Bangkok to Sanglurburi, Thailand

Saturday, March 27, 2010 | Posted by Hazel


So today I have arrived in Thailand, leaving Charlotte behind in Cambodia, with TR (that is who is in the picture).  I made it, finally, after a rather long bus journey!  The reds are still protesting in Thailand, but it didn't prove too much of a problem for me to get here!

Last night, in Phnom Penh, Charlotte and I went to go and listen to some jazz, that had been advertised in a local restaurant, it was a little disappointing, as a man on a guitar and woman playing the flute wasn't really what we had imagined!

Yesterday it rained almost all day!  That was the first time it rained whilst I was there and it was so loud as all the neighbours where Charlotte lives have corrugated iron roofs, and then the moistness brought all the frogs out, that were so loud, they sounded like cows in the yard.

Am just in Bangkok for the night and then head off on another bus to Sanglaburi, the place where I am going to do my volunteering.  This is the organisation that I am going with, so you can read a little about what I might be doing when I get there...


So, goodbye Cambodia, I will leave you with a picture of Charlotte and myself trying out our 'kramas', traditional scarves that pretty much all Cambodians have, and use for everything!




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Living the shipwrecked dream

Thursday, March 25, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, I left Charlotte in the City of Phnom Penh for a few days and headed off on a small island adventure, it was amazing!  I spent 3 days on Bamboo Island, on the south coast of Cambodia and it was an island like the kind you imagine an island to be like...the pictures don't do it justice.



Basically I spent a couple of days swinging in a hammock, reading books and running in to the sea for the occasional cool off - it was pretty ace.  It was just like the island they use on 'Shipwrecked', the place where I was staying was a row of huts, and there were only about 20 people there, there were a couple of other places to stay on the other side of the island, but on the side I was on there was no-one else so it felt really remote. It took me a while to get in the swing of doing not much, but by the second day I seemed to have it down!
On the bus journey I sat next to an old lady who was rolling tobacco in leaves and eating it, I asked TR (Charlotte's boyfriend), and apparently this is pretty average behaviour for older Cambodian people.

I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Cambodians go out in their PJ's.  As in, they will wear them in the day, work in them, go shopping in them, stick a pair of heels on and go out in them in the evening...it was really weird to start with, but now I have kind of got used to this crazy behaviour, I have yet to wear my own outside the house yet...

I have been trying to capture just how crazy the roads are over here so I can show you, it is probably one of the things that has intrigued me the most whilst I have been in Phnom Penh.  Again, these pictures are just a snap shot - you pretty much have to see it to believe it, and also these are really normal scenarios, this stuff is everywhere, but I took these from the bus so they are not that great.
 
 

Tomorrow I am leaving Charlotte, and Cambodia, and heading off to Thailand for 4 weeks.  I have really enjoyed my time in Cambodia and there are some things I don't want to forget, like seeing 3 dead pigs on the back of a bike, 20 dead (or not quite dead) chickens hanging off a bikes handlebars, having "tuk tuk laidee?"shouted at you as you arrive anywhere, the amazing exotic fruits, the friendly people, the 'fresh' fish at the market which has its head lopped off while you buy it and the 'kramas' - red and white checked scarf which every local has and uses for everything, ranging from head covering, to towel to rope...I think I might have to get myself one as a souvenir.

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I am sat next to Michael Jackson...

Saturday, March 20, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, internet cafes breed weird people (I am not including myself in that)...the guy next to me "heee heee"(or however you would type one of Michael Jacksons squeals), is apparently having a great time watching him (and singing along to his favourite bits) on youtube, complete with a few of his favourite moves...wow, I am pretty much living the dream right now...if my camera wasn't so obvious, I would attempt a picture.

So, last night I got back from my adventure in Svay Rieng, which is where I went to visit some of the projects which are run by 'Kone Kmeng', a charity based in Phnom Penh.  There were 6 of us that went, all squished in 1 car (that's normal protocol here, seatbelts, seats...no big deal for Cambodians).  We were staying at a pastors house who lives in the local village where we were going.  The province (area) where we went is apparently the poorest province in Cambodia.  I saw and did loads of stuff, but won't bore you all about it here, if you are interested then just ask - I'll give you the highlights...

The bathroom was different.  I'm all up for a bit of basic living, but it took a little getting used to, but wasn't long before I was in the swing of it - I'll try and put a pic up if this computer lets me.  The 'bath' was a trough filled with water and the toilet was a hole in the ground, some people don't have this, they literally have nothing.


We ate 3 meals of rice a day, even for breakfast (I have already had an e-mail to tell me that we eat 3 meals of rice a day on my volunteering in Thailand too) -  rice for breakfast was weird, there was meat and fish too and some soup type things...this is dinner Cambodia style, and Ti-ta, a girl from the Kone Kmeng office...we all sit and eat on the floor with a bowl of rice and then help yourself to the other bits to go with the rice.


The pastor we stayed with runs a school for the local children.  There is a school in the village, but the teachers are paid so little, that they don't really care about their work so the kids don't get a very good education, so the pastor runs extra lessons for them to come to so they can get a better education - this work is funded by the charity I went with.  They also run health training classes for the local people, so they can learn how to keep themselves healthy and not spread disease.

Beacuse the place where we were was so rural, tourists don't go there and so quite a lot of the people we visited had never seen a white person before - it was quite a strange feeling, being stared at like you are an alien, and then people coming up and stroking you to see if your skin feels the same as theirs.  One lady said the reason I am so white must be because I bathe in milk everyday (this was translated for me, I just smiled politely), someone else was surprised to note that my laugh and cough were the same as hers.

The Cambodians (in my experience), love a bit of karaeoke (suddenly forgotten how to spell this?) - so as we ate dinner one night, the tunes kicked in and I was serenaded by some 6 year old kids, it was pretty cute.

So, as well as the schools and health training projects that 'Kone Kmeng' support, they also have a well building programme - quite a lot of the people in the villages don't have clean water and have to travel miles to go and collect water every day.  Kone Kmeng employs 3 staff in this area who can go and fit wells within the community - we went and visited a few of the familes/communities that have benefitted from the wells, and got to see one being installed at a school.  This is the machine they use to dig the well, and the staff that dig the wells and the staff from Kone Kmeng I went with...


I met some really nice people and feel privaledged to have been able to go on this trip.

Michael Jackson has just left with a little 'who's bad?!' as he departed.

Thinking of going to the coast this week, but need to sort myself out, and then plans are to travel to Thailand on Friday ready to go and do my volunteering at the weekend, however there are some riots there at the moment so will have to see whether this will affect me or not, you can probably read about it in the news.  I was hoping it would have finished by the weekend but it still seems to be going on at the moment.

That is all to report for now, keep in touch with what is going on where you are!

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The bum gun

Monday, March 15, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

Today I came to stay with Charlotte (my friend who is living here at the moment, working for some NGO's) for a few days.  Where Charlotte lives, it is on the outskirts of the City, so there are no tourists in her area, and as such, no-one really speaks any English, which has made me realise I am going to have to make some effort to learn some Khymer (Cambodian) - so far I have been lazy and only learnt 'thankyou' - 'aw kwon'.  I tried to get a moto to the market and he looked at me like I was crazy, even when I tried to say it in Khymer, a tuk tuk driver then came by who spoke a little english and translated to the guy what I was saying and he laughed and then spent the whole journey teaching me how to say it properly...I am pretty sure I still don't have it!

Charlotte has arranged for me to do some volunteering whilst I am here which is cool.  I went to meet with the guy who runs the charity (NGO) this afternoon, he is called Pany.  My job is to go and visit some of the projects they work on and take some new photos for them so they can update their brochures/website etc.  Should be a really good way of experiencing some rural Cambodia...I am going on a 3 day road trip with 4 others (all Cambodians) to stay in someones house about 3 hours away and visit the projects - he kindly reminded me to pack some diahorrea tablets, common problem with westerners apparently, I will endeavour to remember these.  Reckon I might also learn some Khymer, out of necessity if nothing else!

I don't think I have mentioned the toilets yet.  I have been to long drops in other countries before and ones where you have to put the paper in a bin, but here you get a pretty forceful hose plumbed in next to the loo and generally, no paper.  It was kind of weird to begin with, but I am getting a little used to it...

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Lovely Jubbly

Sunday, March 14, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, it's Sunday here.  Since the last time I wrote here I have lost Leah and Sabrina, right now, Sabrina is in Malaysia visiting family and Leah is in Thailand, waiting to get her flight back to the UK.  I guess this is where my travelling properly begins!

Thursday we did indeed go the market, or even a few markets.  We met Charlotte and she took us to a local market.  We all decided to blame it on the lunch we had, but none of us felt amazing later on in the evening, and the following day both Sabrina and myself were sick - eww.

On more than one occassion now (I am going to guess at about 3 or 4 times), Cambodians have asked us where we are from, and when we say England, they say "Ah, I know, I have learnt this...lovely jubbly" - it's a crazy world.  Who would have thought Del Boy would have made it this far?

Last night I went to the Meta Centre, which is an arts venue where they screen films on a rooftop terrace thing - watched a film called 'Up the Yangtzee', about the building of a Dam in China, it was actually pretty good, better than I have potentially made it sound.

I have been trying all week to get a picture of a monk on a bike, its a pretty regular sight in Cambodia, along with 4 people on 1 motorbike and a truck with about 20 people sitting in the back, oh, or someone travelling on the roof of a van...crazy.  This is the best pic of the monks I have managed so far, from the back of a tuk tuk.


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Hello laidee...

Thursday, March 11, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

"tuk tuk laidee?" - pretty much what we hear everywhere we go. Infact, we seem to have picked ourselves up our biggest fan/stalker tuk tuk man. He waits for us everywhere we go. Foreigners pay them the most money, so they want your business, this one so much so that he has been taking us places and waiting for us to finish to take us back. It's funny and weird.

Yesterday we went to the killing fields, which is where the 'Khymer Rouge' buried their victims in the 70's. I thought it was the only one, but learnt that it is just one field out of 343 across the country. The Khymer Rouge wiped out 25% of the population during their power.

We also went to a cake shop. It was quite random being in a cake shop here, it's not something they have. It's a social enterprise that has been set up to help girls who have come out of the sex trade. They teach them new skills and train them up and give them a job. The cake I had, baked chocolate cheesecake, was amazing. The journey to get to the cake shop was an adventure itself - we were in a tuk tuk following Charlotte on her bike, but she got lost and couldn't work out how to get there and we were pretty much going round in circles for ages, luckily the driver (aka. our biggest fan), found the whole thing hilarious.

In the afternoon we were invited to Zach's first birthday party! Zach is Charlottes boyfriends ('TR' - he is Cambodian) nephew. He was pretty cute, if not slightly overwhelmed with all the people that were at his house. It was a traditional Khymer (word for 'Cambodian') birthday party, not disimilar to a UK birthday, infact, they even sang 'Happy Birthday' in english. Zach even sang down the microphone, impressive for a one year old.

Today is Sabrinas last day, so we are off to the market to make the most of it - she loves a bit of market action.





Photo = Leah, Sabrina and Charlotte

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Phnom Penh

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, we are now in Phnom Penh (which I learnt today is pronounced 'pur-nom pen', apparently only English people think they're clever and say it with a silent 'p'). It's pretty crazy here. The roads are mayhem and there seems to be no rules of the road, just push on through and hope for the best!

As well as a few more temples in Siem Reap, we also visited a floating village, which was interesting and showed us another side to Cambodia. It's a strange feeling being an observer to the poor, it makes me feel uncomfortable when really I want to help, but don't know how.

The bus trip to get to Phnom Penh took the best part of a day, we arrived late last night. Sabrinas blagging skills meant we got upgraded to a better room, we had no window so she accused of them false advertising on their website and we got to move rooms, we now have a window - the views not much to write home about but you know, can't have everything!

This morning we went to the Teul Sleng museum which is all about the Khymer Rouge and was pretty graphic. Has started to answer some of my questions, like why there are hardly any old people and so many young people here.

We met with Charlotte today, my friend who is living out here working with some NGO's (national government organisations), doing some development work. I'll be staying with her after the weekend for 2 weeks. She has given us some tips on places to go and is going to give us a little guided tour tomorrow!

You'll be pleased to know the ear infection is clearing up, reckon I should have eliminated it by the weekend.

So far I can say, Cambodian people are amongst the friendlist people I have met!

Below picture taken from my first taxi in Thailand...







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Oh, "clinic"...

Saturday, March 06, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, we have finally arrived in Cambodia, it was quite a mammouth trip yesterday, we left at 7am and got to our destination around 9pm, crazy. I enjoyed the trip though, got to see lots of rural Cambodia from the bus, and it is again, so completely different to anywhere I have been.

The first bus driver was flipping mental, and even I can say that...I don't know how fast we were going, but it was fast, and every few minutes I would fly out of my seat, didn't quite get the nap I had planned, but enjoyed the adventure none the less. We then met up with some dodgy guy who sorted out our visas, we didn't really want him to, but didn't have much choice, he charged us more than we knew it cost (only about $5...but it's the principle!) but we got it all sorted in the end. Crossing the border also took a while, but it was crazy seeing the difference as you crossed the border by land (I have never done that before, except in Europe, but that's different), suddenly there were people pulling a massive wooden cart, the kind that you would imagine for a horse and cart type affair, and kids running around us...

Got to go on my first Tuk Tuk (3 wheel thing - the ones in Cambodia are basically a motorbike which tows a truck thing that passengers sit in) which was pretty exciting, they had them in Bangkok and I really wanted to go in one then.

Today we hired the Tuk Tuk for the day and then the driver drove us around all the temples that Siem Reap is famous for...picking us up at 5am so we could catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, we all coped pretty well with the early morning considering. Still awake now. The temples were good, I did lose a little interest after a while, my favourite however was one that has loads of trees growing out of it, apparently they filmed 'Tomb Raider' there.

So also, I think my little swim in the sea the other day may have resulted in an ear infection, I've never had one before, and it flipping kills! Just had an interesting little experience at the pharmacist...firstly she was asleep behind the counter when I arrived, so I had to wake her up, and then she didn't speak any English, so it was a little confusing. She was telling me to "clean it'' - I tried to tell her that the inside of my ear was yellow because of the ointment I had already tried, and then she was pointing...after a while I realised she was telling me to go to the ''clinic'' (doctors), which I then did and spoke with a friendly chinese, french speaking doctor who has given me some alternative ear drops. Oh yeah, and apparently a green man means nothing in Cambodia, had to dodge in and out of the motos, tuk tuks and cars to cross the road.

When we were at the temples earlier, all these kids were coming up to us trying to sell us stuff. I think their parents send them as they are cuter and they were staring at us begging us to buy stuff. One girl was really persistent in trying to sell us some bracelets when we were sat down, after about 15 mins I bought one...and then she shouted to her friends that I had caved, and suddenly we were swarmed by kids! I think I have realised that it is so little money to us and they are desperate for it, I think the bracelet was about 20p. Maybe I will buy something else next time, will take a bit of getting used to, it is a very different place.

Tonight we are off to a restaurant which gives some of its profits to help street kids, thought we'd get involved in a bit of local charity helping...

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Flip flop stealers

Thursday, March 04, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

So, I have now been on the island of Koh Chang for 4 days.  Yesterday we moved from our posh residence to a hut on the beach in Kai Bae (still on the same island) which is about a 3rd of the price, there is no pool, but we are on the beach?! 

I am now beginning to realise I should have taken heed to my doctors advice about my malaria pills...he mentioned something about staying out of the sun, which until now I seem to have been ignoring.  There will be no pictures of me for the next week...

The island is ace, and really not what I expected.  Lonely Beach (where we were staying) was kind of secluded but actually, not as secluded as some of the other places we have now been.

Right, I have got to get this off my chest, they seem to have this thing here where you have to take your shoes off at the door of places, like shops, bars, hotels etc.  It's taken me a while to get used to it, but now I pretty much have the hang of it.  However, I've been checking out these piles of shoes at doors thinking 'that is just asking for someone to take the wrong ones home'....someone flaming nicked my flipflops!  What is that about?!  To add insult to injury, they swapped them with their really worn manky version of the same ones.  It's ok though, I'm over it and have in actual fact now replaced them.


Today we went on a boat trip which involved going to 4 islands and doing a bit of snorkelling.  This was fun until I remembered I couldn't snorkel, but I still had a good time.

This evening, we went for a sunset 'sunburn' swim.  Basically, waited for the sun to start setting and then went in the water so our sunburn didn't sting (we really are that cool), I am not the only one looking rather pink.  Anyway, it was amazing, I can't explain how amazing the view is and just how warm the water is - it was like having a hot bath, but better, because it didn't keep getting cold so you have to keep filling it up with hot, it was just hot, and ace.



Thanks to everyone who has made comments and sent messages, sorry I haven't replied to you all, but I like reading them!  Tomorrow we are off to Siem Reap in Cambodia.



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Ko Chang

Monday, March 01, 2010 | Posted by Hazel

Arrived at Koh Chang Island today, it isn't like I had imagined it, but then I am not really sure what I had imagined.  It's pretty secluded, our hotel is nice, got an 'infinity pool' and everything.  We're really near the beach and it looks pretty idyllic.  Took quite a while to get here and was a pretty amazing journey, got a bus, then a dilapidated ferry and then squeezed on to the back of a pick up truck which got us here, just about.  I love a bit of adventure anyway.

For those interested, I think the fish have made my feet smoother, they are feeling rather good today.

We're here for a couple more days and then we head off to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  The heat is different here and the mosquitos are malarious(sp?) so I am spraying lots of stuff on me!

Also, I am quite excited because I have just read my emails and had one to confirm my volunteering for a couple of weeks time and I am going to be working on a farm in Sangkla Buri, on the burmese border, its a vegetarian farm...how did they know?! (By the way, I'm not a vegetarian, but apparently I look like one, and now even people I haven't met are making assumptions about me.)

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