Back from Oz

As you probably know I was back in oz for two weeks as a surprise for my dad’s 60th and Dilan’s christening. Needless to say it went swimmingly but all too quickly.

I arrived back late Tuesday night and convinced a taxi driver to take me back to Kampong Speu. He had one of those cars with an automatic seatbelt thingy…very weird!

Last week we had a wedding outside our place…I mean literally outside our place. They blocked off the intersection and left us a small passageway to negotiate through to get out. ''Unfortunately'' it was a day wedding so we missed the karaoke.

A couple of days after getting back I decided I wanted to get out to the field so I headed off to Kampong Chnang Province with Sovanna, Bora and Sokhom. This was by far the best trip I have had. We crossed the Tonle River on this tiny little ferry then had to do some hardcore four wheel driving through flooded areas and over rice bunds. Lots of fun.
We were there to measure a dyke that had been built near a catchment. It was kinda spooky cos there was nothing around at all but rice paddies as far as the eye could see. Felt like we were in the middle of nowhere . This dyke has cut the amount of fuel the farmers need to pump water into their fields by 98%.

The return trip on the ferry we had some very reluctant cows joining us.

We had dinner that night in Kampong Chnang town (I think my favourite town in Cambodia so far) and we got to chatting over some beers. Sovannah is an older guy who is quite reserved in the office but get a few drinks into him and he has tonnes of stories. He talked about how when he was young he could hear the American B52 bombers flying overhead starting at 7pm and finishing at 4am to bomb the border area of Cambodia and Vietnam to try and get the Vietcong. We now know that the American's bombed a lot more than the border areas (including destroying the former capital of Oudong near present day Phnom Penh).

The next day we visited a Cham (Muslim) school to collect some documents. Interestingly enough the students there didn’t wear the headscarf at school even though there was no government rule stopping them.

We also dropped in on a really poor village that had been told by their commune chief that we had approved a project last year. So the villagers built 700m of the 1km road only to be told that there had been a mistake and the road wasn’t approved. We did an assessment and found that most households had ran out of rice and the rice yield from their very small plots was extremely low (about half what it should be). We all decided that we would try and help them restart the road and continue it for 2km more meaning that in the rainy season, the kids can get to the closer school rather than the one far away.

Last night I ''sponsored'' a party at the office since i missed the new year so it was an bevy of food, beer and badminton (well I still suck at badminton so i only played one game).

Anyhoo this weekend is a long weekend, i am thinking i will head to Battambang a town near the Thai border for some sightseeing.

Oh and by popular demand, my bike. Just need to pimp my ride with some ribbons and spokie dokes.