SIHANOUKVILLE

The weekend, it would seem, has finished off the volunteers. Halfway through: "Now how do you think you spell it? 'Th' 'th', what two letters make a 'th' sound?" I had to go off and find reinforcements from the volunteers who lay sprawled out on their beds. A weekend of buckets (as it sounds: buckets filled with whiskey, red bull and coke) has diminished motivation somewhat...

We left school on Friday lunch time and took the 4 hour bus south to the coastal town of Sihanoukville. The town itself is rather non-descript but the beach, scattered with guesthouses and bars is quite nice. Not a patch on Thailand, I am told, and we were unlucky with the weather but a good time was had by all, as is often the case when the company perhaps makes up for what was lacking in the scenery.
We arrived to an overcast afternoon, booked ourselves onto an island tour for the following day, and said a prayer, before heading out to celebrate our arrival... Why is it always hard to resist plunging into the sea at stupid o'clock in the morning when it is pouring with rain?
The following morning we crept tentatively out of bed and onto the boat, some looking a bit green, and eyed the sky hopefully for patches of blue. For the most part of the day we were fortunate. We snorkeled in the sunshine and peered at rather unimpressive coral (Belize is a hard act to follow) and then sat and sipped Beer Lao (hair of the dog) on a white sanded island surrounded by turquoise water and watched the dramatic storm clouds gather on the horizon.
We chased the storm home again and only once we were safely stowed back in our rooms for 'nap time' did the heavens open and the thunder had our windows rattling. In between rain bursts we dashed out to the bar for round 2.

Sihanoukville is as famous for hawkers pushing souvenirs as Siem Reap and, once again, I marvelled at the level of English and salesman banter possessed by these miniature adults.
A little girl, who looked about 8, squatted next to me sucking thoughtfully on a straw and pointed to my legs. "I do for you, no problem." I guessed she meant hair removal of some kind so politely declined, slightly resenting her rather impertinent observation. "You want bracelet? I make for you?" I showed her my wrists and ankles, already adorned with trinkets from previous adorable children.
"I have no money" I told her. She studied me suspiciously and smiled slyly.
"If you have no money, how did you get here?" Ok, she had me. I have become all to familiar with these kind of conversations and persuaded her that nowhere within my towel or bikini was there any cash. She relaxed and settled down for a chat anyway. She was 12 and spoke Thai, Vietnamese, English, French and Swedish and had an extensive knowledge of their vital statistics such as populations and capital cities. I tested her for a while, finally decided that she was much better informed than me and we both bid each other "Good luck to you." This was one of the more pleasant experiences. Some of the kids are aggressive and can get nasty. "Vietnamese" the Khmer confide to me with a knowing nod. Funny how neighbours always hate each other. The Cambodians and Vietnamese are still at daggers.

We returned to Phnom Penh last night. For me and Philip, another volunteer, it is our last week before we head off to Vietnam. 4 more days of "No, that's not a preposition is it? That's a noun. Spell it out." And I think I'll miss it. Time is going fast!

"Erm, Teacher Jasmine? Maybe you could help with this?" I knew my long division gremlin would come back and haunt me at some point and here it was leering up at me from the page of an exercise book and the expectant turned up face of a 12 year old boy. Teacher Katie slunk away to help the younger kids with nice friendly things like adding up and taking away. My mental arithmetic and spelling is being dug out from somewhere deep in the back of my mind and I'm rather enjoying it.
The school is made up of children from very different backgrouds. Muoy's aim being to train children in social interaction not limited to economic circumstances. She is a fiercely intelligent Khmer woman with a PHD in French, who returned to Cambodia for her retirement and opened the school with the mind to change the Khmer attitude to education and work. She believes that, despite all the wonderful elements of the Khmer mentality (if indeed such a mentality can be assigned to an entire nation) there lie some serious flaws. The kind of flaws that allow horrific atrocities to take place. She wants to set about moulding the young mailable minds of "our future" to see if she can produce the kind of people who might lead Cambodia into the 21st Century and out of the 3rd World. I admire her drive, she is single minded and very stubborn but she gets things done. Us volunteers scamper about under her watchful eye and hope that we live up to expectations.
There are 7 of us now. Socially, of course, this leads to much merriment although getting us all organised is quite a feat and transport is often tricky: 7 in a tuk-tuk or 3 on the back of a moto (impressive and amazingly not impossible). We are heading off to Sihanoukville on the coast this weekend with another house of volunteers which, I have no doubt, will be a lot of fun, if chaotic...
We have all been feeling a little guilty, the comfortable house, the swimming pool... not really the 'roughing it' volunteer 'experience' we expected but we bare the disappointment as best we can.
The teaching is demanding, however, and very rewarding, the children are fantastic, so bright and hungry for knowledge. It is a full time job though. Some of the children live at the school which can be a little unsettling when creeping out of your room on a Sunday morning, feeling a little fragile, to be greeted with a cheery chorus of "Good morning Teacher Katie!" But I think I might actually miss it.
It is the end of another excuciatingly hot day - April being the hottest month of the year - and I think it might be time for another little dip in that pool...

"Teacher Katie, teacher Katie!" (Said with varying degrees of command as the children tramp expectantly up the stairs in the morning) "What shall we do?"
Seeing as the school follows the unstructured Montessori method of teaching, that is often a very good question. Thankfully, I have been landed with the older children (between 8 and 13 years old) who not only have very good English, but a remarkable enthusiasm for learning. I have the comparatively easy task of nudging them along and trying to keep the Creative Corner from looking like a bomb's hit it. I find myself chanting "Now who used the glitter glue?" whilst pointing, with attempted severity at the offending splodge on the table. "Who will clean it up?" Unless you are Mary Poppins, which I'm not, it is impossible to get children to tidy up. I'm not very fond of doing so myself.
The two hour lunch break is a God send, as you can imagine, and I thoroughly appreciate 'nap time.'
But two days down and no dramas so far. I am enjoying That Friday Feeling for the first time for a long time and there is much talk of Happy Hour for which I feel more than ready.
I am enjoying staying put in one place for a little while too. You get a better sense of a place if you attempt daily life and I am getting to know Phnom Penh. I am still, however, to master sitting 3 on a moto when 2 of you are side saddle, only then, when I can do so and sit with my ankles crossed, my arms folded neatly in my lap and bounce serenely through the crazy streets without flinching, THEN I shall be at home here...
Tomorrow we shall have a full house as the final volunteers arrive and we are celebrating that with another jaunt to the Heart of Darkness. I have a sneaking suspicion that I shall be on that stage a lot in the next few weeks, watch out prostitutes, here I come again...

CAMBODIA, Phnom Penh Monday 16th April

Well I saw my second New Year in dancing on a stage with 2 excitable Birmingham chaps, being rather fiercely upstaged by painfully thin prostitutes, while scantily clad farang writhed in the smoky pit below us in a club rather aptly named The Heart of Darkness.
Happy New Year South East Asia style! Hmmm. It is sad, the irresistible magnetism that draws the western men and the prostitutes together. It turns bars and nightclubs into seedy fleshy affairs; the girls jostling for attention while the red faced men paw at them with pudgy hands.
I'm not sure what's worse, seeing these young beautiful girls sitting looking bored with fat, balding, middle aged white men, or listening to the young westerners boasting about their conquests and the irresistibly they seem to have in a country where their money is everything. Its all rather gross.

New Year in Phnom Penh was similar to Holi. The streets were full of people throwing water and flour at each other and everyone saw fit to charge me much more money than usual in the spirit of festivity. "Two dollar? (Happy New Year?)"
I thought I'd celebrate the fact that I'd seen in 2 New Years in 5 months and phone home for the 1st time... guilt.
As I was having a good old catch up with Mummie, one of the other volunteers arrived so hurrah! The school is filling up and will be kicking into action any day now. So we can shape and bend the mailable young minds to form the leaders of tomorrow. This is Muoy's dream anyway. I myself will be happy if I managed to sort out and categorise 'Spot the Dog' into appropriate reading levels as requested... One thing at a time.

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat (written from Phnom Penh, Saturday 14th April)

From ruthless destruction to inspired creation...

Bright and early on Tuesday morning (5am to be precise) I crept out of my guesthouse into the dark streets of Siem Reap where my motor driver was waiting for me.
He'd managed to secure my business the day before on our way from the bus station when he stopped suddenly in the middle of no where and tried to wheedle a job for the following day. For God's sake. "Guest house, now!" I stormed, I won't talk about it until you we get there." But he had such a sweet smile that I forgave him and agreed to take him on.
When arrived at Angkor it was still dark. Unable to see a thing, I followed the shuffling feet of other die-hards, and we felt our way up some steps and settled ourselves down in front of a big black mass and waited. Gradually, as the sun crept up, the outline of Angkor Wat began to emerge. It is supposed to be the largest religious monument in the world and it really was quite staggering as it loomed up in the early morning light, robust and imposing.
I left the crowd and climbed up to the top, watching the stone begin to glow in the warming light. I entertained myself for an hour or so scrambling in and out of a labyrinth of stone corridors and crumbling courtyards before I rejoined my motor driver and went off to Wat Thom where Bayon, the temple bedecked with enigmatic smiling faces, baring a strong resemblance to King Suryavarman II peer out of the jungle. Then on to Ta Phrom, a temple deeply embedded in the jungle. So deep in fact, that the jungle has taken over and the entanglement of of tree roots and crumbling stone are so inter weaved that it is hard to see where the jungle stops and man begins. This wonderful fusion made it the most impressive of all.
After scrambling up and down a few more temples and getting trapped between tree roots by several bus loads of French and Japanese tourists, I decided that I was watted out for the day and motored back to Siem Ream for a snooze and reflect.
The following day, feeling a little fragile after a night of sampling the Siem Reap night life, I took a tuk-tuk to Banteay Srei, 35km out of Siem Reap. Its name means "Women's Temple" because it was believed that the exquisite stone carvings were too delicate to have been done by a man. My good friend the Lonely Planet informs me that they might be the finest in the world. Quite a claim! But they really are beautiful.
And so I had a happy few days in Siem Reap, which is a nice town although, like Angkor, is not improved by the hoards of travellers. Noisy bars and restaurants offer happy hours and thump merrily into the early morning. I found myself sipping as elegantly as you can out of a bucket at 5am having a heated discussion about the demise of places that pander to the whims of the fun loving travellers and tried not to feel like too much of a hypocrite, which, of course, I was. Again.
Today is Khmer New Year and I am back in Phnom Penh and getting myself ready for some festive cheer...

CAMBODIA - Phnom Penh, the Killing Fields (Saturday 7th April 6.30pm)
I've just posted my story of arrival in Phnom Penh so start from the post below and work up to this one (which is depressing).

Phnom Penh replaced Angkor as the capital in the 1430s. The move was lemented as symbol of decline and really, given its history since, perhaps the foreboding was not far off the mark. It has been dragged through the mud. The mid 17th Century saw it robbed of its access to the sea by the Vietnamese and it became a buffer zone for Vietnam and Thailand. In 1772 Thais burned it to the ground. The arrival of the French brought comparative calm but the city really began to develop in the 50s once Prince Sinhanouk managed to negotiate a peaceful independence. In the years of the Vietnam War and right wing dictator Lon Nol, the city was full to bursting with refugees and a booming middle class getting fat off a corrupted system of capitalism.
On the 17th of April 1975, however, everything changed. The Communist fanatics, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, stormed in and forced the entire population out into the countryside, separated them from their families and forced them to labour in the fields like 'honest peasants.' For 4 years they enslaved Cambodia, working its people to the bone, many starving to death, on inefficient, hair brained projects, spurred on by their fierce and pig headed ideology.
They butchered teachers, doctors, monks, women, children and even each other as they struggled to 'purge' the country of those 'anti the regime' and relinquish their own paranoia.
Tuol Sleng, or S-21, and the Killing Fields still stand as a grim testimony of humanity at its worst. The old school buildings of Tuol Sleng became prisons and torture chambers. In the playground stands the graves of the last 14 victims who lay decomposing, still strapped to their iron beds, the photos of whom remain on the walls of their cells.
Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge were meticulous in documenting their brutality and you can see wall after wall of mug-shots of men, women and children, hands tied behind their backs, each pair of eyes a haunting accusation of a crime to which we are all answerable as it lies within us all.
On other walls hang the photos of the Khmer Rouge 'Combatants'. Dressed in Maoist uniforms, carrying Chinese guns and glaring with arrogant insolence into the camera, some of them can not be more than 10 years old.
15km out of town lie the Killing Fields where S-21 prisoners were executed. You can still see the mass graves, bones and bits of cloth strewn everywhere. A monument has been built and is stuffed full of skeletons of the victims. With cows grazing in the field beyond and children merrily chasing 'farang' asking to have their photos taken and for "1000 ril for a school pen" it is hard to get your head round what was happening on that very spot only 30 years ago.
But time moves on. Phnom Penh is a busy, lively city. Due to the extermination of such a huge proportion of Cambodia's population, there is a great number of young people around. Cambodia has had to start all over again and the post Khmer Rouge generation are rushing around on motorcycles and desperately trying to learn English. For such horrific past, the place does not seem gloomy but hopeful and eager to join the rest of the world. S-21 and the Killing Fields still cast a terrible shadow, in which, I'm sure, the older generation will always remain.
Given the significance of today for Westerners, the day after Good Friday and before the hope granted by the celebrations of Easter Sunday, it seemed a fitting day for me to explore the darker sides of the human character. Tomorrow I shall reconcile myself with the chirpier sights of Phnom Penh.
Now I think I've earned a beer...
Happy Easter!

CAMBODIA - Phnom Penh (Saturday 7th April, 6.00pm)

"Katie, what are you doing in the Russian Embassy? Why didn't you call me when you got off the bus?"
Good bloody question. In a moment of stubborn independence, I decided to make my way to the Seametrey School all by myself. I soon abandoned my tuk-tuk, who clearly had no idea where he was going. The idea that I could do better than him suggests a seriously misplaced confidence in my sense of direction and the chaotically ordered street numbers. The website informed me that the school was close to the Monument of Independence and by the Russian Embassy. Having found the Monument, I then wandered around for 2 hours looking for the Embassy, eyed with curious amusement by the locals as I tramped up and down in the blistering heat with my rucksack getting heavier by the second.
Eventually I was driven to the Embassy by an obliging bus driver, on the back of his moped and the guards emitted me because they could not work out for the life of them what I was talking about. A stern Russian woman questioned me before sending me off to a school round the back where another stern Russian man took me into a side room and asked what he could do for me. At this point I surrendered and sheepishly asked to use their phone before I was imprisoned as a spy.
I was met by Puthy, outside the front of the Embassy and taken the 2 minutes up the road to Seametrey School into which I stumbled, gasping for water, and was told that it was closed until the 17th of April. Argh!
So out of my 4 weeks work, I'll spend 2 of them exploring Siem Reap and cavorting merrily in Phnom Penh with the other New Years revelers. Hmmmm.
Still, it is amazing to unpack and I have a lovely little room, that as of tomorrow, I'll share with another redundant volunteer, and a little kitchen where I can cook, if I can remember how.
I met a few members of staff and 2 little girls with very good English are delighted to have another good natured volunteer to torment.
The school is very much in the midst of development with builders busy all over the place. The main building acts as the school, home of Muoy, the owner of Seametrey, and her husband Khin, and the volunteers' dorms and common room. Khin greeted me and showed me my room before scampering back upstairs, where he spends most of the day, apparently, painting bizarre reproductions of classics. The Mona Lisa sneered at me from one canvas sitting next to a peculiar ghostly figure wrapped in bandages.
I also met Goran, a Swedish volunteer who has been working at Seametrey for almost 6 months and has the weary air of a westerner who has been banging his head against the brick wall of Asian inefficiency for some time. He took me along the river front to the latest Seametrey venture, a floating restaurant which, they hope, will provide an additional income for the school. The sole diners, we had an excellent dinner served to us by two shy young Khmers, one guy, one girl, who beamed at us and giggled good naturedly along with Goran, who is their supervisor and much valued English teacher.
By 8.30 the travelling, the two hour tramp about in the hot sun, and the Angkor beer caught up with me and I was escorted to a moto and swept home where I fell into bed.
A grim day ahead of me...

LAO - Don Det (written from Kratie, Cambodia. Thursday 4th April 12.30pm)

If you are going to manage to lock your passport in a Western Union and notice after it has closed for the weekend, only 2 hours before you have to leave on a bus, then do so on the last Friday month when there are still people in the bank cashing up and make sure you are in Lao where people will move heaven and earth to help you... You might have guessed that I speak from experience. Milka and I had a rather exciting 2 hours last Friday in Vientiane while we charged around frantically trying to find someone to get my bloody passport out of the Western Union where I'd changed travellers cheques earlier that day. Amazingly some kind people, working at another bank, managed to find the man who locked up, got him out of his evening class and he arrived beaming 15 minutes later with my passport. Jabbering gratefully I distributed Beer Lao money and we shot off into the night to catch our bus, stopping to grab some much needed Beer Lao for ourselves too. Few! Silly Katie.
I am a firm believer, however, that you can never enjoy total tranquillity before you've experienced a bit of drama and the 4,000 Islands really were blissful. We arrived on Saturday after a long night bus journey, under slept due our driver's tendency to turn the lights on and blare out horrific Lao pop music at random intervals and generally travel worn after being shifted from bus to bus to pick-up truck and finally boat. Finally we staggered up the sand bank and collapsed in the shade gasping.
Don Det is one of the southern islands and is joined by an old and rather incongruous railway bridge (courtesy of the French) to Don Kon. The Mekong was blue, the sand was white and the trees offered just enough shade to cool us as we swung leisurely in hammocks. You can maybe see why I've been off radar for a while...
Milka and I spent a lovely couple of days reading, cycling, exploring and sipping fruit shakes and Beer Lao in the shade. Remarkably, for such a tiny island, Don Kon has the largest waterfall in South East Asia which can be found if you are feeling energetic enough to brave the heat and cycle over the railway bridge, stopping every few yards for a cold drink (and force the chain back on a rather rickety bicycle). But for the most part we did big fat nothing. Milka left on Monday and I spent Tuesday doing more of just that.
On Wednesday I stirred myself together and hopped on the bus to Cambodia where I am now.
My heart sank when, a few miles away from the river, our minibus swerved off the road and plunged along a dirt track deep into the woods. Surly this can not be the boarder crossing! Thankfully, it was. Really, sometimes you are aware of how at the mercy of your guides you actually are, but if you didn't trust anyone you'd never get anywhere. So we crossed the boarder, with only a minimal bribe, and a paved road was waiting for us to sweep us into Cambodia.

Cambodia: Land where anything is possible if you are willing to pay for it. I began to hear rumours in Thailand that in Cambodia, if you were so inclined, and able to pay a token $500 you could blow up a cow with a rocket launcher. At first I thought it might be a ridiculous rumour, would they have enough people interested to make such a venture worth while? As I travelled I repeated this rumour, only to have it mirrored by plenty of people who had heard the same thing, some of whom where busily counting their money with excited gleams in their eyes.
On my last night on Don Det I finally met someone who had done it. Well, it had been a goat - a bit cheaper you see - however, not content simply to blow something to smithereens, he went one step further and decided to do it naked. I know this because, you've guessed it, he had a photo. So I found myself gawping at a photo of this guy, rocket launcher on shoulder wearing nothing but a pair of ear muffs and a smile, with 2 giggling Cambodian prostitutes hiding his modesty. You can imagine that I was edging away from him at this point...

So yes! Here I am in Cambodia. I haven't been offered a rocket launcher yet but I haven't given up hope yet.
In fact, my first impressions are only positive. I am in Kratie, a little market town, slightly shabby but still pretty, with a market in the centre of a piazza surrounded by European-style buildings with little balconies.
Last night, in the bar, we were the source of much hilarity for the waiter. "You all have such big noses!" He giggled pointing to his own button-nose. "Europeans, very funny."
We spent the morning floating about staring at Dolphin's fins in the Mekong and splashing about in the rapids with our motor taxi drivers who made us flower wreaths for our hair and gallivanted about in the waves giggling good humourdly at us and each other. They all seem so cheerful! Amazing really, considering their all too recent history.
Tomorrow I have a 6 hour bus journey to the capital, a mixture I'm told of old colonial charm and a den of iniquity. I'm intrigued...