Catchup

So a few weeks back, I met this woman who was working on tourism branding for Cambodia. Other countries in the region has reasonably successful ones (Incredible India, Malaysia Truly Asia) and others not so successful (Seoul - Soul of Asia). At the time my friend joked it should be 'Scambodia'.

Well today we have confirmation that Cambodia is truly a Scambodia. Transperancy International released its 2008 ranking of transparency which Cambodia comes in at 166/180, or the 15th corrupt country in Cambodia, more transparent than Sudan, Iraq, Burma, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and a smattering of the 'Stans. This would be a good segue into a dissertation on corruption but to be honest I don't have much to say on the matter.

Life has been exceedingly quiet. We are conducting School Feeding Program refresher courses for the teachers, cooks etc. and its all done in Khmer. And quite frankly when I attend the participants spend more time grinning at me then paying attention. So I have been to a few but mostly I have been going nuts in the office.
A few weekends ago, my friend Cristy left Cambodia for good, so we had a little shin dig at a North Korean restaurant run and owned by the North Korean Government (including imported North Korean waitresses) . Now in theory that sounds awesome - red carpets, busts of the great leader, cigarette smoke, lots of glasses with the classic 'Kim Jong Il' frame. But alas, we entered to a very very bright cafeteria style decor with no communist or great leader merchandise. The food was great but exceedingly expensive (this place may be one of the few hard currency enterprises propping the state up?).

We were also entertained by the imported North Korean waitresses and their gawdy costumes that made them all look pregnant. I guess it was ok, but not exactly cultural (although they did have that 'I am just ecstatic to be here' face that Communists seem to have perfected so well). The highlight was a Bridal Waltz played by this woman on the violin mixed with bad midi techno by the woman on the keyboard in the corner.

Apart from that not much has been going on. I had to take a days leave just to go to the post office to post my giant wooden head [finally] and another suitcase back to oz. I was doing it all in Khmer so i was a bit chuffed but it all got too much when after they inspected the boxes, showed them the export certificate for the head and sealed it all up with a few metres of tape, another woman came out and asked me to open it again. My Khmer skills evaporated with exasperation and another woman with some english came out and helped me, with the help of me flashing my winning smile : )

Oh and as i was wandering up and down Phnom Penh looking for cushion covers for me mum , i passed the Russian Cultural Centre (Russians have a massive presence here as a hangover from the Vietnamese Communist times - curiously enough so do the other communist states with Cuba, Bulgaria and Poland having embassies here). Out the front they had a photo display of "Humanitarian Catastrophe in South Ossetia". Geography buffs will know South Ossetia is the region that Russia invaded Georgia to protect. I love propaganda!
So I am off to Singapore on Saturday for the "Festival of the Dead"(Pchum Benh) holidays and next week almost all staff have taken leave for the week so i am holding the fort solo. So my boss suggested setting up a hammock in the office : ) Oh and Mony just told me Lauren Bush (Dubya's niece) is visiting us in October. Not sure why so many republicans and no democrat visitors?

Bye

Cambodia wins ASEAN Gold!

Living on what is perhaps the busiest road in Cambodia , National Road 4 to Sihanoukville [beach resort and Cambodia's only deep water port] , which carries innumerable tourist buses, container trucks, VIP cars and police escorts [officials on the way to the beach] as well as the more common regular cars, motorbikes, vans, bicycles, ox carts and random cows, this article does not surprise me.



"Phnom Penh (dpa) - Cambodia is now officially home to the most dangerous roads in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, officials said.

Cambodian drivers are infamous for their blithe disregard for traffic laws, let alone the laws of physics, and as roads improve rapidly this combination resulted in an average of 4.5 people dying on the country's roads every day, new statistics said - up from 3.7 in 2006.

Figures by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport for the first half of 2008 show 3,870 documented traffic accidents, resulting in 6,839 people injured and 956 killed -nearly 15 per cent higher than last year.

The government spent millions on driver education-- television and newspaper ads,driver education centres, after the Asian Development Bank estimated accidents cost the country 3 per cent of its GDP in 2003 alone.

However, poorly paid traffic police often lack the will to enforce the law and a "fine" of 1.25 dollars (or 2.50 dollars if the driver insists on a receipt) usually makes the traffic violation go away.

Drunk driving is also rampant, but Cambodia has no more sophisticated ways of testing if a driver is over the limit than smelling his or her breath - usually after the accident."




In fact it's not too uncommon for me to see an accident on the trips up to Phnom Penh, sometimes with a body lying on the road. The ICRC runs a prosthetics factory here which was originally set up for land mine victims, but they say now the largest group is people who have lost limbs in accidents (wide use of motorbikes means limbs are unprotected and often damaged beyond repair - although i have heard that public hospitals here would rather amputate than treat a wound!).

On a personal note, I can't believe its September already! The time is flowing away and i am having very mixed feelings about it. The power problems have returned and upon reflection the times we had good power supply was during the election campaign. I have two mice in cages I caught last night which i didn't have the stomach to deal with this morning so I am hoping the cleaner takes care of them before i get home :)

Spent the weekend in Kampong Speu which was exceedingly quiet, but i managed to watch underbelly on dvd which i though was EXCELLENT and fascinating.

My best friend here, Cristy, is heading home this weekend so we will have her farewell at a North Korean restaurant owned by the North Korean embassy as a hoot. And the Jayvaraman VII wooden head has been successfully sent so should be interesting if it makes it to Oz.

Our jolly cleaner Bong Yung (the woman who I would have lengthy Khmer conversations with while she cleaned my office, me understanding about 10% of it and the rest were saying yes and smiling/laughing) has left and been replaced by another girl who looks like she wants to kill herself. Kinda a downer first thing in the morning but oh well.

Trying to plan out my remaining weekends to squeeze in a visit to a temple called Banteay Chhmar in one of the northern provinces but things look a bit tight this month. One of our drivers, Pliek, is from there so i am hoping to con one of his relatives to play driver/tour guide for me.

Bye!

Les Manquiers (The Mango Trees)

Three words...Kick Ass Weekend

So this past weekend I headed down to Kampot with a group of (mostly) Americans I know through various sources to a riverside guesthouse called Les Manquiers which everyone totally raves about. It was organised by my friend Steve a few weeks back and kind of sneaked up on me which was a pleasant surprise.

But before I got there, the weekend before in Phnom Penh i had some bad ice and had muscle aches, diarrhoea and headaches which laid me out for the weekend but which I mostly kicked by Monday after a sleep in and a late arrival to work. But what was really weird was that i constantly felt my world was spinning and having real balance troubles, tripping over, running into doors that kinda thing (hilarious i know!). So i went down to Sihanoukville AGAIN for work, drank lots of beer, ate lots of seafood but that didn't seem to cure it...So i took Friday off work and saw the doctor in Phnom Penh and had a blood test. Nothing showed up but the doctor said i probably had some infection in my balance canals which was sending my system haywire and advised i rest up. Thankfully now i am mostly back to normal : )

While in Phnom Penh i was able to stop by the Office of Antiquities to pick up our export certificates for my bitching Jayavaraman VII wooden heads. Next step, actually posting it! On that note i wanted to share my bitching 'Hanuman slaying the Crocodile" (the photo doesnt do it justice). I got it in Pursat which is famous for marblework. It weighs only 6 or 7kg so i think i will take it back on the plane but its a bit fragile so i will have to pack it well.

Anyway, so i headed up to Chom Chao (the intersection of the road to Kampong Speu and the road to Kampot to await the taxi the Phnom Penites had chartered). It got pretty dark pretty quickly and Chom Chao aint the kind of place people linger. Luckily there was a fruit seller who took pity on me and offered me a seat under his lamp and we had some small talk.

We finally arrived at the place and spent the weekend eating, reading, drinking and learning to play dominos. The highlight had to be a kayak trip a few of us made up the river. It was really beautiful to get in amongst the mangrove inlets and see lots of green. Unfortunately our 3 person canoe worked a but like a game of table tennis so we kind of zig zagged hitting the sides of the inlet, earning us the name 'Team Zig-Zag", the poor German girl at the front being the battering ram. We got a wee bit lost and followed this inlet down which got progressively smaller and smaller before we admitted defeat and turned back. After several attempts to use our Khmer skills, one family living nearby directed us the way out.

We headed out into the open river and headed for the nearest beach to have a swim. Unfortunately team zig-zag has expended all our energy when we got lost and we were all so exhausted we arrived back to the resort a good 45 minutes past everyone else (right when the wind was picking up making it even harder!). I am still sore!

Time passed all to quickly and I decided to take the bus up from Kampot, as the van the others had hired was going by a different road and it would be hard for me to connect back to Kampong Speu. Of course I had decided that the weekend had gone entirely too smoothly for me, so about half way through the bus trip I felt something very uncomfortable in my pockets and pulled out the room key to the bungalow DOLT!

Luckily there was another person there on the bus who was with our group so i organised for her to have the key and the management of the hotel said they would send their regular taxi guy to pick it up...

This week I am hoping to just do day trips in Kampong Speu to rest up a little bit but these things are bound to change very quickly!