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Published: March 27th 2011
Hello everyone
To start, an apology – I've been incredibly slack on the blogging this past week, forgive me please! So to make up what follows is a bumper update....hold onto your hats....
So, last time we spoke I was finishing my Placement Visit Week, having sorted a house/bank account/meet and greet and was about to head out to Siem Reap. So, some breaking news that's over a week old, I made it safely and soundly to Siem Reap! After a 1hr bus journey - very short by Cambodian standards - I met up with Louise in Siem Reap at our guesthouse, where we both had every intention of having an awesome night!
The day before was her birthday, and the day I arrived was St Patrick's day....Louise being from Cork and my Ma being being from Dublin, you can see where this is heading! Siem Reap is a wicked part of Cambodia, very touristy, but great nevertheless. We went out for a lovely dinner at a place called The Red Piano, where as an indulgence we had a very nice bottle of red wine – my first since arriving in Cambodia, bliss!
After dinner we headed
to Molly Malones, an Irish bar (quelle suprise) in the heart of Siem Reap - in true St Paddy's Day fashion, we started off with a pitcher of green beer! What then followed was many hours of singing, dancing, drinking and laughing. A highlight of the night was when the bar staff started asking questions, with the right answer being rewarded with a shot and T-Shirt. At this point I must state that despite Louise's rampant Irish patriotism, she was not exactly on the mark with the answers!! A highlight was when, several hours in, a rather simple question was asked - “Who robbed us?” For the footie fans, you'll know the answer. To the non-football fans, the answer is “France” - a reference to the French double handball in the World Cup qualifiers that meant France went through and Ireland were knocked out.
However, to Louise, the answer was far more simple - “ENGLAND!!!” Which she then proceeded to shout louder and louder, whilst pointing to me screaming “England, he's English!!!” Not a great scene when you are in a crowded bar full of drunk (mostly plastic) Paddys....thankfully, the lovely bar lady was at my side, saying over
the mic she loves the English! Louise finally shouted out the right answer, so I too got a shot put in front of me – my kind of lady!
We did a quick tally on the way home, and between us we managed to drink 2 tankards of beer, a bottle of red wine, a pitcher of green beer, 4 Jack D & cokes, 4 G&Ts, 4 White Russians, 2 baby Guinness (cocktails) a double Southern Comfort and and a double Jameson....my liver and kidney's earned their pay that night! So the night dragged on into the early hours, with Lou and I leaving Molly's about 4am, and winding back at the hotel and getting into bed at about 4:15am.....ready to be up bright and breezy for a 7am bus to Phnom Penh! Suffice to say Louise was not at her most chatty that journey...especially after she asked me to go find her some sick bags....niiccceeee.....
So the plan between Louise, Katie, Esther, Neil and I was to hook up in Phnom Penh for the weekend following Placement Visit Week, as a bit of decompression and to watch the 6 Nations match between England and Ireland..less said about
that the better please! Est & Kat were to arrive on Saturday, so on Friday night Louise, Neil and I went to a very posh wine and cigar bar, The Aristocrat, where I picked out cigars for us and we whiled away the evening with a 'gar and a whiskey – a little bit of home!
Saturday came and we all swapped Placement Visit stories and experiences. We had dinner, some drinks and before heading out for the rugby we went back to the hotel to sample some Cambodian Rice Wine bought back by Neil from the Eastern Jungle! The words lighter fluid don't do the flavour justice! With our resolve fortified by the rice wine, we all headed out to watch a dire England team get absolultely whooped by Ireland - awful for Katie, Esther and me, good times for Louise and Neil!
After the game, we went to a club called Heart of Darkness, after the novel by Joseph Conrad. The music was great, sound system was awesome, lights and interior were super cool....all very much let down by the fact that the place was wall-to-wall with sleazy old Western guys with young Ka'mai prostitutes on
Buddies!
(l-r) Me, Neil, Louise, Katie, Neiltheir arm. Without a doubt, my group were the only mixed gender bunch of friends in the place. So, good to experience, but even better knowing that we now know we need never go back!
On Sunday afternoon we travelled back to Kompang Cham for the final 3 days of language training. Once I am in placement, I am given a budget to hire a local tutor to continue my language – something I am very much looking forward to - so my days of murdering the Ka'mai language are far from over!
On Thursday morning, we departed Kompang Cham for a village about 15k away, where we had our 'Homestay'. Basically, Homestay is an opportunity to live with a family in a village for 24hrs, to get a sense of rural life and an insight into the everyday lives of Cambodians. It was a great experience, and because I was on my own with a family that spoke no English, the chance to practice my Ka'mai was a really good way to hone my language. Most of the day was spent chilling with the family, especially 'The Man Of The House', whose name I was told 5 times and every time I didn't get it....so I just ended up calling him “The Dude”! In the evening, I helped the kids with their homework, chatted to the older daughters and helped setup the beds.
Basically, everyone sleeps in the main room under mosquito nets on a bamboo mat – not a king size memory foam mattress in sight! So it was lights out at 9pm, at which point I left it half an hour and turned it on my headlight to read my Kindle for a few hours! I woke up at about 4:30, everyone else was asleep, so I crept outside to just enjoy the morning...at which point The Dude came outta nowhere and shone a flashlight in my eyes at the shock of seeing the
barrang up and about at that hour! There was no way I was going back to bed, so me and The Dude fed the cows, chickens and other assorted livestock they keep. Then I was off to help make the brekkie, rice of course, and helped get the little ones ready for school, By 8am, it was time for goodbyes, present exchange and hugs/handshakes at the front door – it was absolutely lovely.
We were then picked back up and headed back to Kampong Cham, so by about 9:30 we had a free day ahead of us– I know you won't believe me, but we've actually had very few free days! So to make the most of it, I hired a moto and cruised the streets of Kompang Cham. Yesterday was the offical VSO in-country motorcycle training, and as Louise had never ridden a motorbike before but will be using one a lot in her placement, on the day we returned from Homestay I spent a couple of hours teaching her to ride and helping to build her confidence on the moto – having never ridden one before, she was a natural!
So much so, by about 1pm we felt like a bigger ride, so I hired another moto and with Esther as my pillion passenger and Lou on her own bike, we did a 20k ride to a beautiful Wat within the province. We did not exactly know the way, but we knew we just had to follow the river North and we'd eventually find it, so we were able to take in some amazing scenes and ride on the most god-awful roads! The highlight of the trip was when we were headed through a village and the road was completely blocked by a wedding – here, people just knock up a tent outside their house, fill it with chairs and tables and traffic just has to find another route! So we rock up on this road to find the road completely blocked, but people are just waving us through...I'm thinking, erm, through the marquee? Yep! So, I ride in first, literally through the middle of the wedding, kicking chairs out of the way as I ride with Esther pushing tables so that Louise had an easier route to get through behind us! Was like a scene out of a James Bond movie! Brilliant stuff.
By the end of Friday I was completely beat so went to turn in quite early...until I got a call from my big bro for a Skype chat to my brothers who were in a boozer in London having a pint – technology is fricking awesome! We were able to have about 10mins of banter before the Ka'mai internet access stayed true to form, so whilst we could not chat for long, was great all the same.
Yesterday was spent all day on the moto's with the group, and as I've experience with bikes, was able to help some other volunteers and lead the ride group out to a disused airstrip where we could tear it up! Great craic on the bikes, and even those people who's confidence was shakey at the start really did well and were much better by the end of the day.
So, my next move is this afternoon, Sunday, as I'm back in Phnom Penh for the final week of In-County Training before heading to my placement to start work proper in the first week of April.
Alas, it's been a hectic week, but also has been really fun! So my apologies for not posting for a while, and promise I'll be better next week!
I hope you are all well, and hopefully I'll be able to speak you soon.
Much love from SE Asia,
Pete
xxx
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mum
non-member comment
Saint Patrick's Day
Peter, what an amazing time you are having. I think though that your new friends are a bad influence, keeping you out drinkining till all hours, smoking cigars and do I notice some of the vernacular creeping in too! Keep safe and enjoy your next week in Phnom Penh. Love from Mum x