The Weekend.

Not much to report really. I started to feel ill on Friday and went home from work early. I think a combination of work being very stressful and not getting enough sleep has meant that i have caught the flu bug that has been doing the rounds. All the usual symptoms that aren't a lot of fun.

I woke up on Saturday and really didn't feel any better, a runny nose and generally a blocked head. Anyway i decided that i wouldn't let it halt my weekend. I met up with Johanna and we decided to do a round of all the shops we hadn't been to before and that we'd been meaning to go to. We started off at Ambre a rather up market place where you can have nice dresses made at a pretty reasonable price. I had seen one there a while ago and decided to get it made in different colours for my cousins wedding this August. It was all a bit rushed but before i knew it i had been measured and that was it - i am due back next week to have another fitting. We then headed to a couple more places before we met up with some friends for lunch.

Shortly after that the heavens opened and we got stuck at Elsewhere, a nice French clothes shop, so we ended up trying most things in the shop and generally being a bit stupid - photos to follow. We decided after about an hour that the rain wasn't going to stop and the best thing to do was go and get a foot massage. All good, then the rain stopped!

That evening a group of us went ten pin bowling - there is a place in one of the shopping centres. It was a lot of fun although in our second game the computers went off and we lost our scores - a little reminder that we were actually in Cambodia. After some food i ended up dragging myself home feeling pretty rotten.

Sunday involved some time by the pool, and then a trip to the orphanage. It was nice to go there - i had the photos i'd taken of the kids to deliver. They loved them. They turned out really well, quite big and all laminated so that there is little that they can do to damage them. There was a bit of an argument over who would keep which ones but they figured it all out. They then proceeded to laugh and point at themselves, really enjoying seeing the pictures printed. After a short while the photos ended up in their individual cupboards for safe keeping - a bit of a shame really. I was hoping they might put them up on the wall or something like that. But i guess ultimately whatever makes them happy.

Just before i was going to leave a bunch of backpackers showed up to visit the orphanage. I find the whole thing very confusing and haven't quite worked out how i feel about it all. The kids seem to enjoy having visitors and the visitors enjoy seeing the kids so maybe it should be that simple. But somehow it all bothers me, i'm not saying that i am really any different, although i like to think i am a bit! They get their cameras out straight away and start snapping, spend a bit of time there, and then they leave. I think this cycle develops an unnatural behaviour in the kids, maybe it's a survival instinct, they have to be nice to the strangers as they might donate some money or some food. I am sure they are told by the couple that run the orphanage that they have to be affectionate with tourist when they stop by. But maybe i'm too cynical, maybe i should just see what happens at the surface. I will reflect a little more on this one!

The rest of my Sunday was fairly unproductive. I watched a film and had an early night.

Saying goodbye to the girls!

I've had an incredible few weeks with people visiting, and lots of things happening in town. The time came yesterday to say goodbye to Silke and Kerri - Silke started her journey to Laos and Kerri flew to Hanoi. It was very strange last night not having anyone staying at the apartment. It was nice for a shortwhile and then i got a bit bored!

We managed to do a lot in the last week. The highlights were probably the traditional pupper theatre show - this was a mixture of traditional puppet theatre as well as acrobatics, and contortionism, the "rubbish" fashion show - one of the girls in the photo above left - i think her dress was mainly made with bottle tops, the traditional dancing with the kids at the orphanage, as well as the massages that were thrown in every now and then! Although it was a short visit from the Noodle it was so nice to see her and i think she had a good time experiencing Phnom Penh in those few days. She's now got another couple of weeks in Vietnam. Silke will be coming back to Phnom Penh in July with her brother. We are organising a trip to take the orphanage kids to the zoo, so it should be a lot of fun.

This weekend might include a Khmer cookery class, the gym, the pool, a few drinks and possibly a massage! Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Kez Noodle in town!

Ten years ago when i was travelling in Australia i met Kerri "Noodle" Richmond in Sydney. Together with a couple of likely lads, Dean and Sinclair, we lived together in Chatswood, Sydney. A lot of fun and very crazy times were had until we all went our seperate ways a few months later. Kerri and i have always been in contact although haven't really had a chance to see each other in person very often, the last time being five years ago when she came to London.

It looks like we might meet every 5 or so years as Noodle has now made it to Cambodia. She arrived last Friday and it has been fantastic having her in town. She hasn't changed a bit and it's great being able to talk about old times and generally just enjoy each others company.

After the orphanage trip at the weekend we realised that one of the girls in our group had got nits, we then realised that maybe Kerri had too! These photos make me smile. We have spent most of our time cruising around on the moto, eating and chatting! It's a hard life....

Lakeside Orphanage, Phnom Penh

It's very easy to get caught up in the expat lifestyle in Phnom Penh, everything is very accessible, there are a lot of nice bars and restaurants and some excellent shops. Even though a lot of people working here are working with charities or government agencies when you're not at work you can pretty much ignore the realities of life here. Not necessarily a conscious decision but you just get on with seeing friends and generally having a good time. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, most of these people are dedicating their lives to working in a country like this for the very purpose of improving society or the environment, it's just something that happens.

I guess what i am saying is that if you want to it's very easy to also get involved in voluntary work or just to help support some of the many events that are set up by NGOs and charities. I was taken to a small orphanage by the lakeside here in Phnom Penh a couple of weeks ago and it really made me realise that it would be so easy for me to spend a small amount of time there every week and be able to help out with English classes or just generally entertaining the kids. I'm leading a good lifestyle here and i feel that i ought to be putting a little back.

So this weekend the kids put on a traditional dance show, Silke, who has been teaching English there for a few weeks, is leaving so we all went down to watch. They have dance lessons every day and really take the whole thing very seriously. It was so nice to watch as they obviously really enjoy themselves when they are performing and i think they really liked have an audience to watch them. I will print some of the photos and laminate them so that they can put them up on the wall or at least keep copies for themselves.

This orphanage isn't very big but has about 30 kids living there, they range from about 4 - 14 but they all look a lot younger as many of them haven't really had particularly good nutrition or healthcare growing up. They will stay at the orphanage until they are 16 and then they are expected to go out and fend for themselves. Most of the kids there have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDs and many were just brought in by members of their communities and left. It's run by an ederly couple who also live in this small building with their parents and their small baby. It's hard to imagine all the kids lined up on mats at night sleeping.

Silke will be coming back in July and we are planning to take the kids on a field trip to the Phnom Tamao Zoo a lot of them won't have done anything like that before so it'd be great if we can pull that off.

Udong in the morning...

Since arriving in Cambodia i don't seem to have had much time to visit anywhere outside of Phnom Penh. This weekend was relatively free so Silke (a Dutch friend) and I decided to drive 45 km northwest of Phnom Penh to the ancient city of Udong. Udong was the Cambodian capital from the latter stages of the Khmer Empire and the seat of Cambodian kings from 1618 to 1866. Almost all the buildings of the former royal city were destroyed when Lon Nol launched air strikes against Khmer Rouge hideouts in the 1970s; other sites were later blown up by the Khmer Rouge. A Khmer Rouge prison was located here and a memorial to the victims was erected in 1982, with torture devices and bones from mass graves on display, as well as murals depicting Khmer Rouge atrocities.

We first went into the Buddhist Centre that is located at the bottom of the hill. It's a fairly new set up by the looks of things but really impressive. It has a whole series of big buildings that are used for ceremonies and meditation. We were invited in to one ceremony and then filmed! Very bizarre experience, we were asked to kneel and bow to the monks. We then had a walk around and ended up walking through the area where all the nuns live. These lovely old ladies who were so happy to see us. They would smile with these big toothless grins. We were then ushered into one building and to our horror there was a dead monk lying there in a refridgerated box. He was a special monk and apparently sometimes they keep them lying there in state for years!

We then walked up the hill to Udong, it's not anything too big but it was so hot, and Silke and i thought we should observe the request for us to take off our shoes! We then proceeded to burn our feet the whole way to the top, which was very frustrating when we realised that everyone else had kept them on! There were fantastic views from the top - flat countryside with sugar palms doted across it. The temples were beautiful - slightly spoiled by the number of hawkers trying to sell us flowers and drinks. We walked around and generally took everything in but we didn't stay long, mainly because of the heat. We walked back down the hill the opposite side to the way we came up. And then drove around the base of Udong.

On our way back to Phnom Penh we stopped at a small local restaurant that overlooked a few rice paddies and had Udong in the distance. We were sitting enjoying the view when a series of ladies decided to try and sell us some "snacks" we bought a couple of different things including lotus seed pods, and some bean and sticky rice stick, but decided to decline when it came to the deep fried crickets.

We got back to Phnom Penh and decided that we had time to do another trip in the afternoon so we travelled South this time.

Phnom Tamao in the afternoon...

As we drove out of town the heavens opened and it absolutely poured with rain, i have no idea how the driver managed to continue driving, i couldn't see a thing. We were heading for Phnom Tamao Zoological Garden and Wildlife Centre, which is located about 50 km south of Phnom Penh. It's a rescue zoo primarily for Cambodian native animals, which covers about 100 hectares at the moment but has about 1200 hectares allocated to it so it has a huge amount of room for expansion.

The zoo is home to over 60 sun bears, heaps of monkeys, a few tigers, two lions (!), crocodiles, and numerous other creatures. It was really well set up and the animals were healthy and as far as we could tell happy. The zoo has a lot of support Wildaid and Free the Bears and a number of other conservation organisations are working with them to help their operations run smoothly.

The sites and sounds of Phnom Penh...

I have been here a little over two months now and i've really settled in. Cambodia has a lovely feel to it, i'm not sure if it is the kind nature of the people here, the warm and slow pace of life or the mixture of locals, expats and travellers. Whatever it is though it makes for a very nice place to live.

I thought to try and do a very fast recap of the last two months. It's been fast and furious with lots of people visiting and a fare bit of site seeing, oh yeah and a bit of work! I was lucky to be able to move straight into an apartment when i arrived, some good friends of mine had a colleague that was going overseas for three months, which meant i could house sit for her. It's a nice one bedroom place above an art shop. The photo beneath is of my house, you can see the apartment with the pointy roof. It has a wonderful view of the National Museum. See photo to the right.

Work was really busy the first few weeks with the program starting and 16 consultants arriving as well as 10 national support staff, drivers and guards. I had to get an office set up quickly to enable people to start work. I am working on an AusAID funded agriculture program as the manager. I basically look after the program from an operational point of view - contractual obligations, finances, staff, admin. I am really making sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, managing problems along the way, and getting the results to the client at the end. We are working in three of Cambodia's provinces - Kampot, Takeo and Kampong Thom. The program goal is to improve life chances for poor rural families. I have only been out to Kampot so far, it's in the south of the country, on the river.

I bought myself a moto fairly quickly, the initial cost isn't really too high, and the fuel here is so cheap that it really makes it worthwhile. I think it costs me about 2 USD for every 100km! I got over the 200km point last weekend. It's a lot of fun having you're own transport, the traffic is a little hairy but i have take to that pretty easily. I had one minor accident involving my bike, an art shop, and a couple of pizzas. All too embarrasing to document!

I have had plenty of visitors already, which in so many ways has made it easier to settle in, i can do all the site seeing with others and generally enjoy having familiar faces around me. The first weekend i was hear Hylton and Maggie (friends from Oz) made a detour in their planned traves and popped across the border from Vietnam. After a 6 hour bus journey, and a few dangerous shootings on the boarder they rocked up at the Central Market bus station looking a bit lost and tired. We proceeded to have the most amazing 48 hours. We drove around town, shopped, ate, drank, had a massage and generally just enjoyed the time we had together. Hylton took a liking to Jim the tuk-tuk driver. I think he enjoyed having three girls to drive around town for two days. Although when he was really needed to take them to the airport in the morning he didn't show! Poor old Jim maybe he was a bit overwhelmed by Hylton's charm!

David and Annette (good friends from my Madagascar days) have been living in Cambodia for almost 4 years now so it has been fantastic to have them here. Not only having people i know around me but also they've been great at answering my questions and giving me advice. I have also been fortunate to meet a lot of their friends and have been invited to some really nice events since i've been here. Annette is 7 months pregnant now and will soon be returning to Denmark (Wiggy following closely behind) to have their little baby girl. They will all come back in September - i can't wait to have a little baby around. A little Megan (my niece) fill in!

So the next thing that came up was a short trip back to the UK. Sadly my Grandpa passed away, which was all a bit of a shock. He was 94 years old though and had a very peaceful end just falling asleep in his chair. Going home was really lovely. I hadn't seen a lot of the family for nearly 2 years, and although things were a bit emotional, it was still great to catch and be there for this occassion. We spent a lot of time talking and thinking of Grandpa. Katie, Becky (two of my cousins) and i went out for dinner at Grandpa's favourite restaurant and toasted him a fair few times. The weather was spectacular at home, which made the trip even more special. I have decided to definitely return home for Becky's wedding in August. It's hard living overseas and missing out on family occassions and now that i am in Cambodia it's a little easier to get home for things. I plan on missing out on less! I also plan on going back to the UK when the weather is more likely to be nice. Winter trips have a novalty factor but after a week or so it becomes pretty depressing. So more of the sunshine, blue sky and green grass is definitely in order. It was wonderful spending some time with mum and dad and the best of all was seeing my beautiful dog. She thinks she's a human being and loves the attention she gets from me when i'm home. She's quite amazing.

So after a wonderful trip home i headed back to Cambodia. I had kept on top of work via the net and didn't feel too out of touch. There had been a few issues whilst i'd been away but nothing major. I got home at the weekend and had a chance to recover before going back into the office. The obligatory weekend massage, and swim helped me feel human again.

I had a few days of work and then Heidi arrived from Australia - woo hoo. She was asked to go to Bangkok to train a new member of staff at the GRM office there, and we figured that it was definitely worth her coming to Cambodia for the weekends before and after her week in Thailand to see me and a bit of Phnom Penh. On the saturday we basically toured around Phnom Penh on my motobike - Heidi was quite taken by the adventure. We crossed the Tonle Sap on the Japanese Bridge and had a good look at the Mekong. We went down to the Russian Markets and sweated a lot. We went to the air conditioned Sorya Centre and generally walked around. We ate a huge amount, drank a lot of fruit juices. We bought a lot of silver jewellery and a few other gifts for Heidi's sisters. We had a fantastic, fun packed weekend before both flying to Bangkok early on the Monday morning.

I then spent Monday to Wednesday in Bangkok and flew home on Thursday morning. Heidi stayed for the rest of the week. It was a productive few days and the new Project Coordinator seemed to take to things pretty easily. Bangkok is such a massive city, it rained the whole time we were there, I can't ever imagine living somewhere like that. Whilst we were in town Heidi's brother was also there so we ended up meeting him for dinner one night. We went to the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms - it's a place set up by an HIV AIDs organisation to promote awareness and raise money. It serves great food and has some really funny querky bits and pieces everywhere. See me and Condom Man on the right!

I got back to Phnom Penh and had a few days in the office. That Friday was then first Friday of the month, which means a big party at one of the bars in town, Elsewhere. It's a beautiful place, an old colonial house, with a massive garden and a small pool. The DJs are from Europe, great music, and the cocktails are most definitely Asian - large and very tasty Mojitos. I was there with a few girls - we had a great night.

The day after Elsewhere Heidi arrived back from Bangkok (at 8am!!) i think i had gotten to bed at about 4am! Not ideal really but it was all a lot of fun. I spent the day eating and drinking and trying to get over my hangover, whilst Heidi spent most of the day laughing at me. We didn't do much apart from drive around on the moto, get a massage, swim and shop! It was all very relaxing and so so nice to catch up with Heidi. On the Saturday evening we went to one of the nicest restaurants in town for Annette's birthday. The following morning Heidi was flying back to Brisbane. It was sad saying goodbye but she was ready to get home and see her husband. It was so great that she was able to get up here for "work" but we were still able to spend some time together.

Once i'd said goodbye to Heidi at the airport. We had organised to go to a go-karting track in town. There were six of us in total. It ended up being such a fun morning, if a little hot, and a little exhausting. The track was really good and the cars pretty fast. We had a warm up heat and then one race, we then all got on the track together and had a timed race. I had gained my confidence by the second race and ended up coming 2nd - i was pretty impressed with myself - although i think it was only because others crashed that i managed to get past them so it doesn't really say too much about my speed skills!

That pretty much sums up the last few months. From now on i will try and update this more regularly - we shall see. It's been fun thinking about it all for the last few days. Phnom Penh is a great place to live and i'm really enjoying life right now.

Living in Cambodia

So all my thoughts of updating this blog on a regular basis haven't really materialised, but here i am again! I'm going to try hard this time to update it regularly!! I moved to Phnom Penh in March, time is flying by and i'm thoroughly enjoying life here. Work is busy but interesting. The people i have come across in these few months have been warm and welcoming. I'm looking forward to many more months in this part of the world....not something i'd thought i'd be saying a few months ago!