A weekend off - part 3

On Sunday I had a lie in and then went for breakfast, before walking down to the riverside. I stopped along the way to drink a fresh coconut and sit and look at the river, but mostly I just walked and enjoyed the opportunity to properly stretch my legs. 

Entrance to the Royal Palace

As soon as it started to get very very hot I jumped in a tuk tuk and went back to my hotel, where I took the advice of a colleague and paid a visit to a nearby hotel that had a roof top infinity pool. I am so glad I did - it was gorgeous and provided just the relaxing afternoon I had had in mind. I just swam, admired the view and stared at clouds. 

By the evening time I just wanted to spend a night in my hotel, wearing pjs and watching films, so I grabbed some takeaway Japanese ramen and enjoyed a film night! 

A weekend off - part 1

I've been a lady of leisure this weekend and it has been fantastic. On Friday night I had a few drinks with some of the volunteers, and then I went for dinner. I had an early start planned for Saturday as a volunteer had offered to go with me to the genocide museum and the Russian market. Both are best done before the day heats up so we arranged meet at 8:30am.

The museum, Tuol Sleng, is the school that the Khymer Rouge turned into a prison and interrogation centre. It came to be known as S 21 and between 1975 and 1979 an estimated 17,000 people were held there. They were interrogated and tortured, made to confess to false crimes and pretty much all 17,000 were eventually killed - either on site or marched 15km to be executed at a site known as the killing fields.

The school classrooms were divided up into cells - some were group cells where everyone was chained together, and others were single cells - tiny tiny spaces. There were strict rules about no talking and having to ask permission for everything, even to take a sip of water.

At the time that Vietnam marched into Phnom Penh and liberated the country 7 people were alive in the prison, and they had survived mostly due to the skills they offered. One was a painter who they used to paint propaganda messages, and one was a mechanic who fixed the typewriters used by the regime. But the Vietnamese also found 14 people who had been recently tortured and killed, so some of the displays show very graphic photos of the bodies exactly as they were tortured and left.

The regime were meticulous in keeping records of everyone they held, and everyone was photographed at least once. The museum displays the photos and Cambodians used to come and look at the photos to identify lost ones. The museum also has testimonies from the survivors and memories from others who weren't detained but experienced the Pol Pot years. The testimonies describe the forced labour and the starvation they experienced.

I've just looked at the Lonely Planet entry for Tuol Sleng and it says 'A visit to Tuol Sleng is a profoundly depressing experience' and that it is. But I thought it was important to go. I'd read about it but seeing it in real life was obviously more profound. They are trying to turn the museum into an education centre so that people don't forget the horrors of the Pol Pot period.

One of the displays had a message from the Minister of Culture and this sentence stood out: 'a diverse society is a healthy society, which values open-mindedness, innovation and freedom.' With all the craziness in the world at the moment this sentiment really resonated.

Back in Phnom Penh

Travelling to work and back in a tuk tuk has not yet lost it's novelty appeal, and I've been loving my journeys to the office. 

Tonight's driver had some mad skills. It was my first drive home in the real rush hour traffic, and we were up on the pavement, darting round cars, brushing up against the millions of moto riders, and generally taking every possible short cut to avoid the traffic. It was quite a journey! 

I've been exploring the restaurants around my hotel, which although pretty touristy, are very delicious and still pretty cheap. However, lunchtime at the office gives me the best 'local flavour' as we head to nearby local restaurants and order masses of food for tiny amounts of money. The restaurant floors are strewn with rubbish, the menu is ignored, and the hygiene is questionable (I found a dead ant in my iced tea - which is brought to the table for every meal) but the food is fantastic. Anyway, I'm not too squeamish about bugs in my food these days. As my dad would say, the ant wouldn't have drunk much. 

This is one of the cleaner restaurants we have gone to...

Lunch with a volunteer from the Philippines

The other evening I had duck in a tamarind curry, which although quite oily, was very nice. Afterwards I was given a plate of what I thought were two tuile biscuits - I was going to leave them but gave one a bite... it turned out to be dried banana and it was amazing! The waitress called it banana crepe... I don't know how they made it but it was chewy and delicious. Here is one, with the crumbs of the other! 

I've also managed to fit in a massage, and dinner with my colleague and his wife, and am now sitting in a bar with an espresso martini... but I promise I have also been working very hard! There is so much information to process, and information to 'extract' from the team that my head is reeling most nights, but being in a different country is giving me the energy to work hard and play hard... it's so much fun having a different environment and culture to explore. I have also really enjoyed feeling more anonymous (so many expats here, I definitely do not stand out or attract attention) and I feel very safe, which is something I have been missing since I moved away from The Gambia. 

Breakfast in Battambang (and other things)

Vietnamese pho was a perfect post-jog breakfast, and this Cambodian rice porridge set me up nicely for a day in the field with community members! I've become more used to eating general food for breakfast rather than English / European / western style breakfasts and I'm quite happy eating a spicy breakfast... although on Sunday, our last morning in Battambang, I had a bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers which was pretty darn exciting! If I crave a western breakfast the fantasy meal usually involves smoked salmon! 

On Saturday we held a community workshop in one of the nearby villages. It was a great chance to see the countryside, the paddy fields, the irrigation streams and government made canals. I also enjoyed the chance to see some of the different housing styles, especially the houses that are up on stilts to deal with the seasonal flooding. Underneath the house is used for storage and living (cooking, sleeping in hammocks etc) and sometimes keeping the animals while the main rooms are upstairs. 

And just to finish on another food picture... dinner one evening in a restaurant filled with orchids.

Battambang

The drive to Battambang was lovely. As soon as we arrived we went for lunch in a little place where they also hold cookery courses for tourists, and then headed to a meeting. That evening we met some of the volunteers working on the project and had more delicious food in a French restaurant. 

My dish was squid stuffed with minced pork in a lemongrass and saffron cream sauce... washed down with a beautiful glass of French white wine! 

The hotel was great - with various 'towel animals' throughout the three days. 

Looks like a grand hotel but was very cheap!

View from the hotel

The hotel overlooked the river, and Battambang had a very French feel - the old French buildings with shutters at the windows, and the layout of the town by the side of the river. I jogged along the river on two of the mornings (to counteract the huge amounts of food I am eating!). It's very unusual for me to go for morning runs, but it really was the best time of the day - by the evening it was often raining, and perhaps it was still the effects of jet lag but I felt wide awake in the mornings and enthusiastic about seeing the city as it woke up. I wished I was able to run with a camera, it was beautiful to see the slightly misty river and the Buddhist monks gliding by in their saffron robes. 

Most of my time there was in meetings, doing community events or talking to / working with / having dinner with volunteers, but I did get some time to myself to walk around the city and take some photographs. 

Cambodia

I was really excited about coming to Cambodia, from both a personal and a professional point of view. I really wanted to get a better understanding of the Cambodia project, and I was also very keen to have a change of scenery from Africa.

I love flying and the journey was pretty good. The transit times were quite reasonable, the flights were relatively on time, and although on arrival at Bangkok I discovered I'd been removed from the final flight to Phnom Penh the flight still had some space left and I was re-booked on the journey (I envisaged a night in Bangkok but it worked out OK!).

I managed to get through the visa application and immigration process fairly fast (I'm quite efficient in airports and can fill forms in very fast these days!). To get through it quickly I had to strategically dodge quite a few gap year types who were very slow and laid back... I kept thinking about the fact that I needed a good night's sleep before work the next day and it was clear they didn't have quite the same pressures! I was relieved to see my name held up by a driver (the final guy in the line... I was starting to think I'd have to make my own way to the hotel!) and checked in smoothly, getting to bed at 1am -  a good day and a half after leaving Abuja.

I slept like a log, missing one alarm and waking on the second back up alarm, so I dressed quickly and met my colleague at 10am for a coffee before taking a tuk tuk to the office. Almost as soon as we got to the office I was taken to lunch and then I had a meeting all afternoon. Once back at my hotel this evening I went for a walk and stopped for dinner.... at which point the heavens opened. I made the most of the downpour by having a spicy beef salad and two fresh passionfruit juice martinis. Heaven!

Tomorrow we leave early to travel to Battambang, the province the project is focused in. So, tonight I'm turning in early feeling very happy to be in Cambodia.

Field work

Since getting back from my holiday the job has been all about field work. First a week out in Nigeria and now two weeks in Cambodia.

Nigeria was all about meeting community farmers and Village Chiefs. It was nice to be out of Abuja and we achieved a lot. I was photographed approximately 80,000 times. Every meeting, every community event, every opportunity for a 'snap'. The most disconcerting was when I was photographed while going for a jog!

A few pics of those I was snapped with. 

We called in at Guara Falls on the way back which was great - nice to do something that felt a little bit touristy in Nigeria.