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Published: March 18th 2009
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Breakfast between Battambang and Pailin
We had a yummy milk shake drink, after our noodle soup breakfast Pailin is famous for gem stones, land mines and being a haven for ex-Khmer Rouge members. In the west of Cambodia, near the Thai border, Pailin was a Khmer Rouge stronghold; selling gem stones kept them going financially, they planted a lot of land mines here to compensate for having a smaller army than opposing forces, and a number of high ranking Khmer Rouge members sought refuge in Pailin after they were finally defeated in the late nineties. I saw some gem stones (some really big rocks!), read signs about land mine clearances and saw some land mine victims, but fortunately didn't have any encounters with any ex-Khmer Rouge members...as far as I know!
Hak, who I worked with at the street kids centre, lived in Pailin a few years ago, so we went on a little trip to visit - by moto! It was about 160 km (took around 4.5 hours) from Siem Reap to Battambang, where we broke up the journey overnight on Saturday, and then another 80 km (took about 3 hours!) from Battambang to Pailin. However, due to some set backs coming back on Monday, Hak thinks we did around 600 km!
We travelled from
Breakfast between Battambang and Pailin II
There were only Khmer men eating breakfast, apparently it's a social thing they do, the women tend to stay at home. Battambang to Pailin on Sunday morning. We were told that the road was good...which it was for about 2 km, the other 80 km of road was pretty poor! But it was a wonderful way of seeing the countryside, especially nearing Pailin, which is surrounded by mountains. After checking into Pailin Ruby Guest House and having lunch, we went to meet some friends of Haks; he said they were like family to him when he lived there. We spent the afternoon with the family, who live in a village; it was a lovely afternoon. They insisted we stay for dinner, so we had some wonderful home cooked Khmer food. Between their English and my Khmer, we had some sort of communication!
The evening took an unexpected turn when one of Haks friends came to meet us and took us out...for karaoke! Unlike in England, where I believe you do Karaoke in front of a large room of people, in Cambodia you get your own private room, so at first we were only three people! It seemed very strange to me! A few more joined us, and there were some karaoke girls with us, singing and pouring drinks. I later
On the way to Pailin
The orange road, green trees and blue sky is how I will remember from the journey caught on that the girls are also sometimes prostitutes, which made me feel a little uncomfortable and sad for them, but we didn't stay for long after this had dawned on me. I only did a couple of songs, but I must say, after half a bottle of Angkor beer, I do a pretty good "I've had the time of my life"!
To try and cut a long story short, we got pretty lost coming back and ended up being on the moto from 8:30 to 18:30!!! A long day! I was very relieved when we found the main road around 2pm! I was absolutely covered in dirt and dust by the time we got back to Thidas house, and was very relieved the water was on when we got back. In our weekend trip to Battambang, I learnt never to believe that you will have an assigned seat; with Pailin I learnt not believe people when they tell you the road is good and easy!
In other news, a new street kids centre has opened today! I went to see it, it's a really nice building, and very clean (I'm sure it won't be for long!). It's
On the way to Pailin II
I don't know if you can tell quite how dusty I am from this photo... independent from Krousar Thmey, the organisation that funded the old centre that closed at the weekend, and will be funded for one year by a donor (I don't know who), and then some Canadians are hoping to fund raise to keep the centre going. It's been in the pipelines for a few weeks, but I don't think anything's certain here until it actually happens! A few kids from the old centre were already there today, and hopefully by the end of this week they'll have 10 of the kids back. I'm so happy that I was still here to see the new centre, and see some of the kids again. They look very happy to be there.
On Saturday I have a certain visitor joining me - my sister! And on Monday Pete, Ella and possibly (hopefully!) Sami will be arriving. So I'm getting pretty excited about that, and looking forward to trying to squeeze the highlights of Siem Reap into a few days with them. So the next blog entry may be co-authored...
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Sam H
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I like the I Heart Cambodia t-shirt! Can add that to your NY one and start a collection going :-) Sounds like you're having a fantastic time, just missing mine and Chris' innate sense of direction...