There was great excitement at breakfast today – well from me, at any rate.  I walked into the dining room to be greeted by a brand, spanking new coffee machine … and it works perfectly!  Chay, the assistant manager, told me proudly that they’d spent $4,500 on it. It’s the sort that grinds the beans… Continue reading Breakfast gadgetry

I’ve been to a cookery class.  A local hotel runs half-day classes which start with a visit to the market with the chef. She bought some of the ingredients for the meal we were going to cook. These are banana flowers, used to make a salad. No part of the animal goes to waste –… Continue reading Cooks in tuk tuks

I decided to indulge in a massage, and the Khmer Relief Spa came highly recommended. When I arrived I was given iced jasmine tea, with a lotus flower looking very zen in a little bowl on the tray.  I was then invited to choose my massage, and opted for the anti-stress release, advertised as ‘a… Continue reading The Khmer Relief Spa

Whilst I was busy getting lost the other day, I happened upon a shadow puppet show being put on in the grounds of a local restaurant by some students. They had written the show themselves, and were performing it to raise money for their school. In a more conscious effort to learn more about the… Continue reading A spot of culture

A trip out has given me the idea for a new business in the UK … hammock bars. I went out with some of the staff at the school, vaulting onto the back of a motorbike as if I was born to it, and we headed out of town for the day. First stop was… Continue reading How many monks can you fit in a tuk tuk?

As I finish school at three on a Friday, I decided to go on a jaunt afterwards and visit something nearby.  I was investigating the possibilities and came across the crocodile farm, which advertises ‘crocodiles of various sizes and dispositions’.  I found this intriguing because I’d been led to believe that all crocodiles were of… Continue reading Misunderstood crocodiles

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