Fizzbuzzingly Fantastic and Gobswashingly Generous

How wonderful is this!?

The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden have very generously said they would send over a load of books to add to the library over here!!!

Massive thanks to them, this is unbelievably kind; the children over here will benefit hugely from this. I cannot wait to tell them! (I have to stop crying again first though!)

This is so cool!

Museums and Missing Home

As we again got off early, Geraldine and I went to the National Museum, which is a beautiful building filled with wonderful statues sadly looted from various temples all around the country. No photography was allowed inside, but apart from some cool slabs inscribed with Sanskrit and some beautiful carvings that bore quite a similarity to a lot of Hindu gods, it was just lots of Buddha statues. After a while, you can only see so many before you start to zone out.

We did sit in the middle of the building in a rather beautiful courtyard with hanging bougainvillea, tranquil fish ponds blooming with lotus flowers and the wonderfully heady smell of Frangipani and jasmine all around us.

It reminded me that I didn't mention that once you are outside Phnom Penh (which has it's very own set of highly pungent aromas) Cambodia's countryside is unbelievably, deliciously and surprisingly fragrant. Flowers and fresh air take over from fish-paste and rubbish and you can hardly believe it's the same place!

I found out what the upturned ends that you see on the ends of the roofs of all the ornamental buildings here... they are Elephant trunks!! (not real ones, purely ornamental of course!) The upturned Elephant trunk is considered to be a symbol of good luck here and so they appear all over the place, which I think is rather lovely.

I also forgot to mention that yesterday at Phnom Wat, Geraldine got chased down the stairs by an angry monkey which is still making me giggle even now.

It's been 2 weeks since I left home and I am nearing the threshold of the longest time I've ever spent outside the UK, and suddenly I am missing home. (yes, yes, already!) Leaving my nieces behind was probably the hardest bit and I got messages though from them today which made me cry embarrassingly in the office, but it was just wonderful to hear that they are thinking of me too.

I REALLY AM a school teacher!

Today, the aforementioned group of Korean Students (there are about 20 of them) were entertaining the Kindergarten Kids whilst I was teaching my English Class in a small room nearby. They handed out about 3 metric tons of sweets and chocolates to them and then got them to run and round and scream to incredibly loud and horrible dance music.

We cant' close our classroom door, firstly because it's way way way too hot but also because it lets in the majority of the light which enables my children to see the blackboard and their books. After about half an hour of gritting my teeth I finally had to go out into the melee of over enthusiastically dancing Koreans in matching t-shirts and 50 or so frothing preschoolers on an insane sugar high and demand like a proper English School teacher that they please keep it down as my class couldn't concentrate or indeed hear me.

I also heard myself say "If anyone in the class is unable to be quiet whilst I am talking they can sit at the back on their own for the rest of the lesson"

Good god! I have turned into my maths teacher from 20 years ago!

Wat Phnom and Elephants!

For the next 3 days Geraldine and I have the afternoons off. This actually means we have completed our days work by 10.30 am as we start at 7.30. Hurrah!! ( a Troupe of Korean volunteers arrived this morning and have been given our afternoon kindergarten shifts so this means I get to do my favourite lessons and miss the bit with the 36 eight year olds in a garage!)

So! we went to Wat Phnom. This is a beautiful temple on the only Hill in Phnom Penh, right in the centre of town. Its kind of on a big roundabout now. Its surrounded by worn brown cobbles and wonderfully green grass and trees and is by far the nicest part of Phnom penh. The Guide book says something about the Temple being founded by and old woman called Penh who had 3 Buddha statues washed into her house on the hill during a flood, so she dedicated her life to making a temple there.

It's very beautiful and peaceful inside with seemingly thousands of Buddha statues everywhere, between enormous candles, pots with handfuls of incense sticks smoking away and jars of floating lotus flowers. The do love their fairy lights here too; everything is draped with them so these temples always look particularly lovely at night.

Around the bottom of the hill Monkeys lounge in the grass, (no one else but the monkeys are allowed on the grass - if you step on it a man in uniform blows his whistle and shouts at you) .

I was unable to find a monkey that would pose for a photo until my camera ran out of space! However the highlight was Sam Bo the elephant who is an institution here.

For the last 20 years he has taken visitor on rides around the Wat every day. (He is 49)

He wears shoes to protect his soft feet from the hard cobbles around the Wat and as you can see by the mess at his feet, he loves to chew on sugar cane.

He also loves bananas which he flicks into his mouth with his trunk, so I fed him some and stroked his lovely trunk and ears.

As you can see I was exceptionally thrilled by this! Sam Bo was perhaps less impressed but tolerated my presence admirably, and also appeared to be posing, as you can see below.... I got a good "mid ear flap"picture.

TV and Trickiness

A couple of things I have noticed about this place....

Firstly Cambodians really have a very "live for today" attitude, which I suppose is to be expected but this means that sometimes they will cheerfully rip you off with a smile on their face, even if they know you and are going to see you again tomorrow. Obviously this is not a blanket generalisation, but often it makes it rather hard to trust anyone, even the people who you are sharing beers with last night, or who you are staying with in their guesthouse.

Perhaps this also explains why everyone but everyone has a mobile phone and a TV even if they have the most basic of houses, and virtually no level of hygiene to speak of at all. I even saw a little TV in the slums. There are 60 cable channels that are available to most, but that bad news is that it is 60 channels of absolutely horrendous shit!

50% of programs consist of inexplicably constantly wailing women in traditional dress accompanied by justifiably angry looking men threatening them with swords or beatings which they clearly deserve. This is all that happens from beginning to end.

The rest are bizarre or just dreadful game shows, bad US sit coms, bad Asian sit coms, oh and HBO which is quite good. One channel is like an endless old style Eurovision song contest but with asian pop... words simply can't adequately describe how appalling it is.

I have however found one news channel but it's in German half the time, (usually when i want to watch it) , however as far as I can tell nothing has happened anywhere in the known universe since Michael Jackson died anyway.

I understand there will be a post-mortem today to determine which was the cause of death: A) Sunshine B) Moonlight C) Good Times D) Boogie

People tell me Andy Murray is still British, so I am assuming Wimbledon is still on and he's still in it.

Sihanoukville - A trip to the beach

What a superb weekend!

On Friday, one of the other volunteers, Sarah, left. The School had a moving little ceremony where they presented her with a certificate and her children gave her pictures and things they had made, and then we and 16 or so other volunteers went out for dinner to the Khmer kitchen.

The Khmer Kitchen is a really lovely little restaurant on stilts where you sit under low red lights at low tables on nice loungy cushions. It would have been a terribly romantic setting and I found myself wishing I had someone to bring and share it with. The food was delicious too. The nice thing about Khmer food is that it has a indiany-chinesy-thai taste - lots of rice obviously, but it's not as hot.

Then Kristy, Olly, Geraldine and I all hopped in a cab and set off on the 4 hour journey for Sihanoukville. It was dark for the journey there, but on the way back today I was able to finally see some of the Cambodian countryside. It's stunning.

Having not been out of the insane hustle and dust of Phnom Penh, you could not imagine more of a contrast as soon as you leave the city centre. Cambodia is wonderfully lush and a verdant green that almost hurts the eyes, especially as the earth is an unbelievable deep terracotta red.

Stilted shacks and wooden houses line the roads between the palm trees and paddy fields, and amazing golden shrines appear around corners when you least expect them. Dogs and Cows with beautiful faces (and adorable little calves) trot peacefully along the verges to take you by surprise.

And Sihanoukville is ... well, people in Phnom Penh say that when they go there they never want to come back and I can see why. The town is full of pretty little Guesthouses that line bumpy little streets. the Coast is lined with long long beaches with cool spacious wooden beach bars with comfy loungers. Our guesthouse had a great sea view and spacious air-conditioned (woot!) rooms. Ahhhhhhh. Yessssssss.

The next morning after breakfast on the terrace overlooking the sea, we headed on an arse-bruisingly bumpy, but also at times pleasantly vibratey tuk-tuk trip to the beach.

It was suggested by a friend from PP that we go to a less well populated beach up the coast where there are less children trying to sell you massages, bracelets or paint your toes and thread your legs; there were still a few.

Having waved off loads of offers and lost our entourage of followers along the beach I was finally persuaded to buy a necklace from a nice and not too pushy little girl, which she made beautifully as I helped. I was consequently hassled for ages by another girl who felt that I should have bought off her because she asked me first.

She then sat intrusively close whilst the other girl made my necklace demanding to know "why you not buy mine?" whilst I first mistakenly attempted to politely give reasons and then eventually tried to ignore her, getting more and more hacked off. She eventually moved some distance away to stare evilly in my direction for at least another hour; an interesting, if unsuccessful sales technique.

But the utter beauty of the beach completely made up for the intrusion.

Later as we waited for the Tuk Tuk next to another surprise shrine we sat on a warm round rock and watched clouds form and break, and tropical storms approach from the horizon.

Our rattly Tuk Tuk came to pick us up and we headed back to the hotel, stopping only once when the exhaust manifold fell off. Luckily our resourceful driver was able to reattach it with some wire that used to hold the seat on and the aid of a brick found by the side of the road.

Olly and Kristy had hired a zippy little moto for the day so they missed the spectacle. Motos look LOADS of fun - I MUST do this !

You buy petrol from stalls at the side of the road - sold in screw top Pepsi bottles, and just funnel it into your bike.

We had dinner at a rather swanky seafood restaurant right on the beach as the sea washed up and down just feet from our table. The food was absolutely amazing... I had blood clams which I'd never tasted before, which were wonderfully fat and juicy, fried with ripe tamarind.. (a really amazing combination, which I hope to recreate when I get home).

This morning it thundered and lightening-ed and rained a lovely warm rain, so I spent a pleasant few hours watching the storm, snoozing, and reading my increasingly unputdownable book (Matter - Iain M Banks) before we headed on back to PP for lesson planning and bed.

Rain at last!

It's supposed to be the rainy season here, but despite the google weather gadget telling me that it's been stormily raining for the last week here in Phnom Penh we have only seen a brief shower similar to that seen at wimbledon, which lasted about 5 minutes. It has in fact been incredibly hot and sunny ... about 94 degrees but unbelievably humid which is not fun when you are teaching 36 small children in a windowless garage.
Every day we have been drinking 5 litres of water each minimum and waiting for a storm to arrive to ease the pressure; today was almost unbearable, every one of us just pouring with seat, even the locals.... but tonight it rained.

And boy did it rain!

The street was like a river running past the door, thunder rumbled, lightening flashed, all the lizards came inside, and the air is suddenly bearable.

I wonder if the "cool" air will last until tomorrow!

If you want to send books to the library..

Here is the address to which you can send any old childrens reading books that you no longer need or can collect from generous friends!

Mr. Kimlay Lim,
Local Adventures Cambodia,
#146, Street 113 Corner 376,
Phnom Penh
Cambodia

You have no idea how much this will benefit these children who have nothing; even if you can just send one book, it's worth it.

Week 2!

Just realised I left the UK a week ago! How has it gone... quick or slow? I am not sure at all, so much has happened it seems like ages ago, but also not long at all.

Didn't feel too bad this morning despite trying the locals favourite brew of 8% black panther beer last night, and lessons went really well. It's such fun!!! The kids are so great - and today I finally got photos of some of my Kids!

The staff at the school invited us to join them for lunch, which they eat together at the school every day. Some bring their own and others take it in turns to cook. Today, as were were joining one of the guys cooked a great selection of things and those that had brought their own put it in the middle too and we all tried a bit of everything, so we got to taste some really authentic home cooked khmer food.

We all sat round at a low table and chatted as best we could and it felt like the first time I had really experienced the Khmer way of life. After lunch everyone has a snooze before the afternoon starts so we all had a lie down on the mat in the library under the fans. You really need it when you start at 7.30 in the morning and it's this hot.

After work I was so achy after standing up all day and jumping around to try and keep the kids attention that I decided to go for a massage, so off I went on a moto (moped taxi) for the first time! Virtually everyone travels like this (there is no public transport around town) and it's such a good way to see the sights. When I came back it was dark, so I got to see a bit of Phnom Penh by night which really was rather exciting with all the monuments and buildings lit up. My moto driver got completely lost so I got to see much more than I would have too. It as only when I was nearly back that I realised I hadn't worn a helmet either way, it just didn't seem wrong because you rarely see anyone else with one on.

The massage was superb so I am going to bed early to take full advantage of how relaxed I am.

*****Cankle update******

Last night, I had a flash of inspiration. In a bid to do something positive about my granny ankles I lay for half an hour with my legs up the wall wearing my flight socks, soaked in cold water to try and cool them down.

It made absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Driving in Cambodia - The Rules.

I feel I should acquaint you with the basic rules for driving in Phnom Penh.



Rule #1: Keep Vaguely on the right
Rule # 2: Never stop
***extra rule for Outside Phnom Penh:
Rule #3: Avoid cows
Rule #4: Never let the brow of a hill or upcoming sharp bend stop you from overtaking, preferably painfully slowly. Forcing traffic coming in the opposite direction off the road is perfectly acceptable.


and that's it.

There are no markings on any of the roads so there is no real set priority... when you get to a junction.... just carry on going. Be prepared to swerve around anyone coming from the right or left at a crossroads. Traffic rarely gets up to a speed exceeding 20 mph, however if you do want to go faster, just beep until the person in front gets out of the way. This is what the horn is for.

If you can't turn left due to oncoming traffic, simply pull out and drive against the flow of traffic on your side close to the pavement until a gap in the traffic allows you to swerve over to the correct side again.


There are seriously no other rules, including how many people in/on a vehicle. Most people/ families travel by small motorbike, or are dragged by something attached to a small motorbike, and the load these things can take is amazing!

6, however, appears to be the record for the amount of people on one bike, 10 in a tuk tuk
(you can get a max 5 westerners in one).

Three monks on a motorbike is indeed a treat to see.. and 7 in a Tuk tuk a sight to behold. I hope to post a photo soon.

My first day of teaching! (infinitely more upbeat!)

I woke up really early as we had to be up at 6.45 really as we have to be at the project at 7.30.

This leaves me about 15 - 20 minutes to get up, shower, pack up my days teaching stuff and get down for a spot of breakfast before heading off in my Tuk Tuk with Geraldine to the school.


I can get ready in about 10 mins, as make-up just slides off your face immediately so it's pointless, and the light in the room is so bad that it is extremely flattering. I look absolutely gorgeous in my small dim mirror, but for the uneasy feeling that my eyebrows are raging out of control across my face without my knowledge. The truth is that I am so much more concerned with keeping clean and cool and vaguely hygenic, and most importantly avoiding further mosquito bites that facial hair seems to pale into insignificance. I wonder how long is the acceptable amount of time after going travelling that you can start to grow your armpit hair and allow your bikini line to look like John McCririck? One week? One month or do you have to have be a veteran traveller away about 9 months before you can acceptably walk around with what looks like a hampster in each armpit?


Anyhoo... today was my first day at school.


We had planned and discussed and reviewed lesson plans but it still doesn't quite prepare you, but it didnt matter.

I LOVED IT!!!!!

The Children were so lovely and they wanted to learn so much. The first class were older children, aged 10 - 17, all of different abilities, but also eager to learn. They stand at the beginning of each lesson and say "Good morning Teacher" in unison and are so keen to do whatever you ask. Our lesson plan worked well and I fell into my role quite easily.

The afternoon was more of a challenge and was basically spent in an exhausting maelstrom of coloured paper and piles of wriggly 5-7 year olds climbing all over the place. At the end of the lesson they all stood with their hands together and chorused "Goodbye teacher, Thank you teacher" which was so terribly humbling I could hardly bear it.

I shall post some photos of them all tomorrow...

Lunch and Genocide

Some of the other volunteers had been to a lovely cafe, the Boddhi Tree, which was, I remembered, recommended in the lonely planet. It sold western food, so was pricier than the the cambodian street cafe, but very pleasant surroundings with bourgainvillier and orchids hanging down . Very very pleasant and tranquil.


But as with much in Cambodia, just behind the beauty and tranquility there was something heartwrenching. It was opposite the Tuol Sleng Museum also known as the Genocide museum. The Cambodians I've met seem to talk often of the genocide, certainly to us tourists and so perhaps it has in some way lost some of the ferocity of impact - the more you talk about something the easier it gets to accept. Just their honesty and frankness on the subject makes me wince. This museum is the site of S-21, the place where 20,000 Khmers were detained, tortured and murdered by Pol pot and the Khmer Rouge in the name of their revolution. Just 7 people of those 20,000 survived.



To me it seems awful to have a museum of this, especially as it only happened 30 years ago, and is still so raw but to the Cambodian people it is perhaps there to ensure this never happens again.



There is also a souvenir shop.

The building had originally been a high school, but was turned into a "Security Centre"as they called the places where they carried out these attrocities, as all the educated "new" people, anyone seen as intellectual were rounded up as enemies of the revolution.

Some of the class rooms became areas where victims were tortured until they admitted to the false crimes of which they were accused, Confessions that were recorded on tape to proove to the UN that they were spies and traitors executed justifiably. Evidence of these were still there, including leg irons in which all inmates were constantly restrained and so much equipment used to torture and mutilate. Blood spatters can still be seen on the walls and floors of these rooms (They also used waterboarding....)


The rest of the classrooms became cells, each about the size of a toilet cubicles either of brick or wood, with holes hacked through the walls so that they were more easily patrolled.














The Walkways and all but one entrance were hemmed in with barbed wire to prevent inmates from committing suicide if ever they were able to get out of their cells. The rules of this place are now set out in the courtyard so it is even more possible to glimpse the hopeless situation the inmates were in; they were already guilty:

However the most dreadful part of this tour was the last building. Through the barred windows you could see them, row upon row, room after room, the pictures of the victims; men women and most disturbingly of all, children, all staring out.

Each had been brought to this place, most of them tortured until they confessed to fictional crimes, where upon they, their wives or husbands and children would be murdered and thrown in the mass graves outside.



I just sat down and sobbed until I couldnt any more.

Ever more cheery...

Today I went to visit the project where Geraldine and i will be working.

We got a Tuk Tuk through the town with a couple of other volunteers who have already been there 2 weeks. There are 3 classrooms. The first is in a little courtyard, where the schools offices are. Apart from teaching the children here, the organisers also get jobs for the children's parents so that they don't take their children out of school to work on the streets. One office was filled with mothers of the children who were selling strings of beads that they have made from paper. The organisation buys them from them, then sells them on to places all round the world. they also give the families rice, so they don't have to worry so much about feeding the family, again so the children can stay in school.


The classroom is an area with a roof but no walls, just screens, and the children sit in tiny little wooden school chairs, the kind we had a school 30 years ago...they probably are the same ones, passed on when we no longer needed them and got better ones.... only a few months ago they just had to sit on the floor.



The children look about 3 or 4, but they are in fact around 7 years old. They are just so utterly lovely and greeted us straight away with "hello teacher" and with the traditional hands-together in prayer like manner.







We are given our timetables. We teach English to the older children in the mornings from 7.30 - 9am and then we recap, practise and get the children to type what they have learnt into computers from 9.30 to 10.30. We have to come up with our own lesson plans based on what what they have already been taught, which we know from notes left by other volunteers.



In the afternoon we teach different things on different days. Drawing, Arts and crafts, Singing and drawing (?) , Alphabet and numbers, Sports and games

Panic set in. How can i do this? - I have no idea how i can teach these children even half as well as they deserve. What if I am rubbish? I will just let them down. I want to go home and hide. I start thinking of how I am going to tell Kimlay I can't do this.

The next classroom is down a back street, and about the same size as a one car garage, open to the street. About 20 children are taught in here, at chairs and desks crammed together with no space in between. They decorate the concrete walls with little pictures of things they have made in class.


I am trying to tell myself that I've done jobs in the past I hated and I just got on and did them but I still want to run away. The last class room is a 10 min walk away. It's nicer and even has fans, and the children again are so sweet and polite and so genuinely pleased that we are there. Mothers come and talk to us in Khmer. Kimlay translates. They are thanking us for coming and giving them our time, and teaching their children. They say this is a generous and precious gift we are giving their children; that this is the future of the country.


I say to Geraldine we need to go back and plan our lessons.


We sit down and plan the first week and it wasn't as hard as I'd thought. I think I can do this.

Oh and

I now have cankles.. my feet and ankles are all swollen with the heat, so you can't tell where my calves end and my ankles begin. It's attractive. mmmmmm mmmm,

.

but on a happier note, I have a room to myself which is lovely, so though there is no air con, at least I can lie there naked, under the fan spraying myself periodically with water like greenpeace do to a beached manatee without disturbing anyone particularly. :)

Orientation, Markets and Slums

Last night my fellow volunteers arrived, and they all seem great! Hurrah!

In this Photo left to Right are Kimlay, the organiser here, Oliver and Christine, Gemma, and Geraldine.

Kimlay took us around the city in a couple of tuk tuks so that we could gt the measure of the place as well as giving us a brief history of the country.

People here are so poor, most living in places that made me realise our, by our standards, very basic guesthouse are a luxury few can afford to stay in.

We looked round a shopping centre which was delightfully airconditioned, and everywhere sold jeans, watches or phone and simcards. Outside every shopping centre is a promotional stall for mobile phone service providers playing unbearably loud and terrible music. I can only think they do this so that you have to buy a card to call other people to tell them how dreadful the music is..

After stopping for lunch, whuch was huge, and which cost less than 2 dollars, the can of coke costing almost as much as the food, we went off to see the various project we will be working on as from tomorrow.

We visited the first orphanage, containing hot little shacks full of rickety bunk-beds where the children stay, with the attached school. The School consists of 4 tiny, hot rooms, two stacked on top of the other two, crammed with metal and wood bench desks where the children learn for a few hours a day. Their day starts at 5am when they get up, shower, clean their teeth and then their house, before they perhaps wash their clothes, or learn handicrafts and sewing so that they can make key fobs or purses to sell to tourists in order to support themselves, and make money for the orphanage also. They then have lessons with volunteers in the afternoon... this is the time when they learn English, and numbers.

Then we moved onwards out of town and the air became more and more pungent with we weren't sure what... until we realised why - we were heading for the dump site, the rubbish tips for the city. We stopped at a small concrete building, the library.

Inside was a bookshelf. Just the one. With a selection of about 20 different children's books, perhaps 3 copies of each for the children to use to learn. None of them were very good, and I could see that this was such a big deal for them, I could barely hold back the tears at the realisation that this was the only resources these children had but for volunteer teachers. I hope the others volunteers are better than me as these children deserve so much more. Upstairs was two hot, bare, rubbly floored concrete rooms which are the classrooms.

Then Kimlay took us a little further on to the slums where the children who use the library live.

It was horrific. I don't think that I can adequately describe it to you, and I couldn't bring myself to take pictures as it seemed so utterly disrespectful to photograph such misery. The shacks that people live in, little ones on stilts are made entirely from what they can scavenge from the tip. Just wood and perhaps sacking and canvas and polythene. and in between just mud and rubbish. In the rainy season which hasn't really started yet it becomes knee deep in black stinking water and effluent - much higher than knee high for the children, which they have to wade through barefoot. The children run around naked up to a certain age.

I saw a child being held still by three people and being rubbed with something. Kimlay explained that when children get sick, the only treatment they get is to have their skin scratched all over before they are rubbed with Tiger balm. As you can imagine with the child so distressed it was so hard not to try and intervene. But then I had nothing else to offer them as an alternative. Kimlay said that as a child he was given the same treatment. This is normal.

All anyone can really do to help is teach, and provide books. I don\t know if you know anyone who has any kids reading books that they no longer need, but if you do feel like you want to help you can send books to them here, and it could really do some good. I will post the address to which to send them tomorrow.

The life expectancy here in Cambodia is about 55. Some of the people living in these slums looked 80, but were probably in their 40s or 50s and lived through Pol pots regime. It's heartbreaking to think of the lives these people have led and how they will have to live out the rest of their years. The country is slowly rebuilding itself but the scars are still so evident.

Perhaps to lighten our spirits after the very sobering shock of what we had seen, we visited the "Russian market". not entirely sure why it was called that, but it was a low ceilinged warehouse crammed unfeasably full of stalls selling every thing from silk scarves, dresses to moped parts, silverware and jewellery to wood carvings and paintings. And of course CDs. each stall butted up agains the next, piled higher than most people stand, and with corridors of only about 2.5 ft wide between them, and it was unbelievably hot hot hot! We alll kind of burst out gasping for air after only 15 minutes inside.

After this I think we all needed to get back and gather our thoughts about the things we'd seen today. I will only see myproject tomorrow, so I still don't know what to expect!

Early night tonight, though with everything I saw today I am not sure sleep will come that easily.

Temples and Tuk-Tuks

Beautiful hot sunny day... total contrast to yesterday...So off I went in a Tuk tuk to the Royal Palace. Absolutely amazing buildings shining in the sun...Lots of them shrines, full of incense and buddha statues, peacefully nestled amongst gardens of beautiful topiary and specimen trees.. huge old trees covered in masses of orchids twisted around it, with blooms hanging down hanging down like the heads of aliens staring at you.

A cat mooched by... but it wasn't a cat, it was a monkey! It looked at me as if to say 'Bloody westerners, I can't believe you thought I was a cat you idiot. tsk' and then in stalked off with an arrogant flick of it's chin in my direction

For some reason this was the most unbelivably exciting thing as it was only then that i realised that I have never seen one not in a cage. I was so excited i dropped my camera and totally failed to get a picture of it!

In amongst the temples were itricately carved pillars covered in man-animal creatures.. just amazing to look at, then you turn a corner and there is this house that was built by Napolean III that may as well have landed like the tardis it looked so out of place..

The city is relatively small so I thought I'd walk back, amazingly didnt get lost. I clearly stand out like a neon sign as I can't go more than a few steps without someone stopping me to offer a tuk tuk or moto/cyclo or to play horribly at me with stringed instrument for 5 seconds before a small child runs up asking for change.

or beeping at me..."Hey white hair! you want tuk tuk?' "maybe later then?"

Came back to room, shut my eyes for a second, and slept for 4 hours!

Cambodia at last!

Arrived last night having been awake for 30 hours. Got met at the airport - the first time i have ever been met by someone holding a placard with my name on, which was in itself very exciting indeed!



Drove though mad streets, with thousands of people riding bikes and motorbikes, sometimes 3 or 4 people on one, everyone weaving about as going in a straight line is just not done! Went past a truck piled unbelievably high with sacks of rice with three or 4 people precariously perched on top of them all..... I was unable to stare at them for longer than they all stared at me.



Its not as hot as Dubai here, but very very humid. Today I shall have a look round the city, and possibly go swimming at a hotel with some girls i met last night. I am moving to a single room with air con later too. Woot! I got my twin room to myself last night.. well, I shared with a small yellow green lizard, didn't catch his name, but he lives under the bed permanently i think..... part of the deco, along with the conrnucopia of fag-burned plastic furniture, exciting looking exposed wiring, and drunken ceiling fan! Cleanish though, so can't complain :)



SO. Where to today? People have suggested the genocide muiseum, but I think i'll leave that cheery experience for another day. The royal palace looks interesting so I think i'll head that way...

Nearly there (well, at singapore airport)!

Just arrived in Singapore. Horrible flight on packed flight in the worst seat.. probably.

Didn't really sleep at all as had that weird jerky leg thing, that makes you kenny everett your legs the second they've been stilll for 2 minutes, as well as achy sholders from all the swimming yesterday which refused to be put in a comfortable position.

They made us sit up when we still had an hour an a half of flight to go (why? why?) and opened all the blinds.... for a horrible breakfast and I caught my reflection in the screen on the back of the seat. I was distressed to find that I currently bear a striking resmblance to Patrick Moore. (I've aged about 75 years, and am at least as crumpled and dishevelled, the bags under my eyes make look as if i'm wearing monocles in both eyes)

and why such a horrible breakfast? if they are going to wake you up so rudely at least give you a fry up... just a sausage then? why no toast? most imporantly, why dry cubes of non specific fruit?

mmmmmm sausage.

i only have a couple of hours to kill here now. i'm off to find a sausage.

just enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon sunbathing, swimming, and watching Greg swimming in his speedos.

life doesn't get that much better, i think :)

There you go laydieeez... sorry Greg!

Dubai is insanely hot - 40 degrees today! where ever you go it's like setting foot into a really hot steamy club, except that you are going outside instead of coming in, as everywhere inside is airconned to the max!

its really huge and space age and glitzy and right in the middle of the desert...- like Vegas but without the drinking and gambling! i like it actually. but you'd have to earn a lot to live here comfortably.

Day 2

Off for a nice breakfast, then a turn around the emirates mall (the one with the worlds biggest indoor ski slope in) finishing up with some sunbathing round the pool before i head off to get my flight to singapore.

mmmm!

Dubai is very very hot.

Apparently though, according to Greg, today is rather cool comparitively speaking. However, i had a couple of hours sleep and now I'm having a nice G&T in icy Air-con, and we are just about to go for cocktails and dinner and things in one of the very very groovy buildings in Dubai.

I don't know which one as they are all stunning architecturally and greg pointed out loads whilst I was in my "just got off the plane and i don't even know what my name is" state of mind.

Hurrah. Apparently it's happy hour. Greg says we can't miss it as it's important for alcoholics like myself. pointed out this is the beginning of my clean living good behaviour phase of my life. he looks very sceptical.

The Beginning

Well. it's 6am, I'm on the plane, and it's 1 hour to go to Dubai. I am a dried husk of a woman.

Had just found optimum sleeping position when they switched the lights on and insisted we eat muffins for breakfast. I just drank 2 litres of water, and am STILL thirsty!
Daddy seeing me off at the airport was lovely but terribly emotional as this is the first tme that I've taken a trip of longer than 3 weeks and suddenly didn't feel quite "ready" for it; so much of this trip is unknown and unplanned.....eek!!

Luckily my initial fright was was offset by incandescent public airport rage at stupid stupid barclays bank who have managed to leave me high and dry with no way to sort my cash out as they seem to have reset my passcodes for no apparent reason.. they told me not to worry as they are posting them to UK, where i won't be for 6 months, and then more unbeliveably asking me if there was anything else they could "help" me with. Still a good justified shout accompanied by vitriolic sarcasm at them really took the edge off the nerves.

now. perhaps i should try and remember what i did with Gregs number.