Happy Khmer New Year!

What a holiday it's been. Very happy with the destination and the content. 

So for the Khmer New Year, the school had a party with me dancing, speaking Khmer and being a presenter for the show which was a first. It all went rather swimmingly.

Then on Monday, I had to work and in the afternoon fell horrifically ill. Putting my trip away in serious jeopardy. About 18 hours before the bus I felt a bit better. Not well enough to travel. Went to bed, hopefully to improve the condition.  7 hours before, I wake up from my slumber feeling that I certainly had improved but was still too dizzy to do anything. 5 hours before stopped feeling sorry for myself and tried to act normal as a way of medicating my self. 3 hours before a lot better, seems pretending to be okay has worked also i'd spent $10 on my ticket, i'll be damned if i'm not travelling after paying that. So i decided to travel. 0 hour on the bus and on my way to a town called Kampot. Popular with expats and the more savvy traveler, however this may no longer be true as it's becoming a more popular destination due to its location to the beach town of Kep, a national park and Bokor Mountain. 

Nothing booked which was a bit dangerous seeing as though everyone was migrating to Kampot for the New Year holiday. Got there without a hitch, although lots of restaurants and cafes were closed for the holiday. Phnom Penh had also become a ghost town in the mean time. Due to all the workers going back to the province to meet their families.

Anyhow i'm in Kampot and i need a place to stay and ask a tuk tuk driver, 'i need somewhere with a swimming pool.' Hop in and off we go to a place called 'Two Moons' first hotel the tuk tuk driver and I checked out and I checked in. Swimming pool? Yes. Chill? Yes. Out the town a bit? Yes. Quiet? Yes. Cheapish? Yes. Boxes checked, trunks on and in the swimming pool for a bit. So a lovely hotel was found, went out for dinner which didn't have a huge selection because of places being closed. So had a miserable meal and then returned to the hotel's bar.

Talked to a rather strange Russian-Polish-English person who lives in Russia 183 days a year to get less tax, because he's in the top tier of salary for London so doesn't want the 45% tax or whatever it is. However he does own a house in zone 1, i think he said Canary wharf.  He's interviewed one of Russia's most wanted criminals. Flies all over the world for holidays. Cuba, China, Norway, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam and many others. He was strange, something seemed a bit off about him as he never looked me in the eye when speaking to me. Although a very clever bloke. Spoke four languages of Russian, Polish, English and a bit of Spanish. Unfortunately i forgot his name so couldn't research him. He also didn't want to tell me his job...probably KGB.

So then the next day i rented a moto. Sorry Mum! I went up to a river that wasn't particularly interesting lots of khmers enjoying themselves but not much for me. Came back and sat by the pool and got rather burnt.  In the evening talked to the same KGB bloke again and another khmer bloke who was nice and spoke lovely English. He was in Kampot just for the holiday like many others.

Then on Thursday, I decided to go down to the seaside down of Kep. Longest ride on a moto so far. Around 30 minutes. Good road as well, one small embarrassing moment was when my moto ran out of petrol. The fuel gauge didn't work, so all of a sudden it spluttered out and i was walking with it to the next petrol stop... Fuel bought, let's go! Nope, wasn't starting. So the bloke whom had filled it up said 'get off and unscrew the cap again.' I oblige. He gets down and blows into the petrol tank, afterwards he says 'off you go.' There's me questioning what the hell was that, silently laughing thinking this ain't gonna work. What d'ya know? It flaming worked and off i went. Kep was nice if it wasn't so busy! I didn't even get onto the beach because of what felt like the entire khmer population had descended on to Kep's one beach. So i rode on past and stopped a lot further down and walked around, took some photos, paddled, sat and then it became the hottest hour so i decided to shoot back to Kampot. I have unfinished business in Kep because i'm sure it's gorgeous if there wasn't ten million people there.

This evening I went to the bar again, Kirsten you'd be proud. Spoke to an Irish bloke with whom i'd had a couple of words in passing. Turns out he's travelled around Asia a fair amount and is in between contracts back in Ireland so decided to come back out to Cambodia. Loves fishing and used to be a big construction worker in London back before Europeans came over. Now does reconstruction on Georgian houses and loves it.

Friday, i decided to go even further on my scooter about an hour and go up to Bokor Mountain. Now this was beautiful road, incredible viewpoints, long sweeping bends and i was enjoying myself pretending to be Clarkson and commentating myself going around the corners. That was fun until i spoke slightly too loud and some westerners heard and i got all embarrassed. It was very far! The road just didn't stop and i was fearing for my life that i was going to run out of petrol half way up this mountain....thankfully it didn't and there was a little stall at the top that had some petrol.  Stayed up there for a while and came back. Again half of Cambodia seemed to decide it was a good idea to go up there as well. So rather busy again.

Back to the pool and bar for the night. Spoke with a lovely couple and played uno with them for half a night. Lovely conversation about what they think of Cambodia, their experience and what they do and everything, really, really nice conversation. Plus i won at Uno. So y'know Preston's were on top again. Too many years spent playing that game.

Saturday, leaving day. Not happy to be going back to the hustle and bustle of Phnom Penh. My bus was at 3. So had time to kill. By the pool. Met a lovely bloke called Alan (i think). Who was on a mission helping locals with something, i can't remember. For about an hour and a half we had a frank conversation on religion and life. Which for the first time in my life since i was a child i have had a serious conversation about religion and had my questions answered about it. I'm still agnostic so don't worry, that i'm going to be a bible basher all of a sudden. However it was really nice to talk about all the issues with it, the problems it's creating, middle east, muslims and islam, the world, america, evolution and logic. I have never had that. I got sunburnt in the process of being so caught up in the conversation. Also he was an evangelical christian and he started talking about 'elders' which he said was just a word taken from the bible but it in my immature mind i thought 'oh my god, it's a cult.' He's going to start speaking in tongues in a minute. All joking aside, lovely bloke, great conversation.

Then from that same group, i was sat next to a women on the bus on the way home. Who had lived here for a year and a half. She spoke near fluent khmer. It was lovely to finally  meet someone who spoke khmer with a western mouth so i could ask all my burning questions about the language and how to speak it. That made the three hour journey back to Phnom Penh fly by. Holiday over. Back to work on Monday.

Very successful, tanned and happy. I will be returning to Kampot very soon as there is a three day weekend in a fortnight! See you soon Kampot!

My link of the day is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWC70m6Gh68

Here have some photos

Big Buddha at river.

Busy River

Kep, no people where there's no beach.

Bar and a screwdriver.

Bokor Mountain view point

Big chinese 6 star resort on top of Bokor

Old abandoned church

Inside 

Above the clouds.

Old abandoned casino

Big lizard that woke me up every morning.

Me being artistic....

Pool and hotel.

Part 2 Finally!

Note: I deleted this by accident managed to recover but had to transcribe it. Tenses change all over the place. Only just doing it now! This was meant to be posted in February.

So I may have mentioned that we were going to the mountains for our Chinese break. I got up at the usual time of 6 to hook up with Shaola at 7 to get a bus at 7:15. Then a five hour bus ride to Andoung Tak. Where we were met by a little Khmer man and his mate with a boat. After which we sat on getting to know our crew mates. Two English people who live and worked in Da Nang- Vietnam. ( I only know Da Nang from 'Good Morning Vietnam' and its hot) They were nice down to earth people. Also a German biologist who is the leading specialist for crocodiles in Germany. Nice bloke again.

So after an extensive journey up the river passing these huge boats digging out sand that is doing untold damage to the banks and selling it to Singapore for artificial beaches, all this for 3 hours, whilst sat on a small uncomfortable cramped seat.

We arrived at a small village on the river and then walked up to an information centre at which we booked a nice trek for tomorrow and a bungalow to sleep in. Life was good, peace, quiet and no tuk tuks! Well apart from the fine sand being kicked up by the motos and people. Had a lovely meal cooked for us by a local women's mother whilst we were watching on, surrounded by salivating dogs! You probably wouldn't been able to tell the difference. It really was a delicious meal, fried vegetables and pork and of course, rice. We went to bed rather happy and full.

Up at 6 again, to get to the information centre for breakfast and for our trek. The same people on our boat had chosen to join us on the trek. Our guide spoke little to no English which is useful when you're out in the wilderness and may get injured. So i tried to teach him some intertwined with me practicing Khmer. At the beginning we were walking on a road and i mentioned to Shaola that this is more of a 'long walk' than a trek. I was soon to be mistaken....

We stopped for lunch after some hours of walking at a beautifully secluded spot, with the sound of nature and a waterfall for scenery. It was gorgeous and peaceful. However me being stupid, dropped my plastic spoon on the dirty ground so i had to eat my lunch with my even dirtier hands. Like a monkey.

Then it was the journey back. This was much tougher going after the lovely rest. It took us until 5. So lets do some math. Stopped for 1.5 hours, 7:30 to 5. 8 hours of walking. 32Km. Hell of a long walk. I decided to retract that statement half way through the journey back. Got back and ate some noodles and went back to our bungalow which was another 20 minute walk away. On shattered legs. Thankfully our friends went by on a moto and they sent him back to pick us up. Showered and in bed by 8:30.

Slept all the way through until 6. Well i say i slept all the way through till 6, unfortunately 3 cockerels strategically placed themselves around the bungalow and decided that at 5:40 it was time to get up. I was not a happy chicken. We were getting up at 6 anyway to catch our moto to bring us back to civilisation. The moto ride was ten times better than the boat and way more interesting. So we went back to the madness of the city after the serenity of the country.

Me!

Take a look at what we saw:

Had a swim in it. Lovely and refreshing.

Main road!

Scenic.

Waterfall.

Chi Phat

Big boats, taking the sand

Information Centre

The bungalow.

England isn't the only green country.

Short break and off again. (Our guide)

Link of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

Got time, part 1

Got time, so it becomes time to write. There hasn't been much happening to be honest. Well not until recently anyway. From the last one I wrote about my time back in England. I honestly thought that it would be tough returning to this wonderfully mad country! Although last night I was riding home and it just hit me like a tonne of bricks. I love this place, I want my future to involve it somehow, someway. I understand that it may not always be like this, that I may eventually get sick of the place but right here, right now, I'm happier than I have been in a long while. 

I want to try to tell you about the love and death in this place from what I know so far. I may write about it again, in a couple months and say that this was all out my arse. So here goes....death in western culture is generally a bit taboo of 'oh we can't mention lest they get upset' it's always 'i'm sorry' and what have you. It's a dreary and upsetting affair for all those affected. Then, once they are buried that's it, you move on and remember them with rose tinted spectacles unless you're jimmy saville. However here, they're never forgotten. They have services for one whole week after their death, drinking and remembering and praying in their name. After that I think it's one month on they have another service with more drinking and celebrating the persons life. Then it's one year on they celebrate again with drinking and laughter. After five years, they again celebrate with dancing and singing. There maybe more but that's all I know so far. This does get irritating because over here they just block the main streets up with big pavilions but still how incredible is that? For five years they celebrate the death and life of someone. They're not forgotten, and death is accepted as a thing of life. The ying to yang. You don't get the gift of life without the release of death and over here it is accepted that it happens and it's a thing to dance and sing about. I, personally, think it's wonderful. I will learn more this weekend as I'm going to a five year anniversary funeral....

On the other hand we have love. Again streets are blocked up with tents and monks praying for good luck. Obviously there are different levels of wealth bigger tents, more important streets being blocked, more garlands, more people. I know less about the wedding rituals apart from there is traditional clothing and food and what have you. Then we have got the poorest of the poor. People having to live and work on construction sites. It popped into my head, what happens for these guys? The ones that cannot afford a house and roam around looking for work. The ones whose children live on site and live in less than sanitary or safe conditions. So as I was going along I happened to go past a construction site and do you know what? They were having a wedding! Playing loud music and having a good time. Everyone deserves their special days and these guys certainly got one, I was so happy to see it. That even though they have a tough life, these two people got their special day and celebrated it with their friends. Everyone loves a bit of a party and it showed here. 

Anyway what have I been upto recently. I've been playing in a football tournament and we are through to the quarter finals after topping our group with a goal difference of 39. Playing two matches this weekend to get to the semis. Wish me luck! 

Work is fine but we have three days off now for Chinese New Year. So I'm going off to the mountains which I hope will be fantastic. No light, sound, air pollution. Will be able to see the stars, will probably be bitten by Mosquitos as well...will let you know how it goes. 

However for a celebration of the new year my school had a professional lion dance, it was brilliant. Makes you want to go to China...

Link of the day - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zUeAaBGVTk 

 Here are some photos and videos of the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj1dXjFEk1c

Blogging...

Well wowee! Have I got a lot to write about! Mum came and went. It was lovely, she completely understood why I want to be out here. Which made me happier within myself as it kind of justified it again, that I'm not crazy and it is okay for a person to move away, just as much as it is okay to live in England, some of us are born to follow a different path. 

Meeting mum and being with her did make me miss home a little bit. Those home comforts of speaking back at a higher tempo, of asking someone to do something  or what have you. It made me miss just the little things that are hard to come by out here or are just stupidly expensive. 

It was lucky then that for Christmas....that...I went home!! Most of you already know this by now. It was really really...cold and of course, lovely. It was a strict schedule I had to keep to. Not much choice in it either if I wanted to meet everyone. So I got back on the 22nd after a rather long flight...eurgh! Got picked up at the airport by my friends to keep the ruse going, went around with them for the day and then went to Uxbridge for a drug-deal esqu handover from my friends to my mum. Car to car. No messin' about. 

Afterwards I met my grandparents and my sister! It was brilliant! I've not seen my gran move so fast in years. Teary-eyed reunion. 

Immediately the next day I shot up to Bury for another reunion (you're gonna get sick of this word) with my father. Had a lovely Christmas with him and then we tried to go and see my other grandparent but unfortunately it snowed and we had no chance of getting over to Chesterfield. Afterwards I rejoined my Mum and her partner to go to her house in Shropshire on the Welsh border for a couple of days. Then on the Monday, I went to Portsmouth on the coast and had a reunion again with my other sister which was fantastic! Then shot up to London to see my brother and stay at his and use his house as a base of operations until I went back. So in the meantime until I went home I saw my friends for New Years which is my first proper New Years doing something and for it to be exciting and fun. Afterwards on the second the day before I left we went a big family reunion with which I haven't got enough adjectives to describe how it was. Let's just say very very good however it was much more than that. Then on the third I was on my way back, flight was delayed but it was well worth it because I was on an A380, it was really cool!! Top class service. The delay meant I thought there was going to be some squeaky bum time in the transfer but in the end there was no problem. 

All in all it was a beautiful holiday, back to the home country. Although it was a bit hectic! Never seen so much of England in such a short space of time! It was nice to fulfil the itches that were needing to be scratched. I may have returned to Cambodia with a suitcase full of Jaffa cakes, Haribo and After Eights. Only half a box of Jaffa cakes left eek! 

On my return, my tuk tuk was ready, the language was familiarly unfamiliar. I immediately went and played football which in hindsight may have not been the most wisest of decisions but it was nice to see my friends again. Due to the change of climate I got rather ill, luckily I had a day off on the Wednesday due to another of Cambodia's holidays. 

Bought a new bicycle so am now doing everything off my own back again which is nice. Back into the swing of things and all sorted for the upcoming year. Very excited to see what this year brings if it's anything like the last, it's going to be even better. 

I'm sorry I didn't manage to see everyone but I hope that the next time I come back I'll be able to see you! Good luck to everyone! I'll see you on the next one. 

Link for the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr7wcHTzcTg&sns=em

This was the only photo I took on my phone the whole time... So please enjoy looking at me and my sister. 

FIRST FULL DAY IN CAMBODIA.

Hello! Mother is here to give me a right good ear bashing on what's what and whose who. So she's  decided to also take over my blog for the next couple of days, whilst she is here. Please enjoy!

Greg met me at Phnom Penh airport yesterday after telling me that he wouldn't be able to which was my second (wonderful) surprise upon entering Cambodia - the first being that the visa had gone up by $10 since my Lonely Planet guide was written in Sept 2014.  Flight over with Thai Airways was brilliant and managed to watch 'Frozen' at last.  A bit bleary eyed I got into the tuk tuk Greg had arranged to take us to his flat, driven by his friend Sky.  She drew a lot of glances as one of the very few female drivers in the city and then - out into the heat of a crazy world of thousands of motos carrying everything from up to 5 people (3 of whom are often small children and babies clinging on), tables, huge sacks, monks in their saffron robes sitting side saddle, live ducks gazing out with loads of chickens hanging upside down apparently hypnotised their beaks nearly on the road surface, tuk tuks loaded up with every conceivable item used by mankind, old ladies walking along with a stick across their shoulder with their cooking implements hanging from baskets on either end.  Lorries loaded sky high usually with someone on the top, little refreshment stalls with a moto attached with one bent wheel hanging on for dear life.  A trailer on a moto being loaded up with 20' wooden poles - how does he go round corners?  The side roads are full of potholes, dust, rubbish - then to my horror there are people on motos and bikes coming towards us on the wrong side of the road! Junctions - pah; traffic lights -  might stop if everyone else does; zebra crossings - don't bother!  I cling to Greg's hand when we cross roads now as if I were the child.  The trick is to be confident and they go round you!  

Everywhere is full of personal industry - cafe's, stalls, workshops fixing anything that has ever worked, shops stacked high with bits of metal god knows from where, another old lady selling snails off a tray by the road side, chickens on the bbq smelling delicious, all covered in a thick layer of dust and diesel.  What an experience - I can see why Greg loves it here. 

The poverty is unconsciounable - I watched a female street seller lay a blanket on  the pavement last night on the equivalent of the Embankment (but warmer) by the Mekong river for her small child to lie on for the night inches from the busy road.  Young boys no older than 5 or 6 approached us begging in a street cafe last night.  No-one walks anywhere - the pavements are broken up badly and covered by parked cars - huge 4x4's so there is wealth here and which are an obvious status symbol, heaps of debris, cafes, parked tuk tuks and motos on which you find the driver asleep.

 

I visited one of the 'Killing Fields' sites today in the suburbs and was very moved by the peace there as in the war cemetries in France and Belgium and the audio tour, then went to a genocide museum near where Greg works which was a secondary school before it was turned into a prison and torture centre by the Khymer Rouge in the second half of the 1970s.  People were taken from here to the Killing Field I visited to be executed.  It was full of photos of the people held there and the cells they were kept in.  They were the middle classes, the teachers, doctors, lawyers, shop keepers that Pol Pot hated despite being a teacher himself.  The rest of the population were worked or starved to death in the countryside growing rice to export to China to buy arms.  3 of the 8 million population were murdered. Horrific. When will we learn!  

Close shaves

Please excuse the poor grammar in this post and missing letters i will try to fix it all but my keyoard is broken and i may miss some full stops. 

However anyway i want to talk about some incidents i’ve had so far out here. Especially after my most recent incident. So i recently met my friend purely by accident at a festival they have out here to celebrate the water and the river, Im unsure but I get three days off, so i’m happy. Any how there I was on the river side taking pictures of the boats when all of a sudden i get a tap on the shoulder saying ‘hello Greg’ and it was my friend Rory with whom i had gone to school with. It was so nice to see a familiar face! It made me even more excited for my mum coming. So we went for something to eat and what have you and a catch up. At that time we decided we would watch the Manchester United game which started at ten p.m the next day. We met at a bar and watched the game (it was a drab affair) after which we split off and went our own ways. All was well with the world. I got about half way home and onto a street near my house when i realised i had some people following me, not just any people, two prostitutes who were ladyboys. They pulled up alongside and started asking where i was going and the like. I say ‘no i’m going home.’ Big mistake letting them know that i was soon gonna be off my bike. They followed me the rest of the way home. There I was, trying to get off my bike and they get off their moto and come up to me and (Sorry Mother) they were grabbing things that weren’t asking to be touched so i tell them in no uncertain terms to go away and stop touching me this was when they put their hand in my pocket to take my wallet. I stopped them right there and then on that one. Blood was starting to pump around my body, I was getting ready. The one whose hand i took out my pocket returned to the moto the other bigger one got off and came straight up to me to grab my phone out of my hand. It was in my hand because i was trying to get my key out of my pocket where the phone was obviously i was interupted before i could get at it. So this ladyboy grabbed the phone but years of siblings and friends snatching things out my hand meant i was prepared. This ladyboy wasn’t getting it without a fight. So as she twirled round to break my vice like grip i was pulled off my bike. That was it fight or flight kicked in. It was fight. I managed to break her grasp on the phone and pushed her away. Her friend had driven off round the corner I was now bellowing at her in less than gentlemanly terms to go away I think this is what frightened them off. That i had turned from someone saying please go away to them, to someone who had an army mans voice (years of watching and playing football) telling them to f*ck off. Which was for some reason came out in a northern accent, i think. It came out as ‘F*ck off eh?’ And off she did. Me victorious them in defeat. Of course i felt immediately shakey and weird because that isn’t me nor is it usual to have an attempted mugging. A quick call home to mum and dad to calm the nerves and i fell asleep. 

 

Of course at the time i was angry. However now retrospectively speaking i bear no ill will to these two people they may have mouths to feed or rent to pay. They were doing it out of necessity when a country has no infrastructure in place to support these sorts of people of course this is going to happen, especially to foreigners. I just hope at some point they can get out of this hole they are in and do better for themselves but i have feeling its very difficult to do.

 

I have had some other close shaves in Cambodia many traffic incidents. Witnessed one fight, a few arguments, my sprained ankle, someone eating eggs in front of me that sent him to hospital to get his stomach pumped he even offered me to try them! Rather glad i wasn’t feeling brave that day!

However i am typing this as i have been given the rest of the day off to go to the hospital and get my right ear checked out as i cant hear anything out of it which is slightly worrying. I reckon its been infected with some dirty water because, when i was having a shower the water pressure was low as i had just gone to the toilet, and just as i turned my ear to the shower it suddenly went full power shower and i managed to get a straight shot into the ear hole! It hurt like hell and now i think its infected with that dirty water.

 

Anyway good luck to Rory on the rest of his travels and have a look at some photos i took of the water festival.

 

The link of the day is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwSNMibfaRg I just watched Shawshank Redemption and i think the way Morgan Freeman described this music was lovely.

 ‘I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.’

Update!

So I haven't written in a while. A very long while. So I thought rather than just give up because it had become such a huge thing to write I'd do a vlog. Please watch and enjoy. 

The link of the day is my vlog then! 

http://youtu.be/jVmPSP1nwLA