Sorry we have been remiss in our blogging but have just come back from a 3 week holiday. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication as to
who would pack the charger to the camera and so our photos are limited to the first few days of our trip.
We left after cake in the morning for my birthday (thanks, by the way, for all the HBs - sorry if I haven't gotten back to you yet but I will!) to Siem Reap, about a 6 hour drive north in Cambodia. There, we stayed for the first time at the Jesuit Reflection Centre. Brett managed to score a room to himself, but I was relegated to the dorm room of long wooden benches with thin sleeping mattress and mosquito nets at regular intervals. I take it that a lot of people in Cambodia sleep this way (actually, I think alot of people sleep without the mattress and just have a bamboo mat) and I thought it was quite comfortable. I was told that one visitor said she had broken a rib with that sleeping arrangement but I find that hard to believe.
As luck would have it, we came at the same time as a bunch of 15-16 year olds from an Australian all boys school on a "Cambodian Immersion" program. So the following day, we tagged along with one of the groups who were visiting some schools in a former Khmer Rouge stronghold. During the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979), the leaders sought to exterminate all educated classes in Cambodian society, including executing the teachers, lawyers, doctors, their children and anyone who even looked intelligent, such as people who wore glasses. Obviously, this made people very afraid of education and by the late 1990s, there were only 6 people in this particular village (of 5 or 6 hundred I think), who could read and write.
Now there are schools and a growing number of students but by western standards, the conditions are not good. Children sit squashed, 4 to a desk, with as many as 100 students to one teacher.
One classroom had a thatched roof where you could see through to the sky and another had a floor like this...
It was the first day of term, so we handed out each child their allocation of stationery - a pen, 2 pencils, a couple of writing books and an eraser. Some of the books had pictures on the front of Angkor Wat and other nearby temples, but many of the kids had never even been to see these wonders that people travel from the other side of the world to see. The older kids got a bit more on the same theme. 1 pack of colouring pencils and 1 pack of crayons are to be shared amongst the whole class. However, I think it's safe to say that at least these teachers were not teaching these kids poorly with the aim of receiving bribes from parents to tutor them privately after class (as some teachers do here). And the kids knew their times table. They said it so fast, I couldn't catch the numbers and it sounded like a song.
The Australian students sang songs too. Generally, I think 15 to 16 year old boys are scary but these ones seemed quite human as they stood up and gave rendentions of "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" and "Eensy Weensy Spider" to an adoring audience.
After another night in Siem Reap, we ventured to the wild west border town of Poipet. I think we've mentioned before the awfulness of this town compared with the rest of Cambodia but this experience was greatly improved by being hosted by the lovely sisters of our Poipet office. Because there's not much to do in Poipet, we were treated to a DVD of "Somewhere in Time" starring a young Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. Those old films are pretty nutsy.
Crossing the border was ridiculously easy given the guide book horror stories and our previous experience of trying to get transport from the border to Siem Reap. We walked across the border, bought a ticket for the bus which went direct to Sukhumvit, Bangkok which was exactly where we wanted to be. We were even entertained at the bus stop by this cute little puppy who wanted to play with us, which is a bit unusual as dogs are usually treated as little more than pests (and sometimes food) in south-east asia.
It was great to be able to stay with Dean and Mint in BKK. we also caught up with godfrey who by chance was on his way back from india. I was waiting for dean to post this photo on his blog but since he hasn't after 3 weeks, i have no qualms about shamefully plagiarising this photo:
Then it was off to Londres. I don't have much to say about London except that it was great, we did a lot of touristy things and everyone who we stayed with or met up with were wonderful. It was a good taste test of what life might be like next year. My only complaint would be riding the tube during peak hour every morning. Eek!
We also made it to: Southampton and rode bicycles through beautiful New Forest; Oxford and gawked at all the very young looking students wearing strange half length academic gowns; Cambridge and its beautiful colleges; Ely and its Cathedral (but we were too cheap to pay to go in); Thetford Forest and "Go Ape" (a fantastic high ropes course which we did after meeting a flatmate of a friend who works there); and Nottingham and its crazy Robin Hood ways. Thanks Dad for letting us use the hire car.
Now we are back in Cambodia. When I got on the motorbike taxi outside Phnom Penh airport, the first thing that hit me was the smell and second was the sound. Everything is buzzing, moving, alive. There's something about Cambodia that really gets under your skin and I'm very happy to be back even though tomorrow, we are off again to Siem Reap for an impromptu meeting.
Finally, a thanks to our sponsors who made this trip possible (in chronological order) - m&d, dean, mint, chris, pauola, oanh, nic, sarah, dave, joyce, lauren, dave, alecia, michelle, maher and steve - and also to those who made special trips from far away to see us - oanh, nic, kateena and laura. We owe you big time and will remember you when we are rich and famous... or more if we become poor and destitute.
