The Child Catcher 'aint got nothing on me!

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So I left Cambodia about a month ago, so i thought it was about time to write a blog about it!

I really didn't know what to expect with Cambodia (or Cambodge as the French call it, i just thought it was a term of endearment for a while! I quite like it!) I had heard mixed reports of people who either loved or hated it. I was prepared for heartbreaking images of children begging on the street and a country not emotionally recovered from Pol Pots regime, I expected the Temples to be amazing but not to enjoy spending too much time seeing them ( any one who's gone to a museum with me knows that i cant help it, i start yawning as soon as i get there!) and I thought the persistent hawkers would drive me nuts.

Of course when i was thinking of the poor Cambodian children braking my heart I had forgotten that I am totally heartless when it comes to Kids, the whinier and more pathetic they got, the more irritated and less sympathetic i felt towards them. Now i dont mean to be harsh but when a kid is holding their hand out sayig "1 dollar" in a fake whimpering voice when they are probably dressed better than i am, i dont feel particualrly bad about saying no. Somebody has obviously decided to tell them that being able to recite fact about your home country is cute, so we had a constant barrage of " where you from? England Prime minister Tony Blair (hah that'll throw them now!!) population 60 million etc. which they then pretended to write on a piece of paper and charge you for the privilage - no thank you!!

The first place we visited was Siem Reap to see the Temples of Angkor - as we had the time we decided on a three day pass, and i cant say i was relishing the idea, I figures one day would be ok, two at a push, but by the third day I would be all 'templed out"! To be fair we didn't get off to a great start, when we arrived we got in a Tuk Tuk with a driver called Richad ( he had my name on a plaque, it was easier just to follow him!) who pestered us until we agreed that obviously he was the best person to show us the temples. So early next morning he arrived, for some reason wearing a suit and shiney shoes, which turned out to be his uniform de jour - and a pain in the ass as we lived down a really muddy alley way which seemed to flood constantly. Richad, worried that his Tuk Tuk may get dirty, used to take off his shiney shoes, roll up his trousers and wade delicately through the mud to get us, we obviously then had to wade back through with him (though not half as delicately - think bump the elephant!) to get to our tuk tuk.

To be fair, i think I am doing our mode of transport a dis-service by calling it a mere Tuk Tuk, it was in fact more of a carriage, with a silk covered "throne" for us to sit on and even heart shaped windows to look out of when it was raining! we felt slightly like we were on Blind Date!! The Temples themselves however were absolutely amazing, and even I didn't get bored, we spent the first day wandering around Angkor Wat and Thom, marvelling at the Huge faces staring back at us in Bayon and procariously climbing the steps in Angkor Wat - with me in Flip flops and the steps very narrow and steep, accompanied by a lovely sign depicting a man falling to his death and warning you that you climb at your own risk! It was worth it though for the stunning view you got over the other temples in the complex.

After a great day of temple gazing, only marred by Richads constant whining and shouting at us if we ever dared go near a restaurant that he wasn't in. He even shouted at us after we went around a big puddle to get back to the tuk tuk - "oi, where you go, why you ignore me? we were avoiding the puddle Dicky - oh hahaha! only joking!" looser!! despite me and Em relishing in the idea of sacking him, we knew we were unlikely to ever do it, damn being too nice!! The next day I came pretty close however when, an hour after he was supposed to pick us up he still hadn't arrived. Finally he called the guy at our guest house and when i asked him where he was he simply said "at home, it's raining" like i was a total fool for asking!! Bearing in mind that it was the rainy season and it rained most days I wasn't too impressed at his offer to come when it stopped, I toldd him that it was fine, but if he wasn't there in half an hour we'd find someone with a coat (i'd found him wearing mine the previous day - the cheek of it!) who would take us! Neadless to say he turned up in record time and we were not given the chance to fire him, darn it!! After that Richad seemed to behave himself a little more and despite a couple more hissy fits and requests to 'borrow' money we made it around all of the other temples we wanted to see, and I managed to surprise myself by thoroughly enjoying every single one of them - hey maybe i'm growing up!

From Siem Reap we headed to Battambang, with the intention of staying for a day or so and visiting a little bamboo train, ok so not exactly mindblowingly exciting, but it was a plan - unfortunately I had to go and ruin it! On our first night we were sitting innocently minding our own business eating dinner when for some reason I thought it was a good idea to strike up a conversation with the guy sitting opposite us. As it turns out he was a film maker, here to film a documentary at a local Orphanage run by a friend of his from Oz, he and another guy who worked there invited us to come and see it with them the next day. As we had just been discussing how we really should try and see some "real" cambodia, this seemed like a perfect opportunity - mistake 1! We spent a couple of hours playing with the kids in the morning and then took a trip to the hospital in the afternoon to see the new babies who had been found by the roadside - they were both very ill and as the hospital wont provide staff to take care of them, the orphanage needed to have two people there 24/7. This is where mistake number 2 happened - Terry, the guy who funds the place was heading back to Oz the next day and was worried about staff shortages, they seemed to be struggling to find a solution so stupidly I offered - yes thats right, offered, didn't even wait to be asked! - mine and Emma's services for a few days to help out. Now this may not sound too bad to normal people, but refer back to my earlier rant for reasons why it is very uncharacteristic for me!!

Anyway, after assuring ourselves we would be fine we headed to the Orphganage with Terry the next day, he soon said goodbye to the kids and was off, taking with him not only the film maker but also the other guy who worked there as he needed to renew his visa. Now we were told that several staff memeber would be around for the day, however, as soon as "mr Terry" had left, the staff did a magical dissapearing act and left me and Emma, alone, in charge of 80 kids - good god what were they thinking!! To make matters worse, none of the classrooms or store rooms were open (not that they stored much!) so not only did we have nowhere to go with them, we also had nothing to do, not a pencil, paper, game anything, with a bunch of kids who spoke no English - this was going to be fun!!

Part way through our first afternoon, about 15 of the kids jumped on to a builders trolley (ah yes, the place was a building site too to add to the madness!) and three equally small kids started pushing them around, despite the teeth knocking out potential Emma's initial response was "hang on, you've left one behind!" oh dear!! the best we could do was make them sit down, and even then a couple of them fell out - I'm really amazed we made it through with out anyone dying!! We gratefully left in the evening when some of the older girls got back to look after the younger ones, dreading the next day but determined to do a better job!

The next day arrived far to quickly but we came armed with game ideas and paper and pens. We had scrimped on the paper though and bought stuff that was printed on one side - I have no idea what it said but some of the older girls took handfuls of the stuff looking quite concerned - i think they may have been official documents, but hey, we didn't know!! it wasn't so much of a disaster, we played games with baloons and even got them to sit down and make aeroplanes and things for a while, and in fact until the bloody nose incident, everyhting was going swimmingly ......!! Apart from feeling totally incompetant, we made it through the 5 days, just! and on the plus side, a couple of the girls made us bead rings on our last day as presents so we cant have done too badly - though even the kids were looking on with shame by the 10th time we did the hokey-kokey! I can honestly say I've never dreaded going to 'work' so much in my life, but "head of Orphanage" is definately going on my CV!!

When we exhaustedly left Battambang, we headed to Phnom Penh, which is probably my least favourite city so far and certainly not the relaxing haven we were hoping for - seriously what kind of capital city doesn't even have a cold drink for sale?! (maybe I've been spoilt, but if Battambang can....) What Phnom Penh did have was a very sad history, and visiting the Toul Sleng Prison from Pol Pots regime was heart wrenching, the torutr rooms, the beds people were chained to were bad enough but it was also full of photos of each "inmate", only 3 of which survived - I think both Emma and myself felt we had took look at every single face, as if it helped, as if they deserved that much at least. I wont go into a long speal about the hideousness of the Regime, or how it could have happened only such a short time ago, but for those of you who dont know anything about it, maybe something to read about.

On a lighter note, we decide to head to the sea for a few days to chill out after all of our adventures, so Sihanoukville it was - although not the best beach in the world, it did its job and we stayed here a few days before heading to Kampot to see an old Hill station and them back to Phnom Penh - we were hoping to get to Sen Monorom to ride some elephants and see a bit of the jungle, but the rainy season had set in and no buses were running, so off to Vietnam we headed, which is where I am now. Jusy about to leave to China actually, but thats another story, which I will fill you in on later!

So i hope everyone is well, Take care of yourselves, speak soon

Sarah xxx

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Photos

Angkor Wat
Magnificent, even in the rain!

Richat
Our lovely tuk-tuk driver - approach with caution