Camas

Limited posting from the electricity-less beauties of Camas on the Isle of Mull, Inner Hebrides, Scotland.

The Camas Centre is located in a beautiful bay, a 20 minute walk along a track through boggy fields. You round the corner over the top of a hill on a day like today, to see vibrant blue sky reflected in a sparkling sea. Because of the full moon, at high tide the water almost reaches the bright green grass, complete with grazing sheep; at low tide not only all the rocks are revealed, but even the edge of some coarse sand. At other times of the month the tide is less extreme, yesterday was 4.1 metres!

Because it was so high yesterday the sea flooded into the salt marsh in from the bay. We took the chance of a quick half hour kayak before reflections. An awesome and surreal experience to be paddling over emerald green grass we normally walk over to get to the quarry. Looking down at a submerged living world.

I have a beautiful room in one of the old stone quarry men's cottages, with a view of the sea. Wooden floors and wooden rafters where the dust can fall through when people run around upstairs! Candle and lantern light creates a warmth in a room that is very special. I love it.

The weather is also typically Scottish. Two days ago I put on my down jacket. It had been grey or wet all week and the wind was chilling. Today is my day off and I have been sitting reading on the grass outside in a sumer top and shorts, needing to remember to put on sun cream. The mist and fog is still beautiful in boggy country, but when the sun shines, like parts of Ireland, it compares favourably to anywhere beautiful in the world.

My first two weeks I have already fallen in love with the place. I am happy to be here for three months.

Conversations with my grandmother over mocha and latte.

Reminiscences about times long before I was born. Stories that enlarge my knowledge of our family history; the things that help to shape who we are. Snippets that I have never heard before, never having spent that much time with my Gran in Belfast. In losing her sister she has a need to remember, to grieve and celebrate in story and memory. For me it is a chance to learn more about my family and support my Gran in her limbo after losing her sister and best friend.

I also get a chance to share a story I never thought I would tell my Gran; how when we used to arrive at the airport in Belfast I would have to check with my mum "which one is Gran?". Her and her two sisters are quite alike and would smother us in a flurry of kisses, perfumes and powders and I just thought it best to be sure which Gran was! The joys and losses of living overseas. Mostly joys!

Briefly Back in Belfast

The gray skies have turned to blue and the sun is warming the chill in the air. A very pleasant day, supposed to be heating up to one of the hottest days this year. Still a modest day by jet-lagged, confused body standards, but very nice.

A relaxed coffeeshop brunch to start Father's Day with the McEwens.

It is nice to be back in Belfast. I feel a mixture of settledness and disjointedness. A homecoming and visiting. A chance to be - old and new. Just time to take a moment to be and enjoy and find a rythmn of peace about the unknown. A rest into the present; pause in the uncharted journey.

Tuesday 14th - Dubai Airport

Another set of goodbyes. Some very good ones this time. After a relaxed week on the beach with mum and dad it was back to Chiang Mai for four days. Just enough time to pack, buy a few things, have a party, do a couple yoga classes and spend some quality time with my good friends.

It was a little strange to be flying out of Chiang Mai and not thinking – well I’ll be back in 2 weeks, 2 months….. This time just thinking; it was great and I’m sure I’ll see you again sometime! That cocktail of emotions that are part and parcel of travel; the sadness of goodbyes, the anticipation of hellos, new places and experiences, and the many hours of travel ahead. This time leaving Chiang Mai pretty exhausted. It was good that the flight from Bangkok to Dubai was quite empty as I got three seats to myself and was able to get a good amount of sleep.


I’ve been sleeping on the floor in Dubai airport at my departure gate and am now finally feeling somewhat alive. Airports are such great places to people watch. There is a flight boarding for Jeddah just in front of me and there are a lot of Muslims in a variety of dress getting on the flight. Quite a few in all white; some young girls and their mum in white kurtas with a dad also all in white; many little white hats on the men, some long white dresses and one large man literally just wrapped in a white sheet like at a fancy dress party. A man has just walked past in his long white dress with the all Saudi red and white head scarf held in place with a black circular band; in front of him a tall distinguished looking man with glasses and a white beard wearing a white turban, trousers and long top, stands with his three women behind him all in black, only their faces showing. Some women don’t even show their faces but only their eyes. Different cultures but still somewhat oppressive and restrictive all the same. Having met some women who dress like this in Tunisia, you should see how modern and beautifully dressed some of them are under those black chadors.

Then there is the London flight where a greater variety of people are starting to queue. The ladies covered up in black, a rotund lady in a North African style bright yellow and black sari; white men in short sleeved shirts and formal trousers for travel; high heels, trainers, jeans, t-shirts; style, comfort; an occasional jacket in preparation for London where I’m sure the temperature is not 32 degrees at 4am; and then the families returning from their package holiday in Thailand in shiny tracksuits, small shorts and pink tank tops covering not that much of the still white and substantial amounts of flesh.

Each individual, each a life being lived, each with a story to tell. So easy to look and make judgements but it is more fun when you are playing that game with a friend and making up stories to go with the people you are watching. In general however actual stories often turn out to be even more fascinating.

Time to check in to the boarding lounge.

The foamy fun of catching a wave to the shore on a body board with the sun setting a perfect golden backdrop behind the small island out from the bay. My dad and I ran through the waves while the raindrops from a passing shower glistened even as the sun shone. A beautiful end to a beautiful sunny day.

I woke up this morning ready to head out diving to the sound of rain outside my window. A good start! Most of the items in my pre-packed bag were unused; my sunscreen, sunglasses, sarong. I had fun anyway. It is hard to beat the experience of being in the amazing underwater realms of our world. No talking, more looking; just being. Though today the low visibility, strong currents and wild weather when we returned to the top which made getting back on the boat 'interesting', meant you had to keep your wits about you. I still got to make my three dives and saw some beautiful fish; seahorses, bamboo shark, frogfish, porcupine fish and another octopus! While some of the beautiful ones are nameless to me, just large schools of fish swirling around and above in the murky blue light of the ocean on a wet monsoon day.

Grey skies, early morning rain and large swell on the open sea all reduce visibility but do not dampen the joy of being in an underwater world after a year above on solid ground. An island surrounded by hard coral and many beautiful tropical fish. New fish I had never seen before; bright yellow trumpetfish, boxfish, cornetfish, lionfish... as well as many old reliables; barracuda, angelfish, anemonefish, wrasse... I was very excited to see my first octopii (three of them, though only two varieites). I am looking forward to Shark Point tomorrow.

We moved location to a beautiful small hotel right by the beach in Karon/Kata. It is downseason and still post-tsunami so the guy gave us a very good deal. We have two lovely rooms, sea view from our balconies (and mum's bed) and a nice pool, all for a tenner a night for the three of us. Not bad. We are enjoying relaxing, reading, eating and having Thai massages. The three of us zooming out to dinner on the one motorbike..."when in Thailand"!!

Having extolled the virtues of land travel we flew today down to the beach at Phuket. The rain poured from a laden grey sky. So much for that sunny welcome to the beach. The clouds parted to reveal blue sky and after a relaxing afternoon mum and I had a very pleasant walk on the beach at sunset. The surfers out on the breakers; paddlers silhouetted in the water against a pink and yellow sunset sky, full of beautiful cloud formations. A week ahead to relax at the beach, and the good news is that there are some companies still taking out divers, even though it is monsoon season!

It can be hard to enjoy your chocolate pancake when there are kids wandering around at 9pm selling photocopied books or just begging alongside the amputee beggars who have been injured by landmines. Yet you still do and are helping the staff of the cafes keep their jobs. The economy relies a lot on the tourist industry. Yet there is something so wrong in the world when people are sleeping on the streets and not having enough to eat.

Landmines are still a major problem in Cambodia, even this many years after the war is over. About 1000 people a year are killed or maimed by landmines. Victims are a common enough sight on the streets of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, many reduced to begging in a country where there is no such thing as social security. The dilemmas of giving to beggars and not being able to give to everyone. And the kids question. It is nice to buy the pineapple from the cute girl at the stalls, but is that encouraging child labour, or just providing income to a family?


We passed through increasingly green fields under an increasingly grey sky. The rain laden clouds built up but only ripped open after we were safely in the cafe of our new Sihanoukville guesthouse. It is interesting to see a country from the windows of a bus. The wooden stilt houses and newer brick houses on cement stilts; food stalls; children finishing school and being collected by parents on many varied motorbikes; motorbikes with a double load of pig strapped on the back seats, belly up and definitely dead; flat plains and the start of some low hills that seem large in comparison to the extensive flatness of the country. It is better travelling by land than air.


"Travel is an art, and one must practice it in a relaxed way, with passion, with love. I realised that after years of going about in aeroplanes I had unlearned that art - the only one I care about"
Terzio Terzani in 'A Fortune Teller Told Me'

The four boys sat on the corner of the weather blackened stone of an out building at Angkor Wat. Two of them wore the bright orange robes of novice monks and their shaved heads reflected the warmth of the sinking sun. They were all laughing at their friend chopping away furiously up the coconut tree. Professionals; all smiled straight at the camera for their photo opportunity and it was a classic.

Digital photography has the advantage of being able to delete images as you choose, so you can shoot freely without developing costs. To my sickened stomach, it also means you can accidentally in an unfocussed second wipe a couple hundred photos! Yes - it happened to me yesterday. I went back around the main sites in the inner loop at the Angkor complex to re-take some images, but the sun was now high and the light flat; and the wee boys were no longer waiting for me!

Angkor Wat is a truly impressive complex. Man's skill and creativity; desire for power and prestige; worship and wonder. A great accomplishment, and yet my favourite is Ta Prohm, where the forest is reclaiming its place over the man made buildings. Tall trees bind their thick roots around the roofs and walls and broken stones. Even in destruction nature is beautiful. Maybe the building was the destruction and the forest is restoring some natural balance and beauty?

We passed through the flat expanses of the Cambodian countryside with an electric storm illuminating the sky for miles around us. Sheet lightning flashing out both sides of the bus and fantastic classic fork lightning ripping the sky in its brilliant race to the ground. So bright it burnt its imprint on my retina for several minutes after it had exploded. We passed through a little rain which bounced through the closed windows, but for the most part it streamed down in a dark fog on the horizon.

People are not exaggerating when they say the trip from Poipet on the Thai border, to Siem Reap is one of the worst roads in the world. Our driver was good and our only incident having to bypass a collapsed bridge which still held the articulated lorry that had crushed it. We did wonder how the bus stayed together though. My dad does not know how its axle is not dead. It was impossible to hear the voice of the person sitting beside you, the rattling was so loud. It even drowned out the thunder when the lightning was right on top of us. We arrived by 9pm after just over 5 hours of shaking from the border. Meeting some people from our Bangkok bus leg of the journey today, we found out that the bus they had been transferred to arrived at 1.30am!!!!, after two breakdowns! I guess we got lucky.

After watching a cloudy sunset from Angkor Wat, complete with orange robed monks dotted photogenically by the weathered stone columns, we made it back to our guesthouse on our bicycles before tonight's storm hit. Its 15 minute glory was bright and loud and very wet, and cooled us down deliciously!!

I breathed in a hot breeze, even on the motorbike. The air was viscous and I rode through pools of hotter air, like currents in a body of water. The atmosphere felt heavy; wading through a molasses dream. My own 'Famished Road' merging of heat induced dreams in daylight. 38 degrees in the shade and sitting at a red light on the black sun beat tarmac I felt myself turning to glue.

Cool water bottle from the fridge to the temples and ankles. I sat rehydrating in the still shade and watched the slowly moving people walk around the market. The covered walkways between the many shops made perusing the wooden goods bearable. I even purchased myself a set of chopsticks.

Cloud cover comes as a welcome relief, below the relentless sun. Sodden clouds bearing a false witness to cooling rain bring a brief respite. Life through my tinted lenses appears a fraction more animated.

An extract from my journal on Friday 22nd August, 2003.

“A town only shows it’s polished & seedy & preened, prepared, powdered exterior to the casual visitor, the tourist, the passer through. The attempt to find a feeling, a connection feels elusive. Wandering artificially lit streets & collecting mass printed flyers on street corners from made up and trendily dressed employees who are earning their beer-funding minimum wage by offering you offers of beer jugs, cocktails, happy hours on the rocks and with a twist. But the beat is the rattle of a cattle train. Beer doused backpackers leer and the locals who frequent these venues are on the look out for a zero maintenance “good time”. Soft pillow calls.

Looking for a pumping heart; a soft underbelly takes longer, luck and a feel for the creative, chilled vibe of the local rhythm. It takes a day of couch hogging and spaced out drink buying – just enough to justify hogging the best couch all day.

Sitting here skint and chilled with a plan in my pocket and a good book. The lonesome journeys of Kerouac my companion, as I explore from my armchair the life of Cairns, with a groovy soundtrack.”

Read on the cover of a journal in the art gallery in Christchurch:

"if adventures do not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad" Jane Austen

New Zealand is a really beautiful country. I have really enjoyed it a lot!! Though it is winter, and we have had some cold weather, there has been a lot of great weather, especially on the days when I have been doing different activities! Sunshine and blue skies. New Zealand is a moderately expensive country to travel in, except that there are so many fabulous things to do - so I think everyone goes over budget here! I have been: sea-kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park; full day hike up the Franz Josef glacier; bunjy jump from Kawaharau bridge (original site of bunjy); 3 day learning to snowboard package; a 2 hour cruise on Milford Sound; a wildlife tour on the Otago Peninsula - albatross, fur seals, blue penguins, sealions, yellow eyed penguins and sheep! I have also been for great walks and visited good art galleries and museums, coffee shops.... I have been on a 'Stray' bus, which is a hop on hop off type of bus. It has been really good and I have met some fun people on it. It is also good cause there is a real mixture of ages of people on the bus! (I'm not ancient on it) So I guess you could say I have had a fun and full 3 weeks!

I head back to Australia on Sunday. When I go back I will head up the east coast with my Canadian roommate, Lianne. She just has a month left to travel. I will then be needing to look for some work!!

The winter is definitely here but there has been some sunshine amongst the rain and New Zealand in the winter is certainly a land of rainbows. They appear dancing along the side of the bus as we pass lush green fields filled with sheep or just grass; through small towns with a single main street; past houses that sit perched on an outcrop that nestles at the bottom of a lushly vegetated cliff and overlooks a sweeping vista of coastline. Yes the guidebook described the south island of New Zealand as a land of superlatives! Highest, tallest, deepest. It is also a land inspiring adjectives! Really stunningly beautiful. So far I have also found most of the people to be friendly and welcoming.

Small art galleries and organic coffee shop in Kaikoura; skin soaking walk in Picton and a lovely post walk chill out in the hot spa back at the hostel, while drinking a glass of red wine; wine tasting; Marahau accomodation in Old Macdonalds farm complete with llamas and a big dog; sea-kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park - right place at the right time - take it as it comes joys of travelling; 'shit head' (card game) with a bunch of English lads; starry skies that looked like a child had taken a paint brush loaded with white paper and splashed it all over a velvety piece of black fabric; Barrytown - crazy cross-dressing quiz night and a bus load of fun travellers up for a good laugh; more beautiful scenery; pancake rocks; seal colonies; rain; rainbows; waves and coasts and beaches and sweeping cliffs; cloud and blue skies; silence and lots of laughter.

So far I am having a great time here!

NEW ZEALAND
Christchurch

I flew from Sydney yesterday evening and got to Christchurch after midnight. I had a busy few days before leaving Sydney - finishing work; sorting my 'stuff' out; packing; meeting people to say goodbye; big night out; recovering; and most importantly of all reading (and finishing before I left) my friends copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I had promised not to steal it off to NZ with me. So I got it finished 20 minutes before I had to leave. A great story!

I haven't seen that much of Christchurch yet. It is the second biggest city apparently, but seems like a big town. After Sydney though it would. It is cold here (being mid winter) and I guess can only get colder as we move south. But it is a bright sunny day and there is a nice atmosphere around. Suzy (who I met at the airport and we stayed in the same hostel) and I had a lovely breakfast in a wee cafe called the Honeypot. We are just wandering really. A nice start to a new country.

I start my bus tour tomorrow morning. My 28th birthday! I am looking forward to it.

I have unintentionally abandoned my blog.

No reason other than not getting around to it! I have several days of best intentions. It was going to be beautifully updated with my travelling stories. Thoughts, moments, images. However 3 months is a lot to update. A summary includes ... 2 weeks in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand doing a Thai massage course...a week in Koh Tao in the south of Thailand doing a PADI Open Water and Advanced Open Water Scuba diving course...flying to Sydney and spending time looking for work, staying with friends, getting work, moving into a house with other travellers...now planning to activate my New Zealand working holiday visa by going there for a two week holiday...then returning to Sydney and heading up the East coast.

An understated paragraph on three full months. Places, people, experiences....

I guess I had to break my deadlock by starting somewhere. I will add moments as I feel!

For the moment though I will finish with a nice quote I have just read:


"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life; to put to rest all that was not life. And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived".
Henry David Thoreau

I travelled with Liz to Kampot by share minibus (four to three seats,
about 26 overall in a 15 seater) where we spent a night in an
unexciting but nice guesthouse. Oh yeh - the colour scheme in our
room was nice - fleecy deep purple bedcovers with satiny cerise pink
pillowcases and vibrant yellow towels folded on the end of the bed.
Nice. Kampot was a small town that has a regular but not too huge
tourist trade. Most tourists who pass through here are heading to
Bokor National park for either a day trip or an overnight. We were
offered this trip several times. It was a nice
place to wander and the river side road while different, was
reminiscent of Kratie. We had an Angkor beer in the one restautant
we could find across from the river and watched the blue river (not
brown like I have got used to seeing rivers) and the delicate but
stunning sunset that sank behind the blue horizon of the hills in the
National Park. This is quite a change for Cambodia where for t
he most part the landscape is unrelentingly flat and now well into
the dry season also evry arid. Brown dust is prevalent, not just
along the unsealed roads. The few fields that are irrigated and
planted with vibrant green rice or other vegetables stand out like an
oasis in the desert.

Kampot has a small busy market but we didn't really explore for long
as we wandered along relatively wide red dirt roads where simple but
nice houses lined the sides and a couple kids played with string and
rubber inner tubes and other wonderful creative toys. Back to the
river and then to our taxi which we had managed to get for $5 to Kep.
The town is only 25 km and half an hour away but there appear to be
no regular buses and the moto riders and taxi drivers have a monopoly
on the route. $5 was very good as the average on offer was $10 which
was just completely ridiculous. But it was a pleasant drive out
there. The roadside seemed like one long horizontal picture
interjected with vertical images...palm trees, poles, a house, a
bicycle with a lady cycling, a white cow some water buffalo....and
still the flat sealed road went on through the flat brown fields. We
arrived at our guesthouse and they had a room, upstairs with a
balcony. The place was about 3km before the '
town' though we never quite made it there and what we saw were a few
houses. A Norwegian man staying at our place said he had looked
around with his moto rider and there wasn't really a town, there were
not really any shops to speak of, no bank and the post office looked
as if it hadn't been used in about 20 years. Probably true. All
along the road there are burnt out homes that were part of the
colonial history of Kep where the rich used to come down to enjoy the
seaside. Apparently it was during the Khmer Rouge that the place was
destroyed, though whether the elite used it themselves, it was
symbolically destroyed or it was just looted by impoverished and
desperate locals during the famine under the Khmer Rouge in the late
70s is not completely certain. The guide book suggests that a
combination of factors is the most reasonable assumption.

Our 'Seaside Guesthouse' was literally by the sea. There was no
beach to speak of but the sea came up near the wall by the edge of
the guest house where there were about 5 thatched wooden platforms
where hammocks were strung. What a great place to chill out. We
stayed 2 nights but could easily have stayed longer! I had bought a
hammock in Phnom Penh so enjoyed getting the opportunity to use it
there! I also learnt a good way to tie it up. We went out to an
island the second day and I strung up my hammock between two palm
trees and relaxed! Very nice.

We got a taxi to Kampot and stayed in the same taxi as it became a
share taxi all the way to Sihanoukville. The drive was fine and we
ended up with only four in the car so it was really quite
comfortable! Though travelling in Cambodia is always a sticky
business! We arrived in Sihanoukville to find it heaving with
tourists - mostly Cambodians. We thought it was because it was the
weekend, but later found out that it was also 'International Women's
Day' so we were too overwhelmed with the numbers of people to try and
look for anywhere at the nice beach we wanted to stay at and instead
opted for heading up to the budget enclave at Victory Beach. It was
fine - but late that evening I got antsy and decided that if I could
get a ticket I would leave the next day to head to Thailand. I wasn't
in the mood for a beach day and would just be puttin gin time to get
to Thailand and sort out my massage and diving courses. So I got up
the next morning, arranged a ticket and left for
the boat at 11am after a short walk to the beach and a nice
breakfast with a very good mango shake - lots of good mango in it!
Liz decided that she would leave too and got a bus to Phnom Penh.

So I got the boat at 12 which took about 4 hours to get to the
border. A barrage of moto drivers and pick up drivers stand by the
pier and wait for custom. All at once just before the boat touches
the pier they all start shouting and jump on the boat and try to get
you to go with them. It was so absurd we started laughing! In the
end I got a pickup for 20 baht which I think turned out to be the
cheapest offer around. Not bad. I had met Arjon on the boat, a guy
from the crowd at Siem Reap. We joined 8 others in a nice minibus
just over the border that drove us all the way to Bangkok. Very
easy. We arrived about 10.30/11.00pm. We got a four person room to
share and headed out to KhaoSan road to get some Pad Thai (noodles).
I had missed them! It was funny and yet also very familiar to be
back in Bangkok. I did need to scroll back through a few languages
to find 'thankyou' though and it is taking a little time to readjust
to traffic driving on the left.

I went from Kratie by boat to Kampong Cham and then from there by share taxi to Siem Reap. It is the town at the Angkor temples and the base from where to explore them. It isn''t a cheap thing to do, as a 1 day pass costs $20 and I got a 3 day pass which was $40. However it was worth it and it would be stupid to go there and not pay the money to see one of the 7 man made wonders of the world!! I cycled around the mini tour the first day, motorbiked out to a far temple and round some of the grand tour on the second day and then hired a moto with driver for the third day and saw more of what I hadn't already seen, some about 14km away and then more in the main part. My moto driver also took me to visit the house of a friend who lived in a rural area in a wee wooden house. It was nice to see, though he wasn't there but his sister was.

The temples are really amazing. Any one of them would be very much visited anywhere else, and here there are so many you could run the risk of becoming blase about them. Angkor Wat is the main one and obviously stunning, however there are lots of smaller ones that are great- intricate stone carvings, majestic faces hewn in large rocks, ones where there is a beautiful tangle with nature and man's creations - the jungle's roots entwined with stone archways where the two have become one. A dance of destruction and support.

My firsty guesthouse was okay, but then I moved to the same guesthouse where Amir and Marte were staying. It was nice! The room was wooden (I was sharing with a German / Turkish Kurd girl Nurcan) and there was a communal area downstairs of a bamboo platform with hammocks and cushions on the ground. Very nice. There were quite a few single travellers and we had a nice time hanging out in the evenings. My last night there we sat up playing cards until 1.15am.

I am now back in Phnom Penh - this time staying at Number 10 (next door to number 9) and am sharing with an Australian girl called Liz. In the past month and a half I have had one night by myself! It is cheaper but quite funny when you think about it. I just phoned Nikki and we chatted for 38 minutes (to be exact) and she asked if I had been able to have sace to myself - I think I have had enough. I will soon be ready for some more, but that is more of the need to stop and process for a while. We shall see.

I am heading to the south tomorrow to Kampot and Kep then will head on to Sihanoukville and to Thailand via Koh Khong. About a week left here, or just under.

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!