My first few days continued!

Back again! It's now 9.30pm and I'm sat downstairs in Okay Guesthouse with some film on in the background and Dido playing from the bar across the street! Right, back to Wat Phnom, a buddhist temple on a small hill, not ONLY were there elephants but rolling around on the grass and jumping in the trees were macaque monkeys! At first we only saw one and then, within about 10 minutes, at least 10 more had joined, and that number just grew after we left the temple! There were absolutely loads of wild monkeys, coming right up close to people and jumping on the giant clock that decorated the grass hill infront of the temple!

Today we visited the National Museum which was really beautiful, full of of ancient statues and artefacts and outside lots of little ponds full of lilypads and fish, and, in the middle, a concrete statue of buddah. The weather was really hot but a few of us stayed in the shade, whilst the rest went to central market to buy a guitar. We then walked back through the public gardens and along the Tonle Sap river to Okay where we showered and changed :) Cold showers are honestly the best thing ever in this climate! Earlier on we'd rung Chonthol to arrange a trip on a river boat and so at 5 we met her and the others and headed off in a tuk tuk to the riverside. When we arrived at the boat the first thing all of us noticed was the thin, steep, wooden ladder needed to climb onto the boat! We were all so worried about slipping into the murky depths of the Tonle Sap but LUCKILY, clutching onto a bamboo support, we all made it across! The river was completely brown from all the rains but the view was fantastic, with the boats lined up along the river and the shops starting to light up for the evening.
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Ooh, this was where I ended when the computer died but FEAR NOT, i've got some time now in between my jam packed khmer lessons to continue for a bit! I forgot to mention, when Chonthol took us around Phnom Penh she also introduced us to some of her friends for the province and we got to visit the home of some buddhist monks and other people sharing the same room! It was quite a small room with over 12 men sharing but it was kept impeccably clean! They were telling us how they all help out with the cleaning and cooking. The monks rely on donations of food so they go out and beg for food on the streets. One of the corners in the room was dedicated to prayer, with a statue of buddah and lots of offerings such as flowers, incense and even unopened sprite cans! haha! They were a really amazing bunch of people who were really happy to speak to us and practice their english! We hadn't started khmer lessons at that point and so we had to have Chonthol translate some of the things we said that they didn't understand. One of the monks wants to study law and become a police man because he said he hates the corruption, and wants to study hard to change the system! He said that a lot of his friends feel the same and that he hopes his generation will change things.
Today, the monsoon outside is pounding - possibly the noisiest I've heard it so far! Luckily, I bought a ridiculous looking, long, yellow mac for 2000 riel (half a dollar) so I'll have to shove that on when we go back to the cafe for our 2 hour lesson at 3. Our teacher is Nim, a really funny khmer girl. She's only 23 but says her family already expect her to be married - she doesn't want to follow tradition though and says she wants to move to Austrailia to do her masters and find herself a husband there; apparently there are A LOT of gay men in Phnom Penh and so she can't find herself an eligible bachelor here! We started our lessons on monday, 9 - 11 and 2 - 4; we'll have the weekend off and then start again on monday! Khmer is really hard to learn but Nim drills the fear into us so we all have our flashcards, and practice constantly! We even get homework on top of remembering trillions of new vocab! It's really funny to practice it out on the locals though - they are always really impressed but laugh at us when we say it wrong!
We visited the lakeside for dinner the other day and got absolutely bitten alive! It was the most incredible view though, looked just like something from a postcard :) it was about a 10/15 minute tuk tuk ride away and so we had to get a tuk tuk back - it was harder to fined a sober tuktuk driver past 10 o'clock though...!!
Rain's stopped now and sun is magically back out again! I'm going to try to learn some more Khmer in this last hour before our lesson so farewell, I'll write again at some point, love you all!
Lea Hai! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxoxoxoxoxoxoxox