This morning, I woke up at 3 am, feeling really hot in my double layers of sweat pants and sweat suits. Went outside and the sky was blazing with stars - I think Xieng Khouang has the best night skies during the cold season than any place else in SE Asia. After checking the thermometer - it was 6 deg C - and looking at the sky, which looked like the sun was coming up - I decided that it was getting close to sunrise so I heated up some rice and water for coffee. 

It was still dark when I finished breakfast, so then I decided to look at the clock. Groan: 3:30 am and I felt wide awake. I started reading Mortals by Norman Rush (which is on my book list) until I fell asleep again and woke up late. Of course.

I've been living in Laos for eleven years now. When I first arrived, I lived in an old battered wooden building. We had electricity for four hours/ night. While we had a small electric generator for the times we really needed to prepare for a workshop or write reports, we wrote most things out by hand, which were typed out later. So, even if I woke up very early, I was thankful for 24 hour electricity allowing me to read.