Cambodia to New Zealand and beyond

After the girls left us in Siem Reap, we decided that flying out via Bangkok, was not the ideal trip due to the political problems there! So we went to Phnom Penh to change our tickets (Thai Airways would not pick up the phone - so we went to see them!!) We had a little problem with the bus about 10 miles out of Siem Reap, see photo below. We change our tickets and moved onto New Zealand, where we have been for a few days getting ourselves sorted out for a road trip. Mike and trina from Beverley, put us in touch with some friends of theirs, Paul and Margaret in Auckland. A massive big thank you to Paul and Margaret who very kindly put us up, fed us and have provided a van for us to go touring in. BIG THANKS TO PAUL, MARGARET, MADELAINE and HARRIET.On our way to Phnom Penh the bus broke down. After applying the tried and trusted method of hitting it with a big hammer it still wouldn't go. At this point, having seen this method of maintenance fail previously, we flagged down another bus. From there on, no further problems Oh apart from missing the bus back and having to stay overnight.

In pursuit of a little culture, we went to a fashion show.

This is Conchetta and Sophie from the MaD organisation in front of the arty (white tie wrap) Christmas tree!

Garry needed a haircut after the last bad haircut but reckons he will be doing it himself in future!

This is David, our favourite tuk tuk driver in Phnom Penh. We told Mark how good he was, but when we found him the night before out flight out to NZ, he was not his usual self!! However, after Garry had put the chain back on his bike, in the middle of a main road, he got us to the airport on time and looked after Mark sightseeing!

We arrived in Auckland and accidentally ended up at the event of the year - the Coca Cola Christmas party in the park, attended by approx. 500, 000 people.

Christmas decorations were in evidence in the city centre.

Boats are very popular in the "City of Sails".

The national dish is pies!

There are some beautiful old wooden buildings in and around Auckland.

Margaret, our very generous host with Madelaine and 5 week old Harriet.

We arrived in Auckland with a ..........

We have had our first well deserved ......... in the van.

And so far everything is ..............

We have a new NZ phone number.

NZ code plus 0210 432 044

Happy Christmas to you as we are not likely to blog again before the big day. Hope you get snow and Santa is kind to you!!

Alison and Garry

Wednesday Night Girls and Chaperone

Kate and Katie arrived on Thursday lunch time and we rolled up only a few minutes after they had booked in at their hotel. It was great to see them! We spent the evenings with them and they toured the Angkor temples during the days.

Thursday night, we treated ourselves to some typical Khymer cuisine - street food. See below for the exquisite and luxurious setting.

After the gourmet meal, we tootled round to the Funky Munky for the Thursday night pub quiz, that some of you may have heard of before. The questions were particularly difficult and you can see who took charge and decided the right answers and the guesses! Garry was pleased of beer drinking company and took the opportunity to order a large container. The team name was supposed to be wednesday night girls and pinup, but the scoremaster mis read the name and thought it read pimp!
We introduced the girls to Peter and you can see they make a lovely trio.

On Friday, we went for another traditional Cambodian meal - khymer eat your weight bbq. Unfortunately, we were too busy gabbing to get any photographs. Next, we paid a visit to the Angkor Wat bar for some buckets of pop. Look out for the T shirts back in Beverley.

We went for the Purple Rain cocktails in the Night Market.

We went for a trip out to the countryside as Kate wanted a picture of a water buffalo, but we were also lucky enough to see an orphanage and village school and we found them yet another temple they hadn't seen. As you can see, they kept the tuk tuk driver happy.

A picture of us and our little moto.

Kate and Katie treated us on Saturday to a lovely meal at a swanky hotel. We watched the Cambodian Khymer Rouge history film and caught a fleeting glimpse of some Apsara dancing.

We had a lie in on the Sunday and they got up at 6am to go to Phnom Phen.

It was a great few days, not long enough but good to catch up.

A big thank you to the girls for bringing over the Sunday Times and magazines and thank you for those in Beverley for donating the reading material. If you have a 2009 diary, that you were not expecting to get, please send it on or ask Kate!!!

There's a chance we will catch up with some more friends in New Zealand and then Australia. Anyone else fancy meeting up with us?

It's a Hard Life

Since the last blog, work on the orphanage has slowed even more due to lack of funding, but every cloud has a silver lining so we have had the opportunity to do other things.


We were fortunate enough to be in Siem Reap for the water festival, we did a Cambodian cookery course and have been able to spend time with the children at the orphanage.









At the water festival, dragon boats from all over the region race down the river through the centre of Siem Reap. It is a big festival with thousands of Cambodian people descending on the town to cheer on the racers. Can you see the kids sitting in the tree? A great vantage point to watch the racing and .........!!! jump in the water!

At the water festival, this guy was putting on a little show, by diving through a ring of rusty knives.

All the rowing teams are being presented to the local Cambodian VIPs, then the real action begins.

We had a good position near the finish line and this was a close race. As you can see the lead boat is a little low in the water.

In fact, it was so low, it sank and didn't quite make it to the finishing line.

This is the girls showing the boys how it should be done. None of them sank.

We went out for breakfast one day and saw bubble and squeak on the menu. Above is "bubble and squeak" - 2 poached eggs, sausages, chips, green beans, sweetcorn and carrots. Strange!! We haven't been back!

These are the results of a cookery course we took with 4 other people - spring rolls, fish amok, chicken and ginger, mango salad and tom yum soup.

Before the course, we went to the market to check out the ingredients. Garry is pointing at a jack fruit. Very dodgy and smelly - don't try this.

Our cookery class - Bud, Bob, Simon and Jack.

This is on the road to the orphanage. These guys come and collect coconuts and sell them back in town. Check out the meat cleaver on the right hand side.

Some of the team have been helping to build a housw, with pretty rudimentary tools. This is a cordless drill operated by Mab the tuk tuk driver. Cordless tools are essential as there is no electricity.

Again, on the house project they cut down a coconut tree for timber. This young kid climbed the tree to attach a rope so the team could pull it in the right direction. There is a video to show the tree coming down, but internet here is so slow we cannot load it.

When the tree hit the ground it is a free for all coconut fest for the locals.

Some of the kids from the orphanage on their way to lunch. How many kids can you get in one tuk tuk?

If you don't recognise this game, it is "what's the time Mr Wolf". Alison and Gerry playing their favourite game. The kids cannot say "r" very well, so Gerry gets called Jelly!

Alison "glowing" after playing musical bricks, see below.

How do you play musical chairs, when you have no music and no chairs?

Easy! You replace the music with clapping and the chairs with bricks. The kids loved it! We were shattered.

Skipping is another game the kids love. We make it hard for them by going very fast but the faster we go the more they love it.

The all time favorite game is volleyball. Again we were shattered and very glad when the ball got punctured. It was an accident, honest guv.

It's harvest time at the moment so our play ground regularly has convoys of ox carts coming through laden with all kinds of stuff.

If you think the traffic is bad where you live, this is what we have to go through on our way to work in the morning. What the picture doesn't show is that vehicles and pedestrians come at you from all angles.

Alison says "you can't have too many pictures of pigs on bikes". We know Sally agrees as well. It was a very hot day so the driver has covered the pigs bellies with leaves so that they don't get sun burnt.

Chickens on their way to market. They are still alive, so you know it's fresh.

Kate and Katie from Beverley have just arrived. Alison is in the mood for beer, so we're signing off now.

Cheers.

Garry and Alison.

Pigs and Stuff

We are still in Cambodia and the work has slowed down so we have more spare time as you may see below. We have joined a gym and spent quite a lot of time there as we now realise how unfit we have become! We are also doing some more exploring in the local area and have been in the right place at the right time to catch some interesting snaps. There is also a routine that we are starting to follow. Wednesday is $1 Tapas, Thursday is Quiz night, Friday is Party buckets night, Saturday recover from Friday, Sunday curry in bed with a good film, Monday and Tuesday still flexible. Pictures below show some of our nights with friends.

This is a Friday night scene, however these buckets of vodka and red bull are normally shared between at least 4 people as you can see by the number of straws in the buckets - honest!!

Here are the ladies who cook for us around 3 times per week. They cook street food, which if you are veggie means either vegetable fried rice or fried noodles with vegetables. It is impossible to walk past the without being "mugged", nicely of course.

This is a typical Wednesday night scene. Down the tapas bar where everything costs $1, including G&Ts, cocktails and red wine.

As always, we are on the look out for typical Cambodian goods. This is Mekong whisky, which at $1 per bottle is miles better than you would expect. Admittedly, you do have to drink it with coca cola, but the locals can drink it so why can't we?!

Have you seen this cocktail before? Purple rain! Kong, the bar man introduced us to it one night, so we in turn introduced some of the volunteers to it. You drink it through a straw whilst it is still on fire then such the hot air out of an upturned glass so you get the hot alcohol vapours. We will introduce Kate and Katie to it when they come out later in the month.

This is the building project that is happening in a local Cambodian village. Some of the volunteers we know are working hard on it.

This is the orphange where the building should be going up fairly soon. Garry is teaching these girls to skip.

This is the swimming pool at our gym. Swanky or what?

This was a lorry load of bricks, being delivered fortunately not to our site. The ground was softer than the driver expected!

This is the swimming pool at night when it is transformed into a party venue. For the second week running, this was a Hyundai staff party. There was a bottle of Johnny Walker on every table and we have submitted our cvs. On the right is an ice statue in the shape of a temple. The stage at the far end is used for Apsara Dancers. The picture does not show how good the venue is.

Driving along one day in the countryside, we came across an ice factory. Many houses and restaurants don't have fridges so rely on these blocks of ice. They are delivered to restaurants where people saw off the quantity of ice they need.

Moving house Cambodian style! Pickfords eat your heart out! This is a proper house including all its contents, pots and pans etc, tied very tightly onto the back of a motor bike. They don't have caravans here, but if they did they would look like this. Apparently, this is not very common and the staff at our guest house thought it was as funny as we did.

Now this is very common. These little pigs were on their way to market. They are still alive and the farmer has very considerately covered their tummies so they don't get sun burnt on the way.

Some of you mayy remember Top Gear did an article on how tough Toyota 4x4s are. Well this shows how tough a Toyota Camry is. These are very common. The interior is stripped out and the boot lid removed. They then use the car to deliver gas bottles. There are about 20 bottles carried in these.

Whilst out exploring, we came across an old ruined temple with a tree growing out the top at the summit of a remote mountian (with loads of steps - and you'll never guess what, it threw it down as it always does when we climb up anything!) Anyway, on the way back we came across an army truck stuck in the mud being pulled out. There were also some old machine guns from the war just knocking around in some fields. However, as there were several soldiers around, it didn't seem very sensible to take pictures!