Random Camera Phone Stuff

Hey All

I recently invested in a swish mobile phone (having left my phone back in oz!) and have been totally snap happy. Here are some random shots from around the Speu and the Penh to enjoy.

Random Cow Speu-isms

Me Casa (which i inhabit alone as of next month - so ronery!)

Thats Blinky my friendly lizard who wanders around the walls every now and then.

Some field work in the provinces

Cover band singer at our hilarious night out at the Cambodiana Hotel

Lunch by the river after training

Jurassic Speu

Hi everyone

I am blogging from the Speu as usual and its pissing down. The rainy season is meant o be eased off but there is a cyclone affecting Vietnam and sending all the weather loopy. So this morning is the first time ever I have actually rode to work in the rain (cos most of the time rain falls in the afternoon)

Anyhoo the past week has been interesting, we shot up to the province of Pursat for two days. Its a new area we will be working in and is quite stunning as it lies along the Tonle Sap on one side and the Cardamon Mountains on the other. It is known for its marblework so i will definately be heading back up at some stage to buy buy buy :) The area seems to be quite needy as well which is re-assuring about the work we do.

Oh and i loved this sign at a school which says, "no cows allowed".

Anyhoo, I had a really exciting weekend. Stephanie (who I used to work with at AusAID but didnt really know her then) and her friend Merryl came down from the Penh to visit the Speu for the weekend. We organised a taxi and headed out to Kirirom National park for some fresh air.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It was mostly clean, untouched and stunning. It was a little weird to be greeted by a stuffed goat and bear, but hey who am I to judge.

We went for a stroll down to the lake down a trail clearly not often used which was pleasant, but then we got a little lost... ...and someone started talking about land mines. And it isnt a land mine area, but you know whenever someone starts talking about that stuff u get nervous :) We also thought that we were putting ourselves in the perfect setting for a horror movie!

At the information centre there were these paintings of a Apsara and a monkey with the face cut out so we couldnt resist.

After the lake (where we all realised how monumentally unfit we were) we headed off the the waterfall. And when I say waterfall i probably should say rapids. We wanted to go see the real 40m waterfall but our driver kept saying it was too dangerous, or too far so we gave up. One day I will come back and go on a guided nature walk as its pretty nice. Makes you realise that back in Hornsby we have all this stuff but never really appreciate it!

We decided to stop off and have lunch at this wacky place called the Kirirom Hillside Resort. For one check out the faux castle entry!

We went in for an overpriced lunch then snuck out of the restauraunt to avoid paying the $3 entry fee. This place is totally wacky covered in dinosaur statues and other random things for some reason. And it was almost entirely empty on a Saturday! So feeling a rush from being naughty we climbed all over everything and took dodgy photos.

Once we had our fill we attempted to leave and were busted and had to pay the fee anyway. So furious we marched back in and bought some beer and sooked over at the flying fox. But then the flying fox guys came over and set it up and it looked uber dodgy so we all chickened out!

We then returned to the Speu where the rats mercifully let the girls sleep without running all over them and they shot off the next day.

Ive said it once and I will say it again, I love randomness in the Cambodia!

Walk the World 2007

Here are some photos from Walk the World held last Sunday.

The day before we had dinner at Akberet's (Finance/Admin Officer at Phnom Penh) house and had yummy Eritrean food. Then we all suspected Kurt (Assistant Head of Kampong Cham Office) had Dengue so we him over the the clinic and stayed with him till the tests cleared him.

The next morning was Walk the World so blearly eyed i crawled out of bed at 6:30, donned my hideous orange and blue shirt, hopped on a motodop, grabbed some coffee and a croissant and headed down to Hun Sen Park.

It was a fun morning, basically involves us walking around the park to protest child hunger. The march was led by some Khmer traditional art performers (especially good was the lead guy with an axe and some hectic make up) ...

...and 4o0 school kids.

These three received prizes and gave particuraly moving speeches. Their NGO school operates near the garbage dump and gives an opportunity for rag pickers to go to school.

Its meant to be held simultaneously around the world but i think Cambodia was a bit late. It was capped off by a Khmer pop star.

After the march finished at 9am we went over to a restauraunt over the other side of the Japanese Bridge for a farewell for Yuki. He is leaving to work with WFP in East Timor and is just the most awesome, humble and capable guy. He will be missed.

Predictably, our office got hammered which meant a sore head for the rest of the day :)

Secret Chinese Airfields

Hi everyone

Last week on Thursday and Friday I was sick of the office so i went out to Kampong Chnang with a colleaugue. We went to conduct a school feeding baseline survey in new schools we are moving into (which i reckon was total BS but no-one listens to me!) and monitor early morning cooking activities.

As some of you may have heard me rant, the only way to check if a school is cooking the amount of food it says it is is to be there at 5am in the morning when cooking has begun and see if it matches the record.

So after two nights of five am starts I am quite re-convinced on the value of the school feeding program which i had been disillusioned with because many schools were stealing and many kids were not eating.

But these schools the kids were all eating, no stealing and we heard some great stories, such as last year students were passing out from hunger or just eating some rice with salt for breakfast. Now they have enough nutritious breakfast to last the day.

Also while waiting for a School Director i took some photos of buffalo. I love buffalo.

While on the way back to the town, Hay mentioned that there was a disused airport so we swung by to check it out. It was built by the Chinese Government to fly in supplies for its ally, Pol Pot. Rumour has it that all the Cambodians who were forced to work on it were executed to keep it a secret.

We drove up, flipped the army guard a few bucks and he let us in and we drove onto the tarmac. First up this place was spooky, lots of abandoned buildings and it was massive! Much bigger than Phnom Penh airport. Which makes you wonder what they were really using the airport for but we may never know. Awesome experience going at high speed down the tarmac was lots of fun and an experience not many other people have :)

Later that night over some beers (everyone still a bit green from a party at the office a few days earlier that went messy) I found out some intruiging stuff about my colleaugues, including they used to organise marijuana and sandalwood runs to the Thai border when the Vietnamese occupied Cambodia. This guy used to buy it all up from his village, send it to Phnom Penh to get vacuum packed then bribed the Vietnamese army to send it through.

And he also taught me how to make Sandalwood grade 3 look like Sandalwood grade 2 using tobacco.

Oh how i love the randomness of my life :)