing me up for some of his clothing and said, "Big", to which I responded "Very big!" and he realized there was no way anything he had would fit me.

 More foodstuffs:

 This lady is wrapping dried fish in newspaper for a customer standing off to the left.

 This is the one lady who apparently didn't like me taking pictures.

 

This lady was selling both plastic ware  and vegetables.

I took this picture at the village we went to after the market.  The horse cart driver recommended we go to this particular village where 33 families live and work cooperatively.  Our guide, Mika, said that the elderly are given the job of weaving replacement roof sections with reeds because it is a job where they can be sitting.   The elderly lady on the left appeared to be chewing areca nut and betel leaf as her mouth and gums were darkly stained.

 These ladies are making coconut oil by first grating and processing the coconut meat.  They use the oil for cooking, massage oil and as a topical treatment for bug bites.

 These are the rice paddies worked by the villagers.  I believe there is a landowner who actually owns the fields but I wasn't quite sure on that point.

 This is Amy and Justin in a horse cart on the right as we were leaving the village and being passed by a family of four on a motorbike.  Note the child waving and the big smile on the driver.  We had a lot of people waving and smiling at us this morning.  The people are very kind and gracious.

Tomorrow we fly back to Kuala Lumpur on an AirAsia flight at noon.  We'll be keeping our fingers crossed for a safe flight.