Training in the Thum

As the food for work focal point I thought it my duty to inform you of my crazy week of Karaoke, sun and hangovers. Yes it was the annual food for work training when the Kampong Speu boys go off the leash in another province, Kampong Thom.

The drive up there was stunning. There are heaps of flooded plains so you see large trees with only their tips sticking out and people getting around on canoes. One day I want to take a taxi so I can stop and take photos. Luckily the word of the day for me was ‘noumbankchok’- rice noodles and low and behold we had lunch at a rice noodle restaurant. Most of the bridges here were built by the Australian Government so there are kangaroo signs everywhere.

It was three days, two theory (mostly in Khmer) and one practical which was lots of fun wading in the pond but everyone got really sunburnt.
The real fun was at night when we went for dinner and inevitably karaoke. We had dinner at the beef restaurant which was well very meaty. A particular highlight was one dish presented as ‘breast of cow’ which after some enquiries turned out to be the cow udder. Hey it wasn’t that bad!

Afterwards we would proceed to karaoke and I shocked myself at how bad my “Hello” by Lionel Ritchie was. And my hat goes off to Jordan and Peter Andre as singing the theme from Aladdin is very hard!