Hello all

Welcome to Cambodia!  I have been working now for 3 weeks in Siem Reap and it must be almost a month since i last wrote this thing!!  After leaving Helen in Saigon i hopped on my bus and headed for Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia.

The bus journey was less than inspiring and the border crossing as slow and infuriating as ever!  Finally arrived in Phnom Penh and was dropped off a long way from any of the tourist districts but suprise suprise there was a group of tuk tuks waiting!!  After meeting an intertesting lady on the bus who had been teaching in Saigon we agreed to split the cost of the tuk tuk out to the "okay"guesthouse.  After a quick perusal my new found friend decided she wanted somewhere nicer and didnt mind paying a few extra dollars.  Me with the handsome total of $60 in my pocket was happy to settle for the $2 a night dorm room with minimal security and almost no comfort...what can i say it was OK.

 After strapping my backpack to my bed in everyway i could think of I headed down to the bar to grab a bite to eat and hopefully meet up with some travellers.  Luckily i fell in pretty quickly with an Aussie called Corey who thought i looked like a rural aussie (no entirely sure that was a compliment but took it that way anyway).  After a complimentary Beer Lao and a plate of fried noodles i was up for checking out the night market.  After telling our tuk tuk driver to pick us up in an hour we turned the corner to find the night markets charms had been significantly overstated to us being comprised of about 7 stalls which took us all of 10 mins to walk around (we really studied those Kramas [cambodian traditional scarves] and had a few bbq skewers).  Corey having not eaten was on the prowl for food so we stopped off at a restuarant where i sampled the delights of crickets and red ants.  Cant say i was blown away by eating the damned things i had been swatting off me all day but i felt i got some revenge on them!

The next day i took a walk around the city and ended up on the river front.  I sat there perplexed by a group of boys with long sticks poking at trees.  After 10 minutes my curiosity overtook me and i went to check out what they were doing.  Turns out they were collecting birds, on the end of their sticks was a kind of glue which would stick to the feathers of the birds.  The leader of the pack proudly unzipped his pocket to reveal over 10 small birds chirping awayy.  Asking the obvious question (Why?) i found that they were paid by the temple to catch them for devotees who wanted to set them free for good luck ($1 for 2 birds).  Naturally i wanted to give it a go and after 5 minutes of chasing a bird around with a stick to the sound of the kids in hysterics at the stupid 'barang' i gave up ...birdless.  Sitting down in humiliation i found some new friends in a few street kids who took a great interest in my aviators and proceeded to pose infront of the national museum taking turns to take photos with my camera.  After another 20minutes and about a million photos i said i shouldbe off and retired back to the guesthouse.  Meeting up with Corey and now Clint (another Aussie) we headed out for a night on the town.  I proceeded to get very very drunk and passed out on a sofa in a brittish bar.  

The next day i decided to do the tough stuff.  S21 and the Killing Fields.  Both extremely hard to expereince especially with guides who have had relatives pass through both places.  It amazes me how little is taught or even acknowledged the Khmer Rouge back in the west and walking the corridoors of the school turned torture facility really brought the brutality and the pointlessness of it all home.  After a tough day i crashed out early.  The next few days passed without much incident except for meeting a crazy italian photo journalist called Luca who took me to the FCC (foreign correspondants club) the very site the film the killing fields is set and where the real story took place.  The rains also came in in that time ...hangovers from the cyclone in burma.   I also came face to face with the prostitution problems in cambodia as some genius from Leeds thought it was a good idea to bring a prostitute into the dorm.  Needless to say i was less than impressed but also got a discount on my room as an apology.

After an interesting and intense 5 days in Phnom Penh i was ready to leave and looked forward to catching my bus out of PP and up to Siem Reap my base for the next 2 months.

This has turned out to be a much longer account of Phnom Penh than i expected so im not going to go into Siem Reap in this entry but ill write another before the week is out telling you all about my projects (which is going really well) and all the action in Siem Reap.

Miss you all and love you lots

Claire xxx