After a long plane ride (squished next to an overweight man with an open fly) I reached a steamy Bangkok. I saw next to nothing of the city though as it was off to Phnom Penh at 6:30am so just a short stay in an airport hotel. Flying over Cambodia all I could see was miles of green with shining brown patches. I thought they might be really big puddles but given how square they were I'm working on the theory they are rice paddies. I landed in Phnom Penh without incident and was greeted by a very efficient visa process. I counted 13 people behind the visa desk all in immaculate uniforms. I handed my passport and $25 to the first person and then it was handed down the line, each of the 13 people looking at it, before it emerged stamped and granted at the end of the line ... hmmmm ... I guess that is one way to keep unemployment stats down. Into Phnom Penh by taxi I asked to go straight to the bus station to take the bus to the beach in Sihanoukville. The bus companies advertise themselves as running luxury airconditioned coaches, but I guess luxury is a relative term. They were more like New Zealand school buses but airconditioned yes, and I did have a seat all to myself, no sharing with local produce, wildlife and children. After settling in to enjoy a good look out the window, accompanied by a little Bob Marley on CD I was tapped on the shoulder by my bus buddy (or about to be bus buddy). She proceeded inquire after my country of origin, marital status, age and general income and then asked to test my CD player, sunglasses, CD wallet and any number of any other shiny toys I had with me. I was very glad my laptop was safely tucked out of sight. Feeling like a thoroughly spoilt westerner she then inquired about my abilities in Khmer (the language of Cambodia). Revealing that my abilities were very limited she determined to teach me all of Khmer by the time we reached Sihanoukville. The bus ride I might tell you is only 4 hours, even by rickety coach. She began by chastising my pronounciation and making me repeat words until I began to get it right. After about an hour of this I think it began to dawn on her that wealthy though I seemed to be, I am very slow. She then dispensed the much less demanding prescription of one word a day for the length of stay and made me swear that I would follow it before she thankfully departed. I arrived in Sihanoukville thoroughly exhausted only to be greeted by a horde of local moto drivers. I decided to be brave and jump on, my pack in front of the driver and me on the back. A moto by the way is a scooter, usually about 50cc though some of them are a little fancier and everyone travels this way, I mean everyone, all on one moto, mum, dad and the kids. I rode sidesaddle much to the thrill of the moto horde who yelled "ah she is just like a Khmer lady" and gave me the thumbs up. At least I can do something right. The guesthouse I had booked was a lovely retreat from my new surroundings with aircon, cable tv and a pool. I spent the next four days in the pool, the sea or at the bar (with beers at $US0.50 who wouldn't?). I also managed to consume a large amount of random cable tv learning fascinating information such as the fact there is a type of fish in Lake Tanganika, Africa, that swallows its young when there is danger and then spits them out when the danger passes and that Cleopatra might not have actually committed suicide, but been murdered oooooooh. The beach retreat is over now though and it is back to the big smoke and down to work, or at least down to the local to see if the beer tastes any different without the salt air."

It definitely takes some time to find one's balance in a place like Phnom Penh. It is hot and dirty and the traffic moves steadily with very loose interpretations on what I might call road rules. Red lights (and there aren't many traffic lights at all) are optional, as is driving on the right hand side of the road Ð if there is too much traffic to cross over the road, why cross over, just drive into the oncoming traffic. I am now pretty moto proficient (as a passenger, haven't tried driving) and have ridden sidesaddle all over town. I can now ride and drink a soda, ride and read a map, and ride with my eyes shut. The latter is my preferred method, as it keeps the dust out and saves me having heart attacks about our movement into oncoming traffic and cattle. Last Saturday, with some trepidation, I decided to brave flat hunting in Phnom Penh. I can tell you with total confidence that it is the easiest flat hunting mission I have ever been on (and I have been on many). At 11am, perched on the back of the real estate agent's moto we whizzed around the neighbourhoods and viewed six abodes in 60 minutes. I chose the first one I had seen and by 4pm I had moved in. Howszat? My apartment is on the fourth story of a small apartment block and has two bedrooms and three bathrooms (they really love their bathrooms here). I chose it mostly for its truly enormous balcony that comes with ceiling fans, outdoor dining furniture and an outdoor bed. So there is a spare bedroom with ensuite for anyone who is planning to visit. It is five minutes walk to work so that also eliminates a scary moto beginning and end to my day. A picture of the neighbourhood as seen from the back deck is below. The son of the landlord who, had been present during the negotiations for the price of the apartment, only spoke Khmer and the real estate agent interpreted. After we had finished negotiations the landlord's son took me out to the back deck to demo the washing machine (laundries, including appliances, are outdoor affairs here). He started the washing machine and then it stopped. He hit it and said in a perfect Australian accent "bloody washing machine is useless". He then explained in perfect English with a strong Aussie drawl that he had lived in Australia for seven years and was just playing at only understanding Khmer so his mother would take more of a role in the discussion. His language abilities turned out to be very useful on my second night in the apartment when the gas bottle on the stove ran out and the (bloody) washing machine stopped mid-cycle. I began work on Thursday when the office opened after the P'chum Ben festival. I was toured around the office and then shown to the Women's Resources Center, where I will be primarily working. The Women's Resources Center to me conjures images of a large office with resources for women. In fact it is a dusty, airconditioned room, of about 5 m x 4 m housing three lawyers, two support staff et moi. I think I should have opted for an office in a broom cupboard at Stace Hammond to acclimatize. It is indeed a resources center for women though. The organization is very active and the lawyers are all running multiple cases. I have spent most of my time so far editing and augmenting the funding proposals for next year and doing lots of reading. I'm also doing the rounds, meeting with people from other legal NGOs to get a sense of what is going on. Meetings are the most popular way of doing business here as internet and telephone is expensive and everyone likes to get out of the office. I shall tell you more about work though when I know more about it. Suffice to say that my colleagues are really warm and friendly and dedicated people. I think I'm gonna like it here. "

On Sunday morning I woke at 5am ... yes ... I set that alarm. I had been invited to attend a ceremony at a Buddhist pagoda by my workmates. I had managed to glean only limited information: I was to be at my workmates house at 6am, we would be going by car to a pagoda somewhere outside Phnom Penh, we were going to give monks flowers and I was to wear a white shirt. This all seemed a little odd but I was willing to give it a try. One of my workmates picked me up by moto just before 6am and I had my first experience of double side saddle (driver, me sidesaddle to the left, driver's fiancŽe sidesaddle to the right Ð just as well I didn't buy that chocolate at the airport, these are scooters we are talking about). We arrived at the appointed location to find not a car but a bus, yes a whole bus to transport my workmates family to the pagoda. I was warmly welcomed and ushered on to the bus which came fully equipped with a TV screen playing non-stop Khmer Karaoke at full volume. I took a deep breath. By 7am the family was fully loaded and we were off to the countryside. Or so I thought. Next on the agenda was actually driving around the city to pick up the more remotely located relatives. The flowers we were giving to the monks turned out to be trees made of tinsel with money stapled to them and they, along with offerings of rice and sodas, were duly loaded on the bus. After about an hours drive we turned off onto an unmarked and unpaved road. The bus driver miraculously squeezed the bus between two concrete posts, clearly positioned with the precise intention of keeping enormous vehicles such as ours off the small dirt track. We were not to be foiled. Some way down the road a band, loaded on the back of a ute, joined the convoy. At the end of the road stood the Pagadoa Ð a collection of buildings where monks live and learn. Off the bus I was told we were about to do three laps of the temple and a stick of incense was thrust in my hand. Fortunately two of the people I was with speak very good English and could interpret for me. We then proceeded to something that I would identify in NZ as a wharenui, but I don't know what it is called here, where we sat and chanted. Well, I didn't chant, I sat in stunned silence furtively starring at everyone. I began to notice that others were starring at me, not so furtively. I was after all the only westerner there and a source of distraction. There was a guy filming the proceedings and he decided it would be fun to get a shot of the barang. He stepped through the seated crowd and shoved the camera in my face and stood there for fully two minutes. I concentrated on thoughts of cool things so that I wouldn't be the funny looking barang who goes strangely red. After two hours of hanging around drinking coconut milk, eating fresh peanuts, being given some Khmer lessons, and a tour of the temple, we were back on the bus. Just down the road we stopped at the house where we'd picked up the band and all got off. It was lunch time. In the front yard of the house (one of the best looking around) was marquee with tables laid with rice and fish and other Khmer treats. I stuck to the rice and vegetables and really enjoyed it. I find a lot of the food here hard to stomach as it is cooked in a lot of saturated oils but this was fresh and tasty. We all sat around in the shade, sweating (not very gently) and chatted. Well, they chatted, I sat there. One of the older women came past and starred at me. I smiled at her. She then started talking to me and laughing heartily. Wondering what on earth I'd done I asked for a translation from my colleagues. Apparently, because I'd smiled at her I was going to be her daughter-in-law and she was off to find her sons. I resolved to be a bit more careful with my smile and learn some more Khmer (I have been outstripping my word-a-day prescription) who knows what I've been smiling and nodding too?! "

After a few weeks of living in the noise and dust of Phnom Penh, my new friend Fiona (an Australian lawyer) and I decided we deserved a break in the country. After some deliberation we chose Kampot as the location of excursion, a town 148km south of Phnom Penh. The process of getting a taxi is not all that simple, especially as we wanted one with seatbelts. So we had to go with this guy to this place and that guy to somewhere else. We were eventually assured, sitting parked up at a market, that a guy with seatbelts in his car would be here shortly (a relative term indeed). The guy with seatbelts duly arrived, his car fully loaded with his extended family. The extended family were unceremoniously turfed into the car without seatbelts and we were ushered into the car with seatbelts and two hours after ordering a taxi, we were away. I had practiced my Khmer for "please slow down", "stop", "watch out" and "ohmygawd, we are all going to die" but it wasn't required. He was a very sensible driver who unlike almost everyone else here, lacked a penchant for beeping at absolutely everything he passed and we reached Kampot without incident. On Saturday morning we enlisted in a tour of Bokor Hill Station. The guide warned our group of eight that the road up the mountain "was bad, very very bad road" and you know you've got a problem if a local says that. It was indeed bad, completely unmaintained, winding and boggy. Our driver was truly amazing and managed to get us all safely to the top but it was absolute torture on the butt as we were sitting on wooden benches in the back of a ute. Bokor is not so much a hill as a mountain. Once upon a time ago, before the Khmer Rouge, it was home to a thriving little French Colonial Town (complete with a grand casino, pictured below) and a vacation house for the King (complete with cottages for his concubines). Unfortunately it was destroyed during the war and people pushed to their deaths from the cliffs which rise high above an expansive jungle. In the afternoon, when the fog and mist and wind rolled in, it was nothing short of very creepy. The buildings are all in ruins and the roads have never been repaired. The only operational building is the ranger station as it is part of a national park. Before we had the opportunity to enjoy the full creepiness of the town centre however, we had the pleasure of trekking for two hours through bog and swamp to a waterfall. Sound like fun? We weren't actually told that it was a trek through bog and swamp before we set off, and I merrily trooped in wearing jandals (flip flops for you foreigners) and carrying a silk satchel. Happily, this isn't the first time in my life I've ended up on some crazy walk so I didn't think the world was ending like the girl behind me did who just wouldn't shut up about how miserable she was. The track was barely a track and we had to basically walk with one foot on either side of the track most of the way (which I assure you makes your legs feel pretty weird the next day). In parts I just had to take my jandals off and hope that I wasn't going to stand on anything sharp because my jandals kept getting sucked into the mud with every step. We reached one part where the water was deep and the bottom extremely slippery. Fiona managed to fall in up to her waist and for the rest of the day had to endure soaked pants. I managed to avoid this but my cellphone went for a small swim; it survived admirably. Two of the guys came out with leeches attached and I was extremely grateful it wasn't me, though I would have been interested to see what the complaining girl would have made of it happening to her. The waterfall, when we reached it after a solid two hours was very pretty (pictured below). Unfortunately the driver who met us at the end of the track with lunch had dropped the curry in the dirt so lunch was a little limited but there was plenty of bread and bananas to go around. Before nightfall we went back down the mountain, hanging on for dear life as we bumped and banged all the way and ended the day with a cruise on the river, complete with an ice cold beer Lao. We returned to Phnom Penh by taxi on Sunday, driven by a man who got to hear the full extent of my Khmer phrases and some of my better English cussing, but arrived in one piece. I popped down to Pencil, a supermarket here which we also refer to as "Heaven" because it is an airconditioned palace full of tasty treats including Mainland Cheese and kettle fries. On my return I put away my groceries and found on top of my food safe that my fully sealed packet of burrito wrappers (bought at Heaven) had a small hole munched in the packaging and into the wrappers. After hyperventilating I decided the rodent couldn't be too big as the teeth marks looked small I went down to see the landlords son. After explaining my problem he asked "don't you like rats? Haven't you seen them around, they are enormous, they scuttle all over the city". I thanked him very much for his sympathetic and understanding words and returned upstairs to scrub the house down. I then settled down for some evening Hallmark channel and low and behold the little bugger scuttled right past. I was tempted to scream but that really seems a bit pointless when no one is there to enjoy the drama so I stood on the couch and called Mr "I love rats, they are really huge", and told him to get up here and rescue me. He arrived with a trap big enough to catch a well nourished possum. I had seen the rodent though and while I don't know if it is rat or mouse, it wasn't that big. A few hours later my ceiling sprung a leak right above my bedroom, soaking my bed. Monsoon be damned, I threw my stuff in my bag and went for a walk in the rainy night around to my friend's place to stay the night. I am leaving with work today to go out to the provinces to interview women about their experience with sexual and domestic violence and when I return on Wednesday I have high hopes of finding a rodent free, waterproof house. "

My first foray into the provinces for work purposes started inauspiciously. My work owns five vehicles which are kept for the express purpose of transporting staff out into the provinces for work purposes. Out of the five, one is working, and that has to be at the office at all times for the director to use. It doesn't seem to have crossed anyones mind that maybe it would be a good plan to fix these vehicles, or ask the donors for funds to do so and apparently this situation has been in place for most of the year. So the bus it was for us. Unfortunately we were a little late getting to the bus station and no normal seats were available. Instead, with a slight discount, I was given a plastic stool along with my ticket and I sat on that in the center aisle as we slowly moved out of Phnom Penh. My butt, having not recovered from the trip up Bokor Hill Station, was not impressed and nor was the rest of me. We arrived in the town about three and a half hours later. I had been told the trip took about two and a half hours but I have learnt that you need to add about 1/3 to the end to get the true time estimate. I booked into the most expensive room available at the hotel, a princely $10/night which bought me aircon, a tv and a fridge. My colleagues were flabbergasted that I should want a room on the second floor as this involved going up stairs, something that Khmer people have a strong aversion to. Of course it is quite sensible as it is always really hot and climbing stairs does give one a certain glow. I am not able to abandon my western sensibilities with such ease however. After a tour around the town on the back of a moto, kindly provided by my colleague, we went to dinner. In smaller places my vegetarian tendencies begin to create some problems. Khmer food is generally very fish orientated and seafood is not considered meat. They do have a standard and quite tasty dish of vegetables and rice, no fish included so I ordered that. Little did I know that by ordering it once I would be assigned the dish for the rest of the time we were away. How much vegetable and rice can one girl take? I was about to find out. In the morning, after a tasty breakfast of ... vegetables and rice ... we got down to business. Not having a vehicle we had to hire a taxi to go out to the village and after the mandatory amount of stuffing around, the taxi turned up. For reasons I still do not understand our taxi had two drivers who shared the drivers seat. With a two headed monster of dubious driving skills in charge, we were off. The village was distant, on a bad road and very pretty (pictures below). We were welcomed at the village chief's house where the interviewees were ready and waiting. I was shepherded upstairs where I had tea and fried banana with the commune chief. We chatted (via a translator) about his village and he inquired about my country. When I explained that few New Zealanders were actually farmers he was shocked and inquired what on earth the rest of us got up to. I tried to explain, but he seemed unconvinced. In his village 95% of the people are agricultural workers so I guess it would be hard to grasp that a country can get along with so few farmers. After tea I joined in the interviews and sat in amazement as people listened into each other's interviews and chimed in with their opinions. Not ideal interviewing conditions and something I made it my mission to alter the next day. The next day was more interviews but our budget for transport was dwindling so we were going my moto. We stopped to buy fried banana (pictured below) at a roadside vendor and then made our way through the huge puddles (also pictured) to the village. We managed to set up an environment a bit more conducive to maintaining confidentiality and managed to get through a fair number of interviews. I returned to Phnom Penh by bus with my ticket purchased well in advance. Unfortunately it was too far in advance as I got a front seat. This is a bad idea both because of the proximity to the horn (which the driver used liberally) and the unobstructed view of the scary scary driving. I arrived home to my apartment and crept up to the rodent trap I had left lavishly baited. There inside was a cute little mouse, sitting watching me after a full feast of the cheese and meat I had left in the trap. What had been a hideous, beastly monster when he was running around the house now looked like adorable. I checked my phrase book and went downstairs to explain to the landlord that I had caught my mouse. They came up and took him away, to what fate I don't know. Ignorance is bliss. This was all done to the accompaniment of a cacophony of saws and hammers emanating from the roof; the waterproofing was in progress. "

My gym I noted, sold helmets. I was very keen to own one as my imagination frequently got away on me as I rode around the city, envisaging being thrown to the ground completely unprotected. I tried a couple of them on but they were far too big and practically rotated on my head. I have a very, very tiny head by the way. Noting this the gym folk dispatched one of the employees to bring back some smaller sized helmets for me to try. He returned 10 minutes later with a selection. Unfortunately it was just a selection of colours, the helmets were identical in all other ways. After some discussion the employee offered to take me to the shop so I could choose one myself. On arrival at the shop it became apparent that the numerous helmets were all the same size and all the same brand, just in different colours. One that I thought might fit me, a different brand, I was told belonged to the owner. I took this as a bad sign, if the owner didn't wear his type of helmets I wasn't about to get into one. I was in at my travel agents later that day and asked if he knew where to buy a helmet. He told me to return at 5pm and he would take me helmet shopping. This is indeed all a little bizarre, at home I can't imagine my travel agent offering to do anything except arranging travel but people here are a bit more imaginative about their roles. He drove me to a row of helmet shops and out we got. I explained the problem of my tiny head and then tried on a child size helmet to demonstrate just how tiny my head really was. This caused a good deal of hilarity, particularly as the helmet was decorated with Micky Mouse. The point had been brought home. He gave me a helmet marked large but he explained this related to the outer circumference of the helmet, not the inner size. This seemed completely bizarre to me but he was right, it was snug as a bug. As he had lifted the helmet off the wall a mouse scuttled away, but this was no time to get fussy about rodents. We agreed on the grand price of $16 and now I am the proud owner of a helmet, complete with racing stripes and a mirrored visor Ð rrrrrrrrrrrr."

Having done almost nothing all day, I found myself at 4:30pm in a total panic of dirty laundry and disorganization. My brother and sister-in-law were arriving at the airport at 6:50pm and before that I had to go to my colleague's wedding. I had no real idea what I was meant to wear and no real clue where I was going. The invitation included a beautifully drawn map of the location for the reception but as it was entirely in Khmer it was no use to me. Khmer does not use roman script but rather their very own, which I still find entirely unintelligible. After pulling on an outfit I thought might be vaguely suitable, but I knew to be not quite in line with tradition, I ran downstairs with my helmet in hand. With the faith of the desperate I showed a moto driver my map and he nodded knowledgably and we were off. Saturday night in Phnom Penh is busy as the most common form of entertainment is cruising around, not unlike my home town of Whakatane. After driving uptown for some time, my moto driver stopped and indicated that in fact he had no clue where we were going. What a surprise. I paid him and went into the nearest stall to ask for help. A very nice English-speaking son of the stall owner helped me out and gave instructions to another driver. I arrived at the wedding half an hour after I said I would be there. The wedding party stand at the front door to greet arrivals and they were so dressed-up and made-up I recognized only my colleague, the groom. When I made it upstairs I found that in fact everyone was so dressed-up I did not recognize anyone. I circled past the tables and couldn't see a single person I knew. I was clearly being stared at by the guests with interests. What was this western girl with a moto helmet doing here wandering around? I was beginning to wonder the same thing. I was eventually hailed by one of my colleagues, but their table was already full and they suggested I go and sit with some complete strangers at another table. So I did. Khmer women don't really drink alcohol and particularly not beer, but I felt this was no time to start trying to blend in. So I sat down with some Khmer lads and we cracked into the Anchor (the local brew). The toasting at our table came thick and fast and within about 15 minutes I had demolished a number of cans. I explained that I now pretty much had to leave as my brother and sister in law were arriving and I had to go and meet them. This was all really just as well as of the food that arrived, the only vaguely vegetarian food was cashews and I was struggling to direct any of those successfully into my mouth with chopsticks and a growing quantity of alcohol in my bloodstream. I made my excuses and left. Outside I flagged a moto down and asked to go to the airport. He said to me "airport". This is always a bad sign, a repetition of the key word usually means a complete lack of comprehension. I did a quick aeroplane mime, tried some Khmer and then asked in Khmer "do you understand". "I understand", came the reply. I hopped on and off we went, in entirely the wrong direction. I called a halt immediately and we found someone who spoke English. He asked me where I wanted to go and I explained. He kindly told me that if I was going flying I needed a ticket. I thanked him for the advice but said I was only picking someone up. With that assurance he was happy and gave the moto driver the required information. It became apparent as we approached the airport that the moto driver had never been there before and the noise of a plane taking off nearly caused him to crash us in his surprise. We arrived safely to find Gareth and Abby waiting patiently. An exciting night for me and the moto driver."

If you want the full story of the temple frolic I recommend checking out Gareth and Ab's blog as I'm sure they'll have it, but for my version of events ... We had early morning flights on Tuesday, 6:45am to be precise so we ordered a taxi for 5:30am. At 5:30am he was not outside the house, no surprises there, so I launched an immediate campaign of harassment to get him out of bed and on the road quick smart. After three phone calls he arrived and we piled in. The plane was actually delayed so the poor guy could probably have slept in a bit but oh well, I'm sure he enjoyed the early morning start in retrospect. We got a tuk tuk from the airport to our hotel where we were greeted with a tasty tropical welcome drink. Our room wasn't ready until later that afternoon so it was back into the tuk tuk and off to see the Angkor Wat, the star attraction of the temples. We were suitably impressed though I was deeply unimpressed when a stall holder tried to charge us $US5.50 for three small bottles of water and six small gritty baguettes. In Cambodian prices that is just extortion. The temples are all really something to behold, massive stone structures, many with intricate carvings and all with a personality of their own. But I'll let the photos tell you that story. Ab had devised a list of our top temple priorities and we managed to get through pretty much the whole thing. When we arrived back at the hotel in the afternoon, hot and dusty, with our bottles of Angkor purchased from the Star Mart (who honestly pays mini bar prices??) we were told that Miss Bridgette and her guests had been upgraded to a suite. We were shown to a substantial room on the top floor with two bathrooms and silk robes and slippers for us to meander around in. We hit the pool for what would be the first of many wallows. I feel sorry for the other guests who had to enjoy the slick of sunscreen, dirt and insect repellent floating off us. Gareth had decided to declare war on mosquitoes and was treading that fine line between avoiding illness caused by mosquitoes and subjecting us all to full blown DEET poisoning. The effects of his campaign can be seen in the photo below perhaps. Wednesday's highlight was Ta Phrom, the temple where some of Tomb Raider was filmed, and Abby performed Lara Croft poses, as well as upsetting a snake as she adventured off into the long grass. Thursday we decided to take on Banteay Srei which is somewhat further out of town. The tuk tuk driver told us about one hours drive but true to time principles here it took about two and a half hours. We arrived to find the sun high in the sky and unobstructed by clouds. It was hot, really hot. We stumbled inside the temple and found a shady spot to admire it from. After a two and a half hour rattle and bump back into town we told an amazed tuk tuk driver that we would now like to drive 16kms in the other direction to a silk farm. Gareth and I were a little dubious but Abby's touristic persistence paid off; the silk farm was great. We had a full tour of the making process and I felt a bit sick, given the price of silk here, to hear it took one day to weave one meter of plain silk and one day to weave 30cm of patterned silk. Friday we returned to Phnom Penh by luxury bus. Luxury in leg room and suspension maybe but there isn't much you can do to stop other passengers hoicking loudly (a favourite pastime of asian tourists which I just can't get used to) and the ever present karaoke (though luxury does seem to buy a slightly lowered volume). Gareth and Abby left for the airport as dusk fell and just before they left my electricity switched off. I was very sad to see my visitors go (abandonment issues? Me? Never?) and this was compounded by the darkness. I tripped off to the supermarket to purchase candles and a torch and some chocolaty goodness I felt I just must need. When I returned the power was still out and my landlords managed to wire up a scary looking extension cord (which was, as Gareth had pointed out, made of speaker cable, not electrical cable) running from their place (with electricity) to my place over the balcony, entirely unprotected from the elements. On the end of the extension cord they connected an electric lightbulb (also with speaker cable). That was just too much for me and I unplugged it immediately when they left (visions of exploding glass and fires). I did use the power source to plug back in my fridge and my laptop and set myself up on the deck for the evening with candles, a cold beer and a quality pirated DVD ... ahhh, that's the life."

Last weekend I went on a beach trip with two Australians to the crumbling French colonial seaside resort of Kep. Kep was particularly notable for the old mansions now inhabited by large families, the penchant of the local ladies to wear cotton pajamas as a day suit (a national trait, but a uniform in Kep) and slightly sinister looking foraging pigs and dogs. We arrived after a long car journey (not because of the distance involved but because the driver was unusually cautious) in great anticipation for our upcoming swim in the guesthouse pool. We had booked this particular guesthouse solely because it had a pool. The proprietor met us at the gate and informed us that the pool was actually green, very green, as some charming Japanese children had decided to set a pond of fish (including the pond water) free in the open spaces of the pool. He assured us the pool was swimmable but it was clearly a slimy mess, with pond insects delighting in it, so I wasn't about to get in. Somewhat put out we walked up to another guesthouse for dinner, high up on the hill, which promised in the ever misleading Lonely Planet to be a great place for cocktails. I ordered a G&T. The waiter informed me that unfortunately, no cocktails, can't make them. Bemused, I offered to do it myself - I could see the gin, I could see the tonic, I could see the glass, I could even provide instruction on how to do it ... gin ... tonic. But no, we had to have beer. Waiting for the beer to arrive, we watched as a dog cleaned the plates left by some of the other customers and the waiters studiously ignored them. This was all accompanied by some little French ex-pat brats running around continuously yelling "Victor, Victor". Despite having seen that the dishwasher was a dog we ordered dinner. My first choice was unavailable, no bread this evening sorry. I switched, after an extended and confusing decision to salad. My companions meals arrived but no salad. I eventually stopped the Belgian waiter and asked where the hell my salad was. He repeated the word "salad" back to me with uncomprehending eyes Ð clearly here has been in Cambodia too long. My salad arrived. It was a bowl of lettuce. Just lettuce. Nothing else. This was accompanied by a glass of red wine which I had watched the same Belgian waiter pour, half from one bottle, and half from a completely different bottle. Exit, stage right. The next day we took a boat to an idyllic island off the coast called Rabbit Island (which looks nothing like a rabbit and has no rabbits). To our disgust, "Bloody Victor", as we had now named him, was also on the island, he was a small French child. Dinner again presented challenges. I embarked on an extended and highly repetitive discussion in Khmer to outline the fact that I wanted rice and vegetables for dinner, no seafood. Seafood is what Kep and Rabbit Island are all about so clearly this was a struggle. Dinner was hosted in a little bamboo shelter on the beach. As dinner arrived, so did a tropical storm and the proprietors ran to strap down the tarpaulins and fold down bamboo sidings. It was very cosy, just us ... their entire extended family, four dogs and under our table a small puppy and a large pig. On our return journey by taxi the Australians were delighted when the drivers phone chimed "Waltzing Matilda" as its ring tone. Mysteriously, when we reached Kampot (about 30minutes from Kep), the driver stopped and without any explanation got out and a new driver got in. He was a speed demon and we were back in Phnom Penh in no time at all, ready for a new week of work."

"

I was somewhat concerned that I had become so used to life in Cambodia that I would no longer find anything surprising and that therefore, I would have nothing of interest to share on my blog. But fear not, Cambodia continues to deliver. Another trip to the seaside town of Kep delivered some excitement. We took a taxi down there which naturally entailed a whole lot of bargaining, followed by a whole lot of bad and scary driving. We arrived in Kampot (about 20 kms from Kep) in worryingly speedy time and cruised on towards Kep. Our trip was suddenly halted as we turned a corner and found people milling over the road and tree branches spread across the road (the warning sign for an accident). We dispatched Kelly to check out what was happening in case they should need a bit of medical assistance. He returned with instructions that we better get, not the first aid kit, but the cameras. Up ahead was a bridge which had completely collapsed and twisted into the river, spilling its contents, a large two carriage truck. The accident had apparently happened several hours earlier and in the time that had elapsed a great deal of opportunistic business had sprung up. Boats were plowing the river delivering people, motos, luggage and livestock to the other bank. Drinks stands were keeping all the onlookers hydrated. Our taxi driver saw a fine commercial opportunity. He decided that an extra $20 would be in order to deliver us to Kep via the back road, about a 45 minute drive and given the price from Phnom Penh was already an excessive $30, we weren't so keen. After yet more protracted negotiations we ditched him and took a very pleasant boat ride across the river, followed by a bus ride into Kep. The newspapers later reported that the truck had, surprise surprise, been overloaded and far too heavy for the bridge. The driver had quite sensibly climbed out and fled the scene, no doubt fearing the mob "justice" that often follows such events in Cambodia. Apparently it wasn't just the overloading of the truck that caused the collapse though, scrap metal collectors had removed some important bolts from the structure, a fact that the authorities were aware of but were evidently a bit busy doing other terribly important things than to close the bridge or get them replaced. "

It was announced, at the last minute of course, that Wednesday would be a day off work and would instead involve a work boat trip up the Mekong followed by a picnic on an island. The landlord was providing this service for no apparent reason; clearly we are paying too much rent. I was reasonably keen to avoid this as I have a pretty clear policy about boat trips: don't go because if you want to leave you can't. It was not to be however as my excuses got me no where. I was teaching until 9am (which is another story) but that was no barrier, I just had to take a moto someway up the river and the boat would pick me up as it sailed by. Before I knew it, I was waiting on the dirt path, waiting for the ferry to arrive. I boarded at about 9:30am and was surprised, and yet not surprised, to hear the karaoke going full tilt and all the men engaged in some serious card games on the deck. I swear that vehicles in Cambodia are powered not by petrol but by the strains of karaoke. The boat, like all vehicles was fully fitted with sound system, TV screen and karaoke machines. The card games involved a considerable exchange in riel and a lot of shrieking. By 10am the Angkor beer was flowing. By 10:30am the whole office was dancing around the boat singing and yelling. You have to hand it to the Cambodians; they really know how to party. There is none of this shy retiring, oh no, I can't dance etc - give them a karaoke machine and a table to dance around and they are off. The curious thing about this ferry was that it was actually two ferries strapped together with ropes, with the motor of one boat running the other boat just following alongside. Everyone was just moving between the two over a gangplank or, as people got Angkor bold, climbing the railings. Aside from the earlier hour of this frivolity I saw a fundamental problem in their plan. In the infinite Cambodian hospitality, the beer was being freely distributed to the crew as well. As we neared our picnic destination spirits were high and then the inevitable, we ran aground. The sand bar was fully visible from the boat but that would require looking for a sand bar. If you are a crew member who is a bit pissed and your primary concern is making sure the karaoke was running smoothly, perhaps it is harder to spot. After running aground the crew eventually struck on the idea of untying the boats and seeing if they could get one off. My boat was successful and we pulled away, leaving the other firmly stuck in the sand. The crew then tied our boat to the back of the stuck boat and attempted to pull it off the sand. Unfortunately, instead of driving back to pull it off we drove off sideways, at right angles to the stuck boat. This had the effect, not of pulling the stuck boat off, but of pulling our boat at very high speed into the side of the stuck boat. Suddenly everyone realized that the two boats were about to collide at an almighty speed and they ran to the side to try and push them away as they approached. One of the crew members clearly thought his feet would be even more effective and put his leg out to push away the fast approaching missile. The boat was coming too quickly though, and his leg was squished between the two boats. I looked really sore to me and from his face, it really was. He was pulled on to the deck and lain down. Out came the magic potion, betadine (a common antiseptic) that is considered a cure-all in Cambodia. The skin on this leg wasn't actually broken and I couldn't quite see what this was going to achieve. As one of my colleagues pointed out though, I should be glad they had broken out the coins and started coining him (also a common remedy). There ensued extensive discussion and absolutely no decision-making. By default I think, we ended up driving at very low speed back to Phnom Penh, the picnic abandoned. Yet more evidence for my principle, don't go on boat cruises Ð legs will be broken."

The way Cambodia smells is as distinctive as any sights - the heavy humid air, the sickly scent of rubbish that has spent too many hours in 35 degree heat and the fumes of never serviced motos running on cheap petrol. One smell appears every now and again at the office. I was attending a meeting upstairs with the executive committe of the organisation and one of the western advisors was on his feet trying to inspire the troops when suddenly attention seemed to be lost. People started jumping to their feet, covering their mouths and noses and shutting down the aircon - a very serious move indeed. At the far end of the room the scent had not quite reached me yet but I soon realized what was going on. Directly across the road from the office is a pagoda and there was a funeral in progress. The sweet smoky smell was none other than the smoke from funeral pyre drifting into the office and the scramble by my colleagues was the panic to avoid breathing in someone's last worldly remains."

A selection of some billboards from around Cambodia "

One day I might just learn my lesson and not go on weekend excursions but the heat and boredom inevitably drive me out of the city when a long weekend rolls around (which it does frequently here). Kel and I decided a weekend trip to Battambang (described by a New Zealander as the Palmerston North of Cambodia) was in order. It is a five hour bus drive so we booked the 6:45am bus. We arrived in a timely fashion but unfortunately the bus company had different ideas. We sat in the hot bus being deafened by seriously loud radio talkback and finally left the bus stop at 7:15am. That was just to do a circuit around the market however and we returned to the same spot about 3 minutes later. We finally left at 7:30am. Kelly indicated he wasn't the happiest camper and felt a little ill which is unusual for him but we put it down to a bad night's sleep, growing irritation at the pace of the trip and impending hearing loss. By 10:30am the irritation had clearly got to Kel as when I looked back from staring out the window I found Kelly was not sitting next to me but standing at the front of the bus, his checks puffed out, signaling the bus driver to stop. The bus slowed to a crawl and Kelly was able to let it all out the door. I have to say this is probably all my fault as almost exactly a week before I had done pretty much the same thing in spectacular style outside a bar - evidently this bug is contagious. I got our stuff off the bus and went out to supervise Kelly's suffering. Unfortunately we were now stranded in a one ox town and I cursed my lack of commitment to learning Khmer. I tried flagging a bus heading back to Phnom Penh (moving away from Phnom Penh when you are ill is generally a bad idea as medical care is pathetic in Phnom Penh but completely abysmal in the provinces) but to no avail. After Kelly had some recovery time we took a hot and bumpy 35 minute moto trip on the open road to Pursat town where could book a bus back to Phnom Penh. Kelly shared a bit more of his stomach contents with the lovely folks of Pursat and then slumped miserably bench to wait for the bus. Just when I thought this day could hardly descend any further, it did. In that fantastic timing of the universe that is somehow far more finely tuned in the third world, we managed to be sitting in the path of an oncoming lunar New Year parade. The Chinese, as all you Guy Fawkes fans will know, just love loud bangs and this parade was no exception. Complete with drums and gongs they preceded up the street and stopped right next to us for a good 10 minutes making sure their drums were functioning. Eventually the bus pulled up and we endured the 4 hour crawl back to Phnom Penh and the air-conditioned paradise of our apartment. I awoke the next morning at 7am to the sound of a badly tuned truck engine idling in the street below. Someone finally turned it off and I rolled over to go back to sleep. No such luck. There then ensued enormously loud banging. It sounded like hammering but I couldn't believe anyone could have such bad hammering technique. I went onto the balcony to investigate and there in the street below was a man attempting to remove a black substance that had been spilt in the back of the truck. Obviously this guy had not been to Scrubbing Brush 101 as his technique involved whacking the deck of the truck repeatedly with a monkey wrench. If I'd had an AK-47 handy I may well have tried to sniper him. But on closer review I realized I couldn't possible take pot shots at him, here was a fully grown man, beating his truck with a wrench and wearing matching white satin pajamas with black spots. Now who could take that out? (It is hard to appreciate the magnificence of his pjs from this picture, but believe me, they were great)"

A large team of men are demolishing the house right next door to ours (by sledge hammer, usually between 6am and 8am, 7 days a week) and building some kind of guesthouse. Driven out by the incredible noise of the site and by the increasing heat in Phnom Penh we embarked on another adventure to the provinces. Ratanakiri, a far north province bordered by Vietnam and Laos, had a couple of factors in its favour, it is supposed to be cooler than Phnom Penh (if it was, I couldn't tell) and it is also one of only two provinces you can fly to. This particular route is plied by the curiously named PMT Airlines. The former company had to cease operations last year when a flight skidded off the runway in Ratanakiri and came to a smoking standstill in some nearby bushes. One explanation offered for this unfortunately not so unusual event was that there were about 38 people on board and only 30 seats. That combined with a dirt airstrip and pilots of questionable qualifications perhaps. Given the chances of coming unstuck on the roads however, we thought the odds were still stacked in favor of flying. With some of our party medicated to steady the nerves, we flew to Ratanakiri on the one plane PMT owns, an ancient looking aircraft with instructions written all over it in Russian. I hoped that all the Russian sponsorship of Cambodian education after the war meant the pilots could read what it said. An hour later we shuddered down out of the sky in Ratanakiri and bounced onto the red dirt airstrip fully expecting to see bushes rushing towards me but no, it was our lucky day. Our guesthouse was advertised as an "eco lodge", a term used liberally here to refer to the rare situation where they haven't cut down all the trees. This guesthouse had even gone so far as to explain the names of the trees which included the wonderfully labeled "Golden Shower, Cassia Fistula". Our hut was very nice until sundown when a loud and sustained noise erupted overhead. It was so noisy that I thought it must be some sizeable creatures, maybe hungry baby tigers foraging for scraps? Given that we'd seen a large rat scuttle across the rafters in the restaurant (promoting a quick exit from there) it was highly likely that rats, not tigers, were in the roof but I wasn't going up there to make a positive ID. I took comfort in the mosquito net and tried not to think about the whiskers and bitey teeth and long tails ... One of the activities of choice in Ratanakiri is elephant riding and when in Rome ... After a day of visiting local sites we arrived for our romantic sounding sunset elephant ride. The elephant drivers seemed to be a dad and his son; the dad was our driver, our two friends got the son. It quickly became apparent that our driver had been indulging in a not-so wee-drop of the local brew, palm wine. Every time he turned around to mumble something incoherent to us we were hit by a gust of alcohol. Our friend up ahead was visibly rigid with fear as her elephant kept exiting from the main path to rip branches off trees and generally tried to destroy the forest canopy. The son was attempting to control the elephant by poking it in the head with a pole but the elephant resolutely ignored all the commands and assaults and went about eating its dinner. Our elephant was far more passive, perhaps drunk of the fumes from the driver or maybe cowed by the machete the driver was swinging around. The machete seemed to be intended for cutting down bushes that overhung, but he was using it more as a tool to punctuate his drunken burbling and to whack the elephant on the head. I had visions of him stabbing the elephant in the eye and us all charging off into the jungle never to be seen again. I had even formulated a devious and valiant escape plan involving swinging through trees Tarzan style, when the ride came to an end. The driver attempted to convince us that we should tip him for his marvelous service ("one dollar, one dollar, oooooone dollar, give me dollar" etc etc). Needless to say we refused, and then ran (not so valiantly) for the cover of the truck. Rather than facing PMT again we opted for overland back to Phnom Penh. The Lonely Planet indicated this would take around about 10 hours to Kratie and then 7 hours to Phnom Penh so we decided to taxi to Kratie and stop there overnight and then bus back to Phnom Penh. "10 hours"? We asked to the eco lodge manager. "No, no, 5, no maybe 5 and a half, no maybe 6 hours". We agreed and signed up for an early departure the next day. When the driver arrived it became apparent that he spoke no Khmer and no English, he was from a minority hill tribe. We asked the manager to instruct him on our destination and off we went, at predictably high speeds. At one point I think we might have actually broken a Cambodian land speed record but he was slowed by the frequent wooden structures that bridged dry streams and rivers. On one of these basic looking structures we came to a halt as a plank broke under us (we had been eating and drinking quite a lot, I admit) and we sat in tense silence as he backed up and then took the bridge at higher speed. The moment that almost pushed me into cardiac arrest was when we were speeding towards another bridge and without warning, slowing or any kind of indication, we swerved suddenly to the left and maintaining speed took a dirt track detour. There was nothing at all to indicate it, but evidently the bridge was out, just as well the driver was in the know. We stopped for breakfast about an hour into the trip and decided to maintain that magnificent tradition of the colonials, and steady our seriously jangled nerves with a drink before breakfast. I chose a Klang Beer which advertises a soothing 7% alcohol. About three and half hours into the trip I dared to check the map to see how far we'd come. Expecting to be about half way there, I was pleased and absolutely horrified to find we were but 20kms from our destination. Not 5 hours, or 6 hours and definitely not, Lonely Planet, 10 hours. Just four hours. Relief flooded over me when we speed into Kratie and maintaining our open road speed, blasted through the town center. With much yelling and hand signals we indicated to the driver that it would be really good if we could stop about now, it being our destination and all. He looked surprised and confused and then finally said in English "ah, stop". Yes, please, please ... stop. Scenic Ratanakiri: Road works: "

Whilst in Hanoi we engaged in one of the weirder tourist opportunities on offer, the chance to visit the Ho Chi Minh, more affectionately know in Vietnam as Uncle Ho, who is embalmed and lying in state in Hanoi. He is sent off to Russia for three months of every year for a touch-up but considering he died in 1969 he is looking pretty good. This experience made something of an impression on K, who has a fondness for communist revolutionaries at the best of times. While my back was momentarily turned K disappeared on some unsupervised souvenir shopping only to return holding a fabulous plaster of Paris bust of Uncle Ho, purchased at the bargain price of $2. Uncle Ho accompanied us on our journeys, carried lovingly in K's day pack and according to K, Uncle Ho really liked the opportunity to see a bit of the countryside again. Here are a few pictures of Uncle Ho on his travels: Uncle Ho in front of the rice paddies of Mai Chau, Vietnam Thirsty Uncle Ho, after a couple of bottles of Beer Lao in Vieng Xai, Laos Uncle Ho visits the archaeological mystery of the Plain of the Jars in Phonsovan, Laos Uncle Ho goes out on the town, one night in Bangkok, Thailand "

The New Year is celebrated in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand in mid-April. The main feature of this festival is the chance to throw water at perfect strangers for three days as well as cover them in flour and charcoal. This is not entirely safe as it often involves people chucking whole buckets of water at people riding motos who then not infrequently crash their motos and die. Thailand announced in its national newspaper that it had managed to contain the number of New Year road deaths to a bit over 400. We got our fair share of soaking and a bit of charcoal. Here are some pictures of the festivities in Luang Prabang, Laos, where the festival also involves a daily parade. "

It didn't look all that far on the map and in fact, even in kilometers the journey was not all that far, but we should probably know by now that distance is no indication of the length of a journey. The plan was to fly to Hanoi and then go overland through Laos to pop out the other side in Thailand. Flying to Hanoi was just fine although we had acquired some of the dodgiest visas you'll ever hope to see (we complained to the Embassy that they had not issued our visas for a long enough period so instead of printing new ones they just scratched out the old date and wrote a new date in blue pen). We toured around Hanoi for a few days, including the scenic but filthy Halong Bay: After exhausting my shopping desires we decided to hire a Russian Jeep to take us to the Vietnam-Laos border that is closest to Hanoi. The jeep which arrived exactly on time (one of my favourite features of Vietnam) was driven by a mustachioed, kaki wearing man who wouldn't have looked out of place in an action movie. The jeep itself lacked any significant safety features, unless you count good luck charms hanging from the rearview mirror. As a consequence, we started out with some trepidation. My nerves were not helped by seeing evidence of two recent moto accidents (including a large pool of blood on the road) and then witnessing a bizarre low speed crash between a truck attempting to squeeze between two other trucks on a narrow mountain pass. To top it all off the Vietnamese authorities had helpfully posted signs all along the narrow, winding mountainous road indicating the distance one would tumble if one should misjudge a corner and plunge into the valley below. I'm not sure if this was to help a driver select where to crash or just to indicate how long you'd have to scream as you fell to an explosive death, but it didn't make me feel any better: We arrived safely however and stayed a pleasant evening in a wooden house before doing it all again in the morning, another four hour journey to the border. When we arrived at the border the jeep driver pointed to the customs building, hurridly passed us our gear, said "goodbye" (one of his few English words), did a U-turn and took off. There were no obvious signs of life. We went into the customs office calling "hello" to no response. K climbed down some stairs and over some puppies, looking for signs of official life. At 11:20am they were naturally on lunch break but they pointed us in the direction of the immigration office. At the immigration office we handed our passports to bored looking officials and waited nervously to see if they were going to arrest us for our dodgy visas. They were much more interested in going through our bags and admiring our various purchases Ð they were particularly pleased with a handbag I bought in Hanoi. The border: After some excruciatingly slow and careful stamping we were sent on foot over the border and into Laos. Laos it turns out, has a siesta from 11:30am to 1:30pm and we, unluckily, arrived at 11:45am. The border post is not a town or any settlement at all, just a hut for the officials and a couple of further huts selling food and drinks, so there wasn't a lot to do. We just had to sit there for two hours while we looked at the officials, and they looked at us, but no one could stamp anything because lunch my friends, is sacred. There were three vehicles parked up, two old utes and a police truck. We managed to reach an agreement with the one manned vehicle to get a ride into Vieng Xai, the nearest town, 60km from the border. When the officials eventually changed back into their uniforms and meandered over to stamp our passports and receive their $1 extra payment for their stunning customer services, we were able to leave. We set off, crammed into the front with the driver, at a grindingly slow pace. The vehicles purpose in life was to deliver fish, which were live in tanks on the back, to the villages and about 1km along the road we picked up the fish distributing woman. This car had no safety features at all, no tread on the tires, not even a good luck charm and it didn't take long to see that this trip was not going to be an express or relaxing one. Having travelled 1km to pick up the delivery woman we went about 4kms further and stopped, including turning off the engine, for a friendly social visit, bit of a chat and pointing at the foreigners. When the visit was over however the ute would not cooperate. Fish delivery truck at one of its many stops: After sprinkling water liberally under the bonnet, water which seemed to have magical powers in making this clapped out vehicle run, and doing a couple of reverse hill starts it chugged into life again. Only to break down three more times. In the back with the fish however, the driver had a whole garage - magic water, break fluid, oil, you name it. Perhaps a radiator cap might have been a useful addition, but you know, I'm no mechanic. The last breakdown was seemingly terminal so I flagged down a passing vehicle (the first we'd seen in several hours) and we hopped on the back. We were making excellent progress towards our destination and I had warm, friendly feelings replacing the hostile, grumpy ones that were previously winning, when that vehicle also came to a halt. The driver jumped out with a petrol can and without a word flagged down a moto and took off towards Vieng Xai. He returned about 15 minutes later, filled up the tank and made it into Vieng Xai just 10 minutes later. All in all the 60km trip took a modest 4 hours. Not to be put off by our previous day of travel, after a trip around the local sights, we headed to Xam Neua where we could get onward transport to the Plain of the Jars in Phonsovan (a mysterious plain of, well, jars Ð no one knows why they are there but there are a bunch of big jars on a big plain). The Lonely Planet declared the trip to be 7 hours which seemed like a long time for a 200km journey but after our experiences, not out of the question. In Xam Neua we found a fully loaded bus ready to make the journey but not of course, fully fully loaded, there is always room for a couple of paying barangs. Two locals were turfed out of their seats so we could travel in comfort and we were off. The bus came complete with a number of staff one of whom had the sole responsibility of choking the bus every time we stopped. He was a busy man. As the bus pulled off he would grab the chock from under the wheel and run alongside the bus attempting to jump on, often as the door simultaneously swung closed. In addition to loading and unloading passengers, crates of beer and miscellaneous livestock, we were stopped by the police for 30 minutes. I can only assume they were attempting to extract a "fee" for the bus's passage or maybe, and this is doubtful, they were concerned about our overloaded bus. The road was a one lane mountain pass, one huge mountain after another, no end and certainly no plains in sight. Approximately 7 hours into the journey when hope of the Lonely Planet's accuracy had all but disappeared, we came to an abrupt stop. A logging truck had broken down and as it was a one lane road we could not pass. Well, I thought we couldn't pass, the bus driver had other ideas. He told everyone to get off the bus, which was translated into English for us as "sit down", a little confusing, but with some miming we got the true meaning and bolted for the door. We then watched as he drove at high speed, off road, next to the significant ravine, past the broken down logging truck. Half way up he got stuck and all the folks gathered around to give him a push, looking for all the world like there was going to be a mass death as 20 people were run over by the bus rolling backwards down the hill. By some miracle he managed to get to the top and with everyone cheering and clapping we all clambered back on board. Our joy lasted but seconds as when the bus moved off we heard tock ... tock ... tock, tock, tock Ð every time the wheel rotated something made a hard to ignore, seriously broken kind of noise. Flashlights were pulled out and people (bravely, stupidly?) clambered under the bus. The only tools used for this repair job were flashlights, but somehow, they did the job. With several guys hanging out the side of the bus, the chock guy on standby, and flashlights trained on the wheels we moved off. There was no tock tocking and after a few minutes the bus driver decided we were fine and off we headed at our top speed - 30km/h. With the mile stones indicating we were only 40kms from our destination we stopped for dinner ... for one hour. We steamed into Phonsovan at 11:30pm, a mere 11 hours and 45 minutes after the trip began. So, to save you all from under going this trauma, here are some pictures of the jars ... "

With the Royal Ploughing Festival approaching in Phnom Penh and yet another lengthy public holiday to amuse ourselves in, we decided to head to Borneo. Borneo has always sounded to me like a place where adventures are to be had and the Malaysian Tourism Board puts out some promotional literature to help guide the choice of destination. This includes a suggestion to visit Berhala Island described as a "beautiful forested island ... [with] striking, prominent cliffs at its northern end and also a small leper settlement colony". Charming as that sounded we decided on Palau Sipadan "praised by ... Jacques Cousteau as one of the best diving spots in the world". To get there we just had to fly to Kuala Lumpur and then take another flight to a town close to the island. Of course things can never be that easy. After spending a great night in KL with an old friend from New Zealand who is working there, we jumped in a taxi to the airport. The roads in KL are just outstanding compared to Cambodia; they have lines painted on them and everything. Their driver education might not however be quite first-rate as we noticed our driver was enthusiastic at the wheel but less keen on the use of the indicator. We were but 1km from the terminal (and this is a 74km trip) when the driver took a wrong turn, realized his error and did a blind u-turn. We heard screeching of tires and then a hearty slam as a car that had apparently so unexpectedly been traveling along the road, slammed into us. Contrary to popular fashion, we were wearing seatbelts. The driver's door took most of the impact but we all emerged with only a couple of cuts and bruises. We were dispatched very quickly to the airport in another vehicle; I don't think the driver was too keen on having us around to tell our version of events. The plus side of all this was that not only was this a free taxi ride but I also discovered it is possible to clear airport security with a little blood smattered on you. After that inauspicious start we boarded the plane for Borneo. We had not been keeping a very close eye on the weather forecast and had no idea that Borneo was being lashed by the edges of a major typhoon that had hit Taiwan and traveled across the Philippines. It didn't take to long to figure this out though when we started to descend into Borneo and saw the dark night being frequently lit up by lightening and felt the plane being jolted by turbulence. It took quite some effort for me to suppress the urge to scream "we are all going to die" and other such helpful comment. I was tempted to believe that the planets had aligned against me, my number was up, etc etc but we landed safely and after a nervous but uneventful taxi ride into town we found a hotel to bunk down in for the night and wait for our morning pickup to the dive resort. The dive resort was beautiful, on a white sand beach with a lovely swimming pool and some of the nicest accommodation we've stayed in for a long time. The only downside was the somewhat, "Hi Di Hi" atmosphere about the whole thing (for those of you who were exposed to that memorable program, you will know what I mean). Rules based accommodation is not my, and certainly not K's, favourite thing in the whole wide world. After the briefing (which included instructions on storing our shoes in an allocated cubby hole) we were beginning to feel a wee bit institutionalized. The evening dining, communal and at a set time, did not get off to a good start when one person at our table explained what a jolly good time they had had the previous Friday night when the whole resort played parlour games, including some particularly exciting game involving jumping on newspaper. When she moved on to praising what K and I had already agreed was the objectively truly bad lounge singer who warbled right through dinner, I almost had to take K down in a surprise tackle before he unleashed his honest opinions on the woman. This was all more than made up for by a) the amusement value of watching people who have been staying in one place far too long, b) the fact that no one can talk underwater and c) the spectacular diving. The turtles and sharks and nemos were all very cooperative and came out to play for us. I have to second Jacques Cousteau's opinion (I'm sure he would have appreciated that). I don't have any underwater pictures to show I'm afraid but I can show you some pictures of land animals from our trip to the orangutan sanctuary and our great night in the jungle spotting wild animals that rounded off our trip. Borneo Ð leper colonies and taxi drivers aside Ð we recommend. The jungle camp where we slept in a wire cage, which was very similar to a zoo enclosure. I wasn't quite sure whether it was to keep the animals out or us in. Early morning on the river spotting animals Crocs Bearded pig looking for scraps in the camp Orangutans at the sanctuary "

Being kidnapped is pretty much part of life in Cambodia. If one loses concentration for a few minutes while riding on the back of a moto, one can end up in a completely different part of the city than intended. On a recent trip "up country" with work however I encountered some more serious kidnapping. I teach three students a women's rights course after hours. One of them just happens to be the governor of a large province and he has been pestering me for sometime to join him for dinner when visiting "his" province. I decided that this trip would be an apt time to accept the invitation and I could take my friend who was visiting from Australia with me as she is spectacularly good at small talk. We arrived at dinner which was at one of the best hotels in town and maybe in Cambodia and quickly realized what we had got ourselves into. Champagne was followed by an enormous four course meal which culminated back in the hotel lounge with ice cream and cognac. During the meal I was asked by my student and another very high official, who was also dining with us, how long I was staying. I said, oh, just two more nights. Before we knew what had struck us we were being booked into this very expensive, luxurious hotel for a complimentary night of accommodation. Don't get me wrong, the hotel was beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed our frolic in the pool the size of a small ocean and the Jacuzzi and steam room but I still felt "unclean" Ð a human rights teacher staying at public expense at one of the most luxurious hotels in Cambodia, in one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia. Hotel swimming pool Workshop - taking land law to the people It was with great relief that I was picked up by our driver the next morning (having stuffed down as many dainty pastries as possible at the fabulous complimentary breakfast) and set off to bring land rights to the people. Our driver had been instructed that we wanted to visit two temples en route in the three hour trip to our next destination. About an hour into the trip we passed a turn off to one of these temples and didn't take it. Mysterious. But I wasn't about to start arguing with the driver and none of my colleagues seemed concerned. After another hour (and feeling dirtier but cleaner, if you see what I mean) I had the distinct impression we were heading due north, not northwest. I finally piped up and asked where we were and the driver announced we were 50km south of Along Veng. Along Veng is not a town we were planning to visit. Its claim to fame is that it is the town that hosted the last show down of the Khmer Rouge and the death place of Pol Pot, and as of last week, the place where Ta Mok, "the Butcher", was laid to rest). It is also but kilometers from the Thai border and definitely not where we were meant to be going. It turned out that our driver had made a unilateral decision to take the long way round because he thought the road would be better. He hadn't thought that maybe it would be good to notify us of this change of plan or get some updated information about the road conditions (his last trip to the area being two years previous). He was punished at the rest stop with the silent treatment (ooooooh) and we plotted to redeem a road trip that had gone from an estimated 3 hours to up to an estimated 10 hours. We discovered that we were going to pass by the remote temple of Prasat Preah Vihear which sits of the Thai-Cambodia border. There is a great road from Thailand but it is extremely difficult to get to from the Cambodian side. The driver's sentence was decided - in addition to receiving the silent treatment he would drive us up the temple road which is unpaved craziness with 35 degree gradients. This was a harsh punishment as Cambodian drivers tend to live in fear of hills of any gradient given that they come from an extremely flat country. We had a few nervous moments getting up but it was well worth seeing the temple at the top (and seeing our kidnapper sweat!) The views from Prasat Preah Vihear The view of Cambodia Cow at the templeThe view of Thailand Monks at the temple"

A weekend in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) meant an opportunity for some tastier and (importantly) cleaner food than what one can buy if one is a vegetarian. Some of the Vietnamese take that bit in Buddhism about not killing things quite seriously. Our first meal was just plain old weird. Having attempted to go to two restaurants recommended in the LP, neither of which existed (why do I bother with that book) we settled on something that looked reasonable to our increasingly hungry eyes. It's feature was that it sold "vegetarian meat", a specialty of Vietnam. The center piece of our meal was "chicken wings in butter". They look for all the world like chicken wings but are actually made of some sort of soy product, although these ones may have come from a rubber tree. After that we cut our loses and headed for ice cream and football in a western cafŽ. We decided that lunchtime the next day would be a chance for redemption. After playing in old Viet Cong tunnels and me fulfilling my AK-47 dreams (sadly I don't think I'll make the Olympic shooting team but I liked watching the dirt fly) we went in search of lunch. Me with an AK-47 We decided on a restaurant highly recommended by the LP only to find, lo and behold, it didn't exist anymore. It was now 2pm in a district with no restaurants nearby and we decided next restaurant we stumbled on was going to be it. True to our word we entered the next place we stumbled on, a very local looking eatery. Once in we had our doubts about whether it really was a restaurant and not someone's house or office but we were reassured by the appearance of a waiter with a menu, in English, that had been especially dusted off for us. I think we may have been the first foreigners to stumble across the threshold in quite sometime. When we began to browse I realized why: I think they summed up my feelings for my choice of restaurant on page 2 of their menu: Hmmm, I think that might have meant to have been a "b" on the end. We knocked back our beers and scuttled out of there. After a lengthy interrogation of a local about field-mouse-free Vietnamese cuisine, we finally had the tasty meal I had been dreaming about."

Cambodia in the wet season I have just returned to Phnom Penh after a month traveling around the country conducting field interviews for my research. With my trusty translator by my side I have been staying in various provincial capitals and spending the days in the back of a taxi driving from village to village finding informants and getting lost in endless rice paddies. Once in town we hired a taxi driver - each with their own style of driving and each more terrifying than the last. There was the one who crawled at 20km/h along Cambodia's best road as buses and trucks swerved around us but as soon as he turned into the unpaved, narrow village roads he would floor it, sending children and chickens and pigs running. Then there was the one with his speedometer optimistically stuck on 52km/h but who rarely drove under about 80km/h regardless of the ducks crossing or the cows in the middle of the road. And then there was the classic driver, a man who sees breaking as a failure, who would maintain even speed as we approached a herd of cows in the middle of the road or a motorist overtaking in our lane also going at full tilt. Having survived that aspect of the research I had many close encounters with wildlife Ð interviewing next to a duck pen where the ducks were so loud I couldn't hear the translator and had to stop in the middle of the interview to move locations; telling an interviewee she had a scorpion on her shoulder which she calmly brushed off in my direction, leaving me to spend the rest of the interview imagining it was crawling down my pants. The close encounters with the humans were even more colorful. I had tea with a group of older people who I worked out after sometime were trying to get me to greet them in French with "bonjour" but which they believed was "bazoo". In one province my nose was a huge hit (who knew, maybe I should move here). I had it patted by a number of folks but one lady, having checked out the nose, decided to have a quick squeeze of some other bits to see if foreigners were made up the same way as Khmers. This is, by the way, just as taboo in Cambodian society as it is in Western society and the commune chief who had brought me to see her looked completely horrified. I think I'm unlikely to see so many naked babies again in my life (all going well ...). Nor, I hope, will I ever see again a man doing number twos in his front yard ... what is that saying about not doing something or other in your own nest? It has been a privilege and a humbling experience to enter so many people's homes and hear so many, usually really sad stories. Now all I have to do is write it up Ð "ot ey tey" as the Khmers say Ð "no worries mate". Stuck at a bridge. The driver testing the bridge to see if the taxi could go over, an idea I vetoed. Naked babies Cambodian villages in the wet season My translator and our guide looking for the next interviewee Piglets at the beginning of their lives Pigs on the way to the end of their lives Planting rice"

Every fornight an English language paper called the Phnom Penh Post is published and includes a column called the police blotter. I just wanted to share a few amusing moments from this weeks column (not that I find the crimes amusing, just the police response and the explanations): August 12: Chan Saroeun, 21, was arrested after a 16-year-old girl accused him of trying to rape her the previous night in Andong village, Dangkor district, Phnom Penh. The girl told police Saroeun opened her mosquito net and wanted to rape her, but she shouted for help and people came to her rescue. Police arrested Saroeun a day later at his home and ordered him to pay the girl $80 in compensation. Saroeun's family said police demanded $500 for his release, but after negotiation, they settled for $200 in cash. Hmmm, $200 - $80 = $120 - me wonders where that $120 went? August 19: A spiritualist, Keat Veasna, 42, was found hanging in a tree behind his house in Andong Khmer commune, Kampot province. Han Sochea, 40, told police her husband hanged himself because he probably angered his spirit as he had eaten dog meat while drinking wine. August 20: A Belgian national, Jan Cayot, 58, was found dead in Mittapheap district, Sihanoukville. Sam Saroeun, chief of municipal immigrant police office, came to examine the body and said Jan possibly died of dizziness. Saroeun said Cayot came to stay in Cambodia in 2002. He said Jan had his money and passport stolen when he dealt with a prostitute in Phnom Penh."

The effects of nostalgia are really rather wondrous. Salivating dogs that previously looked like they wanted to eat me or at least give me a good dose of rabies, are now smiling a friendly goodbye. Moto drivers who before drove me insane with their constant cries of "moto lady" now just seem to be saying "hello lady, hope you are having a good last few days in Cambodia ..." These warm fuzzy feelings are helped in no small part by our current house sitting gig. We are staying in a house in a compound, grandly called Les Jardins du Bassac. This is a peaceful villa set among gardens and includes such bonuses as a swimming pool, broadband internet and a team of maids who clean up after me, do the dishes and make the bed - hard to feel anything but warm and fuzzy really. The pool at Les Jardins with a super view of the slums across the river Warm and fuzzy has been what I've been feeling of an evening as well. K and I have been enjoying a series of farewells and enduring the series of hangovers which seem to accompany them. One farewell was somewhat unfairly held in a brewery mind you. Our final day in Cambodia, undertaken while hungover of course, was a day of contrasts. After clearing out my desk at work our regular taxi man drove us out to the countryside for a graduation party for some of K's nursing colleagues. There was a festive atmosphere reminicent of christmas with everyone helping to prepare the food. It was great to spend a few hours of our last day out in the country with the locals partying it up. When we arrived back home (having witnessed a nasty car vs moto, just for old times sake) there was also a festive atmosphere, though of a different order. I was hanging out a towel in the front yard and an elephant walked up. I know this is Asia but believe me, this is not an everyday occurrence. It transpired that the elephant was the elephant who usually walks up the river front to the Wat Phnom, entertaining tourists. An enterprising family had hired Elephant Wat Phnom for their little darling's birthday party which they were hosting poolside. There were little ex-pat sweeties running around everywhere, with the Les Jardins staff loading small troops of them onto the elephant for a ride. I'm sure the folks across the river really enjoyed that spectacle of a bunch of well fed barangs and an elephant frolicking by the pool. The elephant and the staff of Les Jardins Ah Cambodia, never short of a weird moment - so long and thank you for having us ... "

Catch Uncle Ho in his full plaster of paris glory at a town near you: Bangkok, Thailand - 3 September Myanmar (Burma) Ð 4 - 14 September London, England Ð 14 - 18 September Swansea, Wales Ð 18 - 21 September Dublin, Ireland Ð 21 - 24 September Barcelona, Spain Ð 25 Ð 28 September Oslo, Norway Ð 29 September Ð 1 October Bergen, Norway Ð 1 Ð 4 October Berlin, Germany Ð 4 Ð 8 October Paris, France Ð 9 Ð 12 October London, England Ð 12-14 October New York, USA Ð 14 Ð 17 October Nashville, USA Ð to be announced Havana, Cuba Ð to be announced Boston, USA Ð to be announced San Francisco, USA Ð 2-5 November Hawaii, USA Ð 5 - 11 November Auckland, New Zealand Ð 12 November"

The Boys having a beer - Kelly and Uncle Ho on a boat trip Boat Trip on Inle Lake - Eastern Myanmar Kelly in local dress outside Shewegadon Pagoda, Yagon Roadside treats "

Norway - Bridgette and a troll Germany - Kelly keeping out the chill Ireland - Kelly getting down with his heritage Spain - Sagrada de familia (go to Barcelona, everyone, it is brilliant) "

Nashville Tennesse, in addition to being "Music City USA", the home of country and western has another claim to fame. Nashville is the site of the world's only full scale replica of the Parthenon - I just can't think why that would be ... Uncle Ho having a sneaky peak from outside one of the concrete pillars (apparently the budget didn't stretch to marble) Then it was off to Birmingham, Alabama. Birmigham's original backbone was the steel industry and as a reminder of its history, a statue of Vulcan, Roman God of steel and the forge stands high above the town. Once famous as the center for police brutality during the civil rights movement, Birmingham now possesses other striking features - non-stop traffic down beautiful concreted 6 lane highways and more strip malls than you can shake a stick at. Super Target - one of the many enormous shops to keep the good folks of Birmingham Alabama spending up large Uncle Ho has had about as much as he can take of the capitalists however and tomorrow it will be off to see his brothers in socialism, the Cubans. Hasta luego."