CAMBODIA

A new country for me. For its people too it is a new country or perhaps an old one, emerging from the ravages of too many years of a too brutal war. It is a poor country and the presence of many donor agencies and fancy AID vehicles brings reminders of other poor nations where there are the contrasting reminders of poverty and investment and help and potential harm. There is the daily struggle of facing poverty in the form of beggars and vicitms of the war with their prosthetic limbs - begging or tryin gto sell you the ever present packets of 10 bad postcards, or photocopied books - many about Cambodia. It is hard to say no, and yet you can't always say yes, and then after spending $4 on a book I feel in turmoil that I am not giving to the boy who runs along by me begging. So I go and eat in the 'Friends' restaurant supporting their wider street kids programme and training young street teenagers, and I buy a book from a man with one leg, and I donate to a childrens hospital who provide free quality healthcare to young Cambodians; and I continue to feel concerned and confused and impotent and passionate. I think what if it was me trying to get some money to feed my children from these people who spend on frivolities and fancies.

Phnom Penh is a small city compared with the major cities of its neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. There are lots of motos and cyclos all keen for you to give them some business, but compared with Saigon the streets are over half empty. It's nice. Marte and I arrived and stayed at Number 9 Guest House by the lakeside. A basic room ($2 for a double with shared bathroom) but the plac3e had a nice wooden restaurant / deck/ chillout music and videa and cane armchairs and hammock area. Worth spending a couple nights longer than initially anticipated there.

Walked around a little to get the feel of the place. Visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, which would have been impressive if you could have seen more than a little bit of the silver tiled floor. Most of it was covered with red carpet for people to walk aorund on! It is hot here too - melting weather.

We also visited 'The Killing Fields' and the S21 museum. An old high school that was converted into the most notorious detention centre under Pol Pots Khmer Rouge. It is a sobering look at very recent history in this country where 2 million people were killed, many brutally, during the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. I just finished reading a book 'First they killed my Father' by a lady who was five at the time when the Khmer Rouge took over. If I had been born in Cambodia, 2 months after the takeover, it is very unlikely that I would be alive today. Personalising the inconceivable sometimes helps bring home the shockingness of it all.


I got a boat to Kratie (north /ne up the river from PP) and sat on the roof. It was a good trip and I met a nice S.African girl called Kim. We ended up sharing a room for the next three nights. It is a small town with a central market that was very interesting to walk around and also some nice fruit shale stalls along the top of the river bank at night. However the main reason tourists visit this spot is to go and see the Freshwater Irrawaddy Dolphins. Which we did - twice.

It was great being out on the boat with the engine cut off and floating in the middle of a deep pool in the Mekhong to suddenly hear a deep breath behind you and to turn and see the back of a dolphin. These dolphins don't jump out of the water like bottle nose dolphins but you can see their backs and sometimes a tail too. They are shy, but on the second day there were some only about 10 metres out from our boat. It was great.

We hired a motorbike and I rode us up the river through small villages that live along the roadside. People are very friendly and the kids waved and called out hello and goodbye - a variation on just the hello of other parts. It is always a good way to see a bit more of an area to get a bicycle or motorbike and ride around a little. The houses are mostly bamboo on stilts. Life is very open and shared and kids and adults sits under trees, by stalls in the shade and by the road. I also had a completely chilling out day - we moved to a hotel that was only $5 for a double room and it was new and nice and had satellite TV and a big terrace on the roof that was a great place to ry clothes and sit drinking an Angkor beer and watching the sunset!