CAMBODIA.....finally!

I have been in Cambodia for a little over 2.5 weeks now and so far so good! I'm spending 2 months volunteering at an water and sanitation NGO called RDI, that is based in a village just 3o minutes outside Phnom Penh (the capital city of Cambodia).

I'll give more details on my work etc. but just to cover basics - ill share some pictures of where I'm staying and some sights from Phnom Penh!

A good friend (aka Alex) asked me - what are the biggest differences between Cambodia and Indonesia...its a very good question and one I am constantly answering myself!

Observations so far,

1. The thing that struck me as the biggest difference initially was scale. Phnom Penh is a much more manageable size of 2 million people, and Cambodia has a population of 15 million people. The greater Jakarta area alone is well over 20 million people...with the country having a population around 120 million. Wow! Indonesia is huge...it is afterall the 4th most populous country in the world, but the difference really was apparent as soon as I got to Cambodia. I'm sure a lot of people who haven't been to Jakarta would think I'm crazy to say this, but Phonm Penh just seems so calm and manageable (in comparison only of course!)

2. The other striking difference is the landscape itself. Aside from some Hanlong Bay like hills/mountains in the countryside, the majority of Cambodia is very, very flat and flooded! There is water everywhere! No volcanoes here.

3. Religion is very different here too - Buddhism versus Islam, predominantly. There are heaps of beautiful pagodas around and many orange robbed monks afoot. No more ethereal mosques and veiled women and prayer calls.

4. There is also something different in the undertones of Indonesia versus Cambodia. Indonesia is an nation of islands...united relatively recently, and for the most part, not under constant threat of border disputes (save of course the example of east timor). Indonesia for the most part has a thriving economy and though it still struggles to pin down a national identity, there is a sense of autonomy. Cambodia on the other hand has the feeling of a dying empire, clinging to some past glory, struggling under the weight of tragic circumstances of recent history - colonialism, the Khmer Rouge, civil war - and pushing with all its might to not crumble under the weight of its powerful and arguably more successful neighbours - Thailand and Vietnam. Trying to restore the former glory of the Angkor empire....which was so long ago. This sounds very sad. But that's the feeling I get, that Cambodia is on a slow decline and has been for a long time, even though people still have faith that they will rebound. I hope that humanity and decency prevail over power struggles and clinging to long past times and that Cambodia is able to stand on its own two feet and its people be prosperous. We'll see how my view changes of Cambodia over time - its all relative to previous experiences and comparisons with different countries, its hard to judge it in without bias.

Those are some pretty weighty statements - they are all totally based on my own feelings and what I have learned in a short time, so feel free to comment and start a discussion if I have offended you! Offense is never my intention!

5. And obviously the language is different...and its much more difficult here! And the food is less spicy.

Other than those things, there are still cute kids running around, effing roosters cockadoodling, and tropical plants, and rains and mud! and lots of sweet and friendly people.

So, enough of generalities lets get specific!

Home and Work

First things first - where am I living and working day to day?

Since I've been here, I have been in a different house than I am now staying in...this is not an important detail, but I just thought I should represent the fact that had I been writing this real time, aka, 2 weeks ago - I would be in this old place still.

The old place was great! Cute, new little house that I shared with Deborah who is doing some of her Masters research here. Deb decided to move into Phnom Penh and as luck would have it the house next door, also new and lovely, housing two other volunteers like myself (Baily and Ash) just had an opening! Its just down the road from RDI and even though it has ant infestations galore, I am coming (coming, not saying I do yet) to accept this as the norm and unavoidable. Resistance is futile. The living conditions are incredible in stark comparison to what I was expecting! So no real complaints on my end!

The first place was immaculate, but no furnishing = sitting on a hard tile floor.
The second place has a few homey touches from a previous volunteer, score!
My room, a mess. Sorry. Just trying to represent its natural state.
Kitchen, and bathroom off to the right
The road to RDI immediately outside the house
The little house to the left was my first house, and this big and beautiful imposing beast on the right is my new home!
This is the big pig. She lives on RDI property...I really like her. She is massive, but is very sweet and chatty every time I visit her. She has very wise elephant eyes...I decided not to eat pork here because of her and I feed her every chance I get. I'm not usually one to get too soft over animals, but she just seems so intelligent her circumstances make me sad.
Gate entering one end of RDI property
One of the rooms of RDI, part of the lab - one of the best labs in the whole country!This meeting room is where I work! Its cooler than outside, and there are a few other volunteers who work in here...but its no open-concept dreamland garden paradise like I had teaching in Indonesia! Not even a window:(
The village

They sky is incredible here - perhaps because its the rainy season, but the clouds and sunsets are phenomenal. The following pictures are from a walk around town...enjoy!
This is the town wat/pagoda that is literally around the corner from RDI. They are all over the place, its crazy!











Phnom Penh

The next couple shots are from Phnom Penh, just to help give a more balanced view of Cambodia and my experience here...mostly rural with city life not to far away.

Phew, that was a long one...I'll try and keep the next one more concise!

Rice paddies, temples, cat-poo coffee and Ketut

The story continues....

So, at the moment, I am actually in Cambodia, and am about a month behind on my blogging! Slowly but surely I will get caught up to present!

Here are some shots of my remaining time in Bali with my first and memorable tour group before heading off to Lombok with group 2. Don't worry, I was back in Bali about a week later...we are not yet done with Bali!

From Lovina, we headed along the eastern coast to a place called Tirta Gangga, and then finally to Ubud. Bali has a stunning landscape, which I tried to present in some of these pictures, and also has many beautiful and sacred sites. We visited water temple, swan in one of the pools there which I presume are supposed to be lucky or rejuvenating or something, and also stopped at a lovely and rather isolated (due to the terrible road to get to it) beach and did a bit of snorkelling and beach-bumming. We passed many picturesque rice paddies, and very luckily happened upon a large Balinese festival. In Ubud, an artsy and cultured city in central Bali, we did some shopping and touring of local art/handicraft industries - such as silver jewelry making, weaving, painting, etc. We also drove past many interesting furniture stores and sculptors sculpting crazy things. We also went to see a medicine man...not by accident the same medicine man that Liz Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love went to see and wrote about in her book. Now, its a little embarrassing....but it was fun, and they guy is making a killing off tourists like me...so if you should feel bad for anyone, its me really. :)

Ubud was the most developed/westernized place I had been, despite still being rampant with Balinese culture. It was a cool city, but it was strange seeing so many bules (aka, tourists). I was very sad to see this group dissolve, but they were fantastic people I very much intend to stay in touch with!

We stayed at some very nice places - this is one!
This is the entrance to....

a. a very sacred site, b. a cemetery, c. a school, d. a very important persons house

And the answer is.....

c. a school! isnt that great! This is in a more traditional balinese town on the eastern side of Bali.
To keep the birds away from the rice, some pretty creative uses of nets and garbage and maybe even laundry - multi-tasking at its best - to scare away pesky birds, connected all on these long lines.

Temples are very, very common in Bali! Here, is a road side one that I imagine either serves the purpose of 'fast-food' variety of worship, or, just another safety measure on a very dangerous an windy mountain road!

These shots are from the Water Temple - there were the largest gold fish I have ever seen or imagined existed in these ponds...it was great!

The lovely tucked away beach where we snorkelled

Happening upon a balinese festival progressing from one end of town to the temple


Enjoying the scenery!


I've mentioned this fruit before - Salak, or snake fruit. Its very, very strange, and grows in a very spikey fashion on a very large spikey fern like tree. It has a snake skin exterior, about the size of a small pear, and the insides look like garlic, but it tastes very perfumey and sweet. They farm a lot of salak on Bali - and from my experiences with eating this fruit, it was the most delicious there!
The other obligatory thing to do here is try kopi luwak - aka, cat poo coffee. This is exactly what it is - a cat like creature, called a luwak goes around at night and eats coffee beans. Then, he or she poops out the seed. Somehow, probably out of thriftiness as many good/weird ideas are born, people decided to collect these pooped out coffee beans, and make them into coffee! Why waste them afterall!! And, you can charge crazy tourists and coffee drinker adventurers a huge amount of money for it! It tasted like coffee to me.

And they do wash it before it is made into coffee.

So, we spent the morning waiting at Ketut Liyers home looking at his bird collection and beautiful grounds, waiting to have our 5 minutes with the famous medicine man. I was very nervous, as I am skeptical of fortune telling, destiny, etc...but still, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to just go for it! When life holds so many uncertainties already, whats the harm in getting one more point of view on what life might have in store? I will admit though, I was still worried he would tell me scary or horrible things or something like what happened to the Australian girl Claire on 'Lost'...and he would refuse to speak to me or something because I was plagued with an evil curse...but that seemed unlikely.



So what did he say??

That is none of your business!

Well, mostly he just said I was very pretty, therefore very lucky, and I would have a long life, marry soon and never get divorced!....he 'read' my face, my palm, my back and my legs, and some of what he said i didnt really understand - I have two lotus flowers on my back for instance...this is good I was told - but mostly he was very sweet and friendly and the experience was positive. He seemed like a very intuitive and magical man, needless to say. I do think as well that he was just saying a lot of what people typically want to hear - long life, happy marriage, etc. I didnt get any insight into my career or changing the world or anything like that...

Did I learn anything that will change the course of my future...who knows! But who knows what we learn on any given day that will change the course of our lives...only time will tell!

So, since this was back in mid-july - my next post will jump forward to Cambodia - just to keep to date - and I'll throw in the Indo/Singapore travel bits periodically! Its going to get confusing! Hang tight!

:)