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.