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!