For the Birds!

Oh, man!

Yesterday I get out of the shower and Kenny is staring at the computer screen with a funny look on his face. The headline on the BBC World page is :

"New Birdflu Outbreak in the Mekong Delta!"

We looked at the article, we looked at the map. Are we going near where the outbreak is? Um, yes. We'll be in the boardering province. Crap. Should we still go? Part of our tour is to the floating markets, which means a good possibility of bird fecal matter. Plus, the article said that farmers have been dumping the dead birds into the water, which is everywhere...

So, after thinking it through, we decided that since the Mekong is not going anywhere, we can wait to do a little tour through it until March, when we'll be back down south, and who knows, maybe the outbreak will have petered out by then. We are probably being overly cautious. But it doesn't make too much of a difference if we go now or later, so why risk it?

We cancelled the tour, and will be taking a bus straight down to Rach Gia. This means we get to spend one extra day in the city, which is good, since I had forgotten to do going-to-the-beach things such as buy a giant bottle of sunblock and towels and get money out of the the bank and stuff like that. So while Kenny finishes his law school applications, so as not to have to think about them while we're cruising around the forests on rented motorbikes, I will go take care of errandy things.

Also, yesterday was my last day of tutoring. I handed the job over to Ciarna, who instantly wowed the kids with her cool games and funny faces. They're in great hands. And now I have two little pen-pals. :)