I thought you might like to hear the wedding music that’s started up again this morning, so have made a one-minute recording from my bedroom. Turn your speakers up to full blast and play on a continuous loop for three days for the genuine experience.  

You can see what look like small shrines on poles outside buildings all over Siem Reap and the surrounding villages.  These are called Neak Ta and the tradition dates from pre-Angkorian times ie before the 9th Century, when people had animist beliefs. It is important to build one before you build your house, to ask… Continue reading Celestial planning permission

Today I made a disturbing discovery. As if running the country wasn’t taxing enough, our esteemed Prime Minister has another job; she’s moonlighting as a teacher at Biff and Chip’s school. All I can say say is that she makes a bit more of an effort when she’s in Parliament, and actually she scrubs up… Continue reading A disturbing discovery

Much as Garrison Keillor always began, ‘Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon’, I could always start ‘Well, it’s been a hot week in Siem Reap.’ Despite the heat, the children race around just like children everywhere. These girls play rope-jumping before school, and can jump it at incredible heights by flicking it… Continue reading Another day, another dollar

I took a trip out to the spice garden, where I was the only visitor and the staff were all far too busy to take any notice of me. So I wandered around, enjoying the huge number of butterflies everywhere.  There were a lot of pepper vines – Cambodia is famous for producing very good… Continue reading It’s just not cricket …

In full male midlife crisis mode again, I leapt onto a vespa and headed off to the temples at Angkor Wat. Not Easyvespa, although the machines were all bright orange. I turned out to be the only person on the tour, so I had a private guide for the day, which was wonderful – although… Continue reading In which I star in the remake of Tomb Raider

I visited the pagoda across the road from the hotel today. I’ve learnt that the difference between a temple and a pagoda is that there are monks at a pagoda and not at a temple.  I’m also starting to recognise some of the characters that appear on the temples and pagodas. This is Naga, the… Continue reading Investigating monks’ laundry and menopausal nuns

On Friday we had a party – in fact we had two parties, one for the morning classes and one for the afternoon classes.  The party was funded by a group of student physiotherapists from Australia who have been working with the special needs unit for three weeks.  All the children came in wearing their… Continue reading The school party

I’ve spent my whole life getting lost – I have a terrible sense of direction and never know where I am on a map – so it’s very refreshing to be living in a town where everyone else is also permanently lost. It’s not difficult to get lost in Siem Reap – even if you… Continue reading Not lost in translation, just lost

Cambodia’s not the country for a lie-in.  This morning I was woken by the wedding music – getting used to that – and by a gecko who sounded so close that I was convinced he was about to jump into bed with me.  If you’ve never heard a gecko, they make the strangest sound, which… Continue reading Maths and English, enlivened by a green bun

I nipped out this morning to collect my laundry ($1 a kilo, washed and ironed) and on my return saw a monk standing silently outside the entrance to the guest house.  I was very taken by his robes with perfectly co-ordinating umbrella, but didn’t like to photograph him face on, so I followed him to… Continue reading Stalking a monk and gatecrashing a wedding

A couple of months ago I watched a programme where the sprightly septuagenarian Angela Rippon skipped around the world looking for the secret of eternal youth.  She found it on an island in Japan, where the average age of the inhabitants is about 150, and the secret ingredient in their diet is the purple sweet… Continue reading The purple Pringle

On Monday mornings the children all have to pick up the litter from around the school site.  The two different groups – the morning and the afternoon groups – each do it twice a week, and it really needs doing because Cambodia seems to be covered in plastic.  There are empty drinks bottles and old… Continue reading Computers, geography and rain

I have had a very strange, kafka-esque sort of day, involving both a strange awakening and insects. I woke up this morning to discover that I had developed a full-blown male mid-life crisis (mediatas limen discrimine) and was desperate to book myself on a motorbike tour – ok, a vespa tour – of the night… Continue reading In which I am struck down with mediatas limen discrimine

School is morning or afternoon only, so in theory there’s no need to serve school lunch, but there are about twenty children at school who wouldn’t get any lunch if they went home, so there are two school cooks who make lunch for them every day. They have a sort of stew with rice, and… Continue reading School lunch

My day started at 5 am today, with very loud, tinny, tuneless music playing somewhere nearby.  As it was still going on two hours later, I asked the staff at breakfast what it was.  They told me that for any type of special ceremony such as a wedding or a funeral the music is played… Continue reading Next, the Games Teacher …

Why did I ever think it was difficult to be an art teacher?  The answer to that is obviously propaganda and misinformation from currently-employed art teachers who don’t want the rest of us to find out what a doddle it is. I turned up this morning in some trepidation for my first art class, consoling… Continue reading The art lesson

I spent my first day observing at Grace House.  The first rule is: always remove your shoes before entering a room … including a classroom: This is the easiest thing in the world to forget if , like me, you’ve spent a lifetime walking into rooms without giving your footwear a second thought.  I keep… Continue reading Grace House

I went down to breakfast this morning and noticed signs all over the guest house asking guests to be quiet, which seems a not unreasonable request, but also banning hedgehogs, which was frankly baffling and got me wondering whether the locals have a habit of smuggling hedgehogs into hotels: When I asked about this I… Continue reading Discrimination against hedgehogs

I’ve always known that there are three steps to heaven, but I hadn’t realised before today that British Airways was quite so closely involved. I turned up at Heathrow with an extra suitcase full of all the toys and other materials donated by friends and colleagues for the children’s project in Cambodia, quite prepared to… Continue reading The British Airways hotline to heaven