Category: Cambodia

It’s all very well going native – eating in local restaurants, calling yourself a barang, feeling very superior as every new batch of holiday-makers arrives for the obligatory 3-day Angkor Wat pilgrimage – but there are times when you just want to let rip and be a total tourist yourself.  So with that idea in… Continue reading The shameless tourist

… on a motorbike. Hurrah for the white van-less society! When everyone’s in an open vehicle, you can see what’s going on – and I must admit that I’ve become a bit obsessed with watching the traffic, just to see what’s coming up the road next. Not sure what these are called, but I saw… Continue reading This little piggy went to market …

  Grace House has the only Special Needs Unit in Siem Reap Province – not just the town but the whole province – which has an area of over 10,000 square km with a population getting on for a million.  The Grace House Unit can take 20 children, with five living in the residential house… Continue reading Good Old Tesco

  Frustratingly, the hotel policy makes no further mention of the dangerous items, leading to all kinds of speculation – hand grenades? TNT? Durian? Wandering past the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, I was surprised to see a member of the Queen’s Guard.  No – not an international exchange of royal guards – he’s just… Continue reading Dangerous items and female visitors

To the person who told me that I ‘must have a foot massage in Cambodia’: what sort of masochist are you? Despite previous experience of Khmer massage techniques, as this had been highly recommended, I was expecting a soothing afternoon – a sort of human version of a Dr Scholl footbath. I lay down and… Continue reading The triumph of hope over experience

To add to my already impressive panoply of skills, I have now learnt how to weave a mat from dried water hyacinth.  I hope you’re impressed.  If you’d ever seen the needlecase I made for my mother at school, you’d be astonished. We went to Tonle Sap, which is the largest lake in south-east Asia. … Continue reading Another handicraft mastered

On a jaunt to the beach – Otres near Sihanoukville – I suffered another violent assault – this time it was called threading. I was approached by two smiley ladies as I sat reading on the beach, and they offered their services, assuring me that afterwards I would be ‘smooth like baby bum’.  How could… Continue reading Beach body ready

  By no means everyone in Cambodia has access to clean water, and this has a massive impact on families and the community.  Water-borne illnesses are a huge threat and children often get ill and can’t attend school and parents can’t work because they’re looking after them, or the parents themselves get ill and can’t… Continue reading Trail Blazers

Like a dog returning to its vomit, I went back to the Khmer Relief Spa for another massage. The lure of the 50% discount proved irresistible – the triumph of parsimony over pleasure.  Happily, I can report that this time my experience was much less violent and I came out bruise-free.  I was even able… Continue reading Evidence of insanity … or the perils of too much free time

I’m surprised that I continue to be surprised by things that happen here, if you see what I mean.  It’s all very well to expect the unexpected, but if you don’t know exactly what you’re expecting, it’s hard to anticipate. In the weekly computer lesson this week, the children were learning to compile a table… Continue reading Two surprises and a shock

Adding to my many talents, I went on a jewellery workshop at Ammo.  Their USP is that they make beauty out of something ugly, and at the same time give training to young Cambodians in jewellery design. I went with Alyce, another volunteer, and we spent a morning making a necklace out of a bullet.… Continue reading How to recycle your used bullets

Yesterday I was on library duty – sorting books, sticking in loose pages and so on. Whilst the English section is full of page-turners where Biff and Chip go to a car boot sale or spend the morning watching paint dry, the Khmer section was far more interesting for a barang like me. The books… Continue reading Once upon a time

Khmer people have great difficulty with the sounds ‘th’, ‘sh’ and ‘w’ in English.  And they don’t pronounce the end of words in Khmer either, so when speaking English they fall into two groups – those who don’t pronounce the ends of English words, and those who end practically every English word with an ‘s’,… Continue reading Investigating the language

I’ve become a groupie. Kevin, an American guitarist and singer, plays every Monday in Belmiro’s, and I’m always there – waving, singing along, requesting songs and generally behaving in an embarrassing way. Kevin has a broad fan base. Here he is with Jess who’s 21. And this is Rene, a 69 year-old Cuban, who grew… Continue reading Another confession

I’ve been to two unusual local meals recently. The first was in the village, at the house next door to the school, and was hosted by Momm, who works in the special needs department at Grace House. The whole school staff was invited to lunch, and it was a special lunch for Momm’s mother-in-law who… Continue reading Getting my own back on the crocodiles

  Thankfully my male mid-life crisis only seems to strike at weekends, so I haven’t yet strutted into school wearing a large medallion and a Hawaiian shirt. This weekend it was quad biking. Annette and I were given a quick demo and then a five-minute test.  I passed and was deemed safe to go out… Continue reading Hell-raisin’ again

I have been blessed three times so far in Cambodia and have now started giving off a saintly glow – either that or my antiperspirant’s stopped working. The first time was on a food tour, where we stopped for a blessing on our way to the food market. It must have worked because I ate… Continue reading I am truly blessed

Well, I’ve taught a couple of cracking science lessons this week – even the school director was impressed.  Perhaps I’ve missed my vocation after all. I used great ingenuity, as the lesson plan to teach The Solar System required many spherical objects of different sizes, including a coriander seed and a blueberry.  Cambodia is famous… Continue reading Thank God for mini aubergines

Going shopping is a very different experience here, as I discover every time I go out to buy something. If you want some tanning products – something to give you that healthy bronzed glow – forget it.  Everything here’s all about being white. Even international brands have a different slant over here. In fact, it’s… Continue reading The grass is always greener … or browner … or whiter

The patisserie is just across the road from the school. First thing in the morning they cook the cakes in special containers with burning wood on top and underneath. The cook lifted the lid to show me the cakes sizzling away. Then Grandma bags them all up and hangs them up and they sell them… Continue reading A visit to patisserie