As I write this, I am sitting in the lobby of the hotel, about 35 minutes away from the start of my long journey home.  I will be starting the journey with a tuk tuk ride to the airport.  I did question whether that was the sane choice, as I will probably end up arriving all dusty and windswept which is how I will have to stay for the next 24 hours.   I am hoping I will sleep on the plane as I am a bit tired.  I stayed up last night until 12.30 am, when on the dot I signed on to the BA site to check in…..and it wouldn’t let me check in.  I have no idea why, but having stayed awake especially, it would be fair to say I was not amused!  Consequently I am heading to the airport slighter earlier than planned, just in case there are any problems.  Although not convinced Bangkok Airways will be able to check me right through.  Regardless, as I haven’t been able to select my seat, looks like I am will be sitting in the toilet on the way back.  Don’t know why my flights home never go as smooth as they should.  Hope we have no delay getting to Bangkok, any more than an hour and I will be under pressure, especially if my bag is not checked right through!!   The Bangkok flight is 12 hours and 50 minutes!  Longer than coming out.  Something about the headwinds.  A long, long time!!

I saw Jon the director for the last time yesterday morning.  A civilised meeting in a café to go through my recommendations.  We had a good chat, work and non-work related.  He seems pleased with what I have done anyway which makes it worthwhile.  I must admit there was a little tear in my eye as I gave him a hug goodbye and watched him walk away.  They are all such nice people out here, doing such great stuff.  I will miss them, but have been privileged to be able to know them. And you never know, if I manage to save up enough I will come back……once I am employed again.  I had a dream about a job interview the other night, reality is biting back now.  Good news is I got the job, pity it was only a dream…but positive dreams can turn in to reality!!

I managed to full those pesky clouds though, who obviously thought I would be back working on Monday and Tuesday, so they stayed away….fooled you!!  It was nice being in a slightly more luxurious place with a pool.  Breakfast was always amusing though.  The hotel obviously caters for a lot of organised bus tours who set off early to sight see etc.  So the entire hotel, seems to come to breakfast between 7.15 am and 8.00 am.  It is like a war zone, where you almost have to engage in armed combat for a table and getting to the toaster requires you hunker down in to a scrum and then once you make it there you daren’t walk away or someone will have your toast when it pops out the other end.  Then suddenly, just before 8.00 am they all scuttle off to their buses and calm descends on the. That is apart from the carnage that is left on the tables.  If you arrive at 8.05 am for your breakfast all will be calm but you have no chance on finding a clean table.    Still it’s back to a bowl of cereal or a bagel made by myself from Thursday morning.  Tomorrow’s breakfast will be courtesy of BA.

Well I am packing up now to get ready to go.  Wish me luck…these days I seem to need it when I am travelling!!

 

Vx

Dining out brick wall!!

Well, it's official, last night I hit that dining out marathon brick wall!!  I am just so over going out for dinner!!  I went through all the motions, shower, hair done, make up, (clothes on as well....naturally!) and off I went.  I decided to try and see if I could find a pub with the Scotland V. Ireland game on and I had spotted the rugby on a couple the night before on Pub Street, so I headed for them.  Mistake. The food was not that good, and the wine was even less good than that.  I moved from the first table they gave me as it had that eau de toilete smell about it....and I'm not talking perfume.  I think it was the alley way running up the side of the restaurant.  The white wine was not good, so I switched to red.  Which was vaguely better, but was somewhat spoiled when a fly did a Tom Daly into the glass then made a bad attempt at the breast stroke in it!!  To give the waiter his due he did notice me poking about in the glass and asked if something was wrong.  When I said I think I had a fly in it, he did they only sensible thing a waiter should do on such occasions.  He offered to get me a straw to help fish it out!!  Not sure if I was meant to try and suck it out, but I thought that a high risk option so stuck to poking.

The rugby was a non starte,r we were competing with a Man City v Chelsea game and a Newcastle United game.  Although I could swear the latter started off playing Liverpool, but ended up against Southhampton or someone.  Must have been the distraction and trauma of my swimming fly!! Regardless, I figured Scotland's rugby team had no chance against those games, so I left and headed back to the hotel in the hope of finding it on the TV there.  I went via the supermarket to buy myself a bottle of fly-free wine, though not sure why, as I didn't even feel in the mood to drink anymore.  But it just didn't seem right and proper to be watching a game of rugby with a cup of liptons tea in hand!!

So, if you saw the game, then you will not be surprised that my engagement levels were not high in the first half, and I kept toying with the idea of giving up on them and going for a foot massage instead.  But  it was Scotland and in true Scot style we have to hang on in and hope when all hope seems to be lost.  It's what we do best in sport....but hey, it must have been a lucky fly I had in my wine, and against the odds I spent the last 15 - 20 minutes of the game shouting at the TV.  I do hope my neighbours through the adjoining door were out.  The last 5 minutes were torture, but at last, after a false mini celebration when the ref blew for a penalty and not the end of the game, I was jumping up and down celebrating our win!!  Whoppee!!  I now have to watch ever single Scottish Rugby game in Cambodia as it obviously brings us luck. 

So after all the excitement there was no way I was getting to sleep, so off I went for my foot massage to calm me down before bed!  I went to the first one outside the hotel, there are lots of them, but unfortunately it shut at 11 pm and not 12 pm (which most of them do) so I could only get a 30 minute massge instead of an hour.  Initially I was dissaponted, but after 5 minutes in the place not so much.  They seem to have missed something in the concept of massages...i.e. you are there to relax.  They had a big screen on the wall blaring out a National Georgraphic or something channel.  First of all I had to endure poisonus snakes.  But, when that programme finished, it got worse.  Do you know there is somewhere in America (or was it Canada) where there is a river that is so full of flying carp fish it is dangerous to be in the water as the force of them hitting you could knock you out.  No, you didn't know that did you.  Do you care that you didn't know that?  I sure as hell didn't when I was trying to relax getting my foot massage!!  Thank goodness I didn't have to endure the entire programme about flying carp (or was that crap!!).   I happily left after my 30 minutes and headed back to my book and bed, safe in the knowledge people I knew would be out there doing there bit and celebrating our win against Ireland!!

Not so sunny Sunday

If there is one thing you can depend on with the weather where ever you are in the world, you can guarantee when it gets to the weekend and your not working....it will not be as nice!  Lots of cloud today and there was me set up for a lazy day by the pool.  Sun has been beating down when I have been stuck in my hot, hot office.  Not that it wasn't warm today, just not as sunny.  Although all is not lost as I quite like wandering around the centre and sitting down in cafes watching the mad world of Siem Reap go by.

I know these are not really good photos, but I was trying to take them discretely as I didn't want them to notice, seems a bit goulish to be snapping the disabled, but you see so much of this in Cambodia.  People with limbs missing, which I assume is due to the horror of all the landmines that were left after the Khmer Rouge fighting.  I never quite know what to do, after all I can't give them all money.  It is somewhat ironic that there are so many disabled people here, but as a country they are not geared up for the disabled.  I read in one of the travel guides that it would be difficult for disabled travellers to get around Cambodia and I have certainly see a few people in wheelchairs having to get lifted up and down steps to get in places. 

And, yes, I was watching these poor souls as I munched on my lunch and sipped my wine, relaxing back in my comfy seat!! 

 

 

 So I am now about to go out for dinner on my penultimate night out.  Have to admit, I am  starting to get a bit bored with going out!!  Not to mention skint!!  Although I am hoping to find a pub with the Scotland Ireleand rugby game on tonight.  I am sure I spotted one of the bars last night with the Welsh game on, so heading in that direction tonight! 

I noticed one of my FBB's had posted that it was snowing back home....don't want that for my return.  I am use to nothing below 90 F.  Brrrrr.

Farewell night.

 

 

Friday night was my wee farewell party with some of the staff, which included a lot of the team I went to the Lake with.  They didn’t all speak that good English, and clearly I speak absolutely no Khmer, but we all seemed to get along ok. Jon the Director is away just now so unfortunately he couldn’t make it.  I feel quite sad to be leaving them; they are all such lovely people doing such excellent work for the underprivileged out here in Cambodia.  

We went to one of the ‘local’ Cambodian bars which had cheap but good food. I did say to Chantha I would leave the ordering of food up to her, but that I just wanted vegetable dishes …I got fish and of course rice.  But as ever, they were all just trying to fit in with what I eat, which meant fish for everyone.   Well at least at the start of the night, although they did sneak in a few meat dishes later on when I wasn’t looking!!  After the mojito tummy incident, (those cocktails will never be the same for me again) I have been trying to stick to wine, straight from the bottle, no handling required!   Much to my surprise, they did actually have wine at this bar, but only red and it would appear only one type of red wine, which they brought in an ice bucket.  But hey, maybe not so daft when it is 90F + out here!  It wasn’t your top quality reserve bin wine, so the cool worked well, although I did draw the line at them trying to put a huge junk of ice in my glass before they poured the wine.  There are some wine standards one has to stick with no matter where you are and what the temperature is!  Even more bizarrely, the guys, very quickly moved on to the Anchor beer, which they also put ice in and drank out of wine glasses!  Hmmm, can you just see all those Scottish football fans having their pre match pint out a wine glass with ice in it?  No, not working for you then?  Ok, so maybe this one won’t catch on in Scotland!!

The last day in the office.

So today it is Friday and my last official day in the office.  I will need to meet up with Jon sometime on Monday to go over my report and findings but hopefully that will be over a nice cup of coffee somewhere.  Jon is off somewhere…. either Bangkok or Phenom Phen but I can’t remember where, although I think he did tell me…at least twice.  It’s the heat, it addles the brain.

Yesterday was a busy day, hard at it all day doing catch up, and even working through my lunch, which is not easy when you are melting with the heat.  The assignment has gone a bit like my first one in Zambia, I spent most of the first week wondering what I was doing, and thinking I wasn’t really making a difference or doing anything constructive, and then suddenly it all starts to fall in to place.  I had my last reviews with Chantha, covering the payment of staff salaries and inventory control yesterday and then it is all down to finishing my report and getting it to Jon to read ahead of our meeting.   I feel disappointed that I haven’t been as hands on as I was in Zambia, but I realise now that it is more down to time.  I did spend a little longer there and of course I didn’t have three days in the wilderness with no electricity, although having said that there were quite a few days in Zambia when we had no electricity!   

I am now definitely at the stage where I have identified what improvements we could make here at TLC and had I been here a little longer would have started getting to it!  I feel sad in a way that I can’t, as I know Chantha is keen to make improvements.  I think she knows herself some of the things that need to change but, probably due in part to the culture, does not feel empowered to do them. Especially if there is resistance from other members of staff.   In particular she recognises that she is not using QuickBook to its full potential.  But we all know what it is like when you get a new system in, it takes ages to get the hang of it and that is with support from others around you.  Unfortunately, as I have never used the system, I would have to put myself through the idiots guide to QuickBook first before I could be any real help to her, and we are all out of time on that front!

Today did not start brilliantly, slightly dodgy tum again, although not to the extreme bacterial infection sort of upset.  However, after my walk here from the hotel I did need to make a major dash for the facilities.  Only to find there was no water……!!!  Argh!!  Too much information already I know, but these are important issues out here!!  I did contemplate going back to the hotel, but decided to tough it out after Sarkhem assured me he was going to fix it and it would be back on soon.  He did try to explain to me what he had to do, but I think something got lost in the translation, so I smiled sweetly and put my trust in him.  Which was well placed as it was back on by about 10 am.  So normal flushing service was resumed!  Hurrah!!

Tonight I think some of the team are coming out with me for a little farewell party.  Chantha is organising it. There are some ‘local’ bars and restaurants close by which are more Cambodian type prices, so we are going somewhere with good but cheap food.  Not sure what I will drink though, as I am not a fan of beer, but I don’t think the place we will end up in will be serving chilled Chablis by the glass!!  Doubtless my dodgy tum may have something to say about it tomorrow, but what the heck, I have a day off and very nice facilities at the hotel thank you very much!!!  J

I am truly wishing I had brought some Scottish style gifts with me from home.  I did think about it but had so much else to organise in such a short space of time that I didn’t get round to it.  Chantha told me yesterday she has a gift for me….so how embarrassed do I feel.? I will of course stand them a few rounds of drinks tonight, or even pick up the tab for the food if it is not too expensive.  But why did I not buy those silly tartan teddies and see you jimmy quality tammies!!!!!  The would have loved them....wouldn't they?

The journey home!

So after the excitement of the clinic, we are packed up, boat loaded and ready to go in about 20 minutes….a well-practised routine for the team. To say I was there flinging the stuff on the boat to speed things up would be untrue, but only because most of the boxes and bags were too heavy and if any had landed in the water it would only have further delayed the departure!! 

It has been a love hate experience.  One that you could never experience on any holiday, but not one I want to repeat in a hurry.  I so admire the teams, of which there are currently 2 in TLC, that do this week in and week out.  Spending 3 days away from their family and friends in what, even for most Cambodians, are very basic conditions.  Their enthusiasm, love of the job, and their overwhelming desire to help those who have nothing is humbling and my admiration goes out to each and every one of them.  

Meanwhile, back on the boat I have my kindle, my iPod and not a lot else to keep me occupied over the next 7 hours!   The journey was uneventful.  The cook served up French fries at 10 am, which we all ate and then for some bizarre reason lunch just after 10.30 am.  Now I know we had breakfast about 6.30 am but we had 7 hours to kill so why rush lunch?!!  Who knows?!  I had a short post lunch nap on the floor of the boat, not that I really slept.  Then I read  some, stood up , sat down, read some more, stood up, sat down, read some more!!!!!  Staggered to the toilet, a marginally less traumatic experience than squatting over a hole over the river, but not pleasant by a long stretch.  Sat down, read some more, stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down,  read some more…..bored yet?  Not as much as I was!!  Eventually as we got closer to home I went to the front of the boat and plonked myself on the oil cans, which was the closest you could get to a seat.  We passed the first floating village we saw on the way out, the one that stared in to the grey desolate edge of the world!  Little did I know when I first passed it how flippin far it was to the next one!! 

I was aware that trips were run to floating villages at the top of Tonle Sap.  When we left it was far too early for them to be up out of bed, but on the way in we passed a few of the boats.  I felt quite irritated every time one of them passed….especially when they waved at us.  Argh!  They were on a jolly to gawp at the floating village nearby and then let everyone know they had seen one and how wonderful it looked!! Seriously folks, you won’t get the half of it cruising past on your boat, with seats no less….no sitting on the floor for them!!

The lake got narrower as we got closer to our landing point and there were lots of twists and turns.  As I sat at the front of the boat I was getting eye strain looking for the ramshackle village that we left from.  It would be round the next turn, I knew it was.  Ok, maybe not this one but the next.  No, well the next then?  No!! ??  Oh for feck sake, who moved the village!!!  But at last there they were, those wonderful wobbly falling down houses on stilts, what a beautiful sight, but even better there was Sudoth with the minibus, boot open waiting for our conglomeration of medicines and bits and pieces.  Another hour plus and I would be at my 4 star hotel.  Only problem was I felt embarrassed to be going there.   After what I had just experienced it seemed like decadence beyond belief and for most of the staff I had been with my 6 night stay was in excess of a month’s wages for them.    Fortunately we were heading back to the office first and only Sudoth and Jameil were in the bus when I was dropped off at my new luxury abode!

I felt like a tramp as I walked in to reception, but hey, I had paid in advance and I could bluff it out no problem as the door man rushes to take my case from me.

After a slight delay at reception, due to a couple of blokes arguing with the staff over beds, not sure if it was too many or too little of them, I eventually get served and get given my key!!  Beds, all I need is one of them, which doesn’t fold away, is bigger than the width of my body and is not shrouded in a mosquito net.  I have simple tastes.  Reality is I now have two, one double and one large single!!  Whoop!!

When I get shown to my room I am beyond excitement when I realise I have not only a separate shower, that doesn’t have to be held by hand, but a bath as well.   I practically fling the bell boy out the room!  Now ordinarily I am not a bath sort of girl, give me a shower any day, but I had that hot tap on and the bath filling before the bell boy had reached the lift. I felt so caked in dirt, especially my feet, I was thinking bath, followed by shower was the only option.   It was around then I discovered all my efforts dressing from head to toe in clothes during the evening to avoid mosquito bites had been scuppered by my late night / early morning, needs- must, trips to hover over the hole over the lake in the middle of the night. I had a rash of bites in places that the sun normally don’t shine.  Not the easiest place to scratch surreptitiously!!    

Barring the bites in the places not discussed in public, I had survived and after emerging shiny clean from my bath and shower I went in search of food…..that did not involve rice and fish.  I had pizza!!!

The final hours on the floating prison!!

Day 3 and my escape back to civilisation is imminent.  Last night I must have had a different camp bed and this one was definitely not as comfortable, so there was a lot of tossing and turning and huffing and puffing going on under my little mosquito tent.

The guys had a busy clinic in the afternoon yesterday with quite a few people turning up, although there was still the consistent theme of stomach ache, diarrhoea, and also rashes and skin irritations.  One little girl was given her first asthma inhaler and had to be shown how to use it.  She was only given one inhaler, so I am not sure what happens when that one runs out! Most of the children have an adult with them, but some turn up on their own, like this little girl.  I watched another teenage girl as she got back on her boat and rowed away from the clinic.  I couldn’t help but wonder what she dreams about, do her dreams just consist of the life she has.  Will she be happy to marry a villager and produce the average 4 children they have in the villages?  Surely not I think?   Surely she must dream of escaping to a better life on land, but then does she even know what the differences are?  She was a pretty little thing, but her eyes looked sad.  The kids here don’t get any proper education.  The building next to the clinic is a school but it is locked up and has not been used for a long time.  No doubt some charity that ran out of funding or people willing to come out here and live the life they would have to when teaching.  The education the children get is all about how to fish and make a living from the lake.  It is all they know so to escape to something else is all but impossible.  

The evening followed the same pattern as the previous night. Dinner around 5.30 and then in bed under my mosquito net by 7 trying to read while listening to the noises around me.  Never a dull moment on the floating village!!

My appetite diminishes with each day.  The poor cook is apparently worrying about how little I am eating, so last night she had sent the boat boy off to the little village shop (they do actually have shops that sell the key supplies) to find some noodles as she thinks perhaps I don’t like rice.  She is right, I am not a big rice fan, but I feel guilty again when I realise she has made an effort just for me.  Not that I had been complaining about the food.  Her cooking is wonderful, but the smells, the lack of running water and the mere look of the lake wipe out my appetite.  When Jon and I discussed in the office the 3 most important things for the volunteers to have to encourage them to keep coming out here I said hygiene would be top of my list.  He disagreed and said it would be food.  Perhaps that is the case for most people, but now I am here it is definitely hygiene!  Although the cook uses bottled water and she is constantly washing up so there is not really a hygiene issue for the food we are eating.  I am sure some of the restaurants I have eaten at in town are worse than this….but still; I can see how much grime there is under my finger nails!!

This morning all I can think of is getting back.  I have to endure another 7 hours of complete boredom on the boat then another 1 ½ hours on the mini bus.  I feel grimy and greasy.  I am dying to wash my hair.  I contemplated doing it in cold water, but then what’s the point as it won’t really clean it.  Although vanity eventually got the better of me and I did smooth it down with cold bottled water.  At least it stopped me looking like scarecrow woman!!  When I got up this morning……just before 6 am, but then I did go to bed at 7am, albeit not to sleep straight  away…. all I could think of was getting back to my hotel.  Breakfast today was noodles and fish; I ate the noodles, but ignored the fish!!  I thought it was a case of breakfast, pack up and go.  My heart sank when after breakfast the guys started to set up the clinic. They do a 2 hour clinic before they leave.  Again I feel so guilty for wanting to rush off to a warm shower and air conditioning.  Of course we should be doing a clinic.  I am sure I would have felt differently if I was one of the medical team, but the boredom and feeling of being trapped is so powerful.  I can’t even do a complete lap of our floating home as there is no decking at the back and there is a log assault course around one side of the building.  I start to type this up but my laptop eventually dies on me…..it has had enough as well!!

I decide to play my voyeur role again!  The clinic is busy.  A few from yesterday have come back complaining the medicine hasn’t worked yet.  Bless them; they think they should be better after one pill.  They are reassured and sent off again.  Later in the clinic there is a great deal of fuss over one small boy.  He has abdominal pain and has been vomiting. He appears to have been brought in by his gran or someone who is unsure of what his recent bowel habits have been.  I guess what Jameil is worrying about quite quickly.  Could it be appendicitis?  The wee boy is clearly distressed and unhappy.  The options are either severe constipation brought on by a high protein low fibre diet or much more serious appendicitis.  All they can do is physical examinations and ask questions, the latter being more difficult than you would think.   The doc wants to know if the pain is coming and going (i.e. peristaltic pain) or constant.  Savann asks if it is coming and going and the wee boy says yes, but as Savann has 5 years experience in these clinics he also asks if the pain is constant…the wee boys says it is.  So we are no further on! I am picking up on Jameil’s anxiety; he has to make a call on what it is.  They are veering towards the severe constipation but Jameil is frustrated when he learns we no longer stock drugs to soften stools.  It is the first time I have seen Jameil look annoyed, but after short moan on why they should stock the medicine, he quickly covers it up.  He knows making the wrong call on this one could have drastic consequences.  If it is appendicitis and we leave him here it will eventually rupture and he will die as there will be no hope of getting him to medical care in time to save his life.  If they decide on appendicitis as the cause we will have to take him with us on the boat.  I have no idea how we will all fit in as I assume at least one adult will come with him, but it will have to be done.  The clinic is almost over so everyone’s attention is now on the small boy.  They eventually decide on some form of medication, a pill, which I think was just a pain killer and some intravenous saline.  The wee boy struggles with the pill and takes several attempts, including some chewing to get it over.  There’s some tears and struggling as they insert the intravenous needle.  Although they only give him a small amount of saline and the needle is soon out again.  Suddenly the wee boys says (in Cambodian of course so I needed translations later), I’ve had medicine so now I am better and jumps up on the wooden bed, all tears gone.  He later jumps on to the floor and demonstrates how he can jump up and down.  The relief on the docs face is clear to see ‘there’s no way a child with appendicitis could jump up and down like that he says, we’re ok, he’s just constipated’.  Worry over and everyone is laughing at the wee boy, who thinks the magic medicine has cured him already.  He skips off to his boat with his gran, clutching some bottled water we have given him to drink. The power of the mind over matter!!

The clinic is now closed for business for another month!!