Thailand photos and some recent ones from Cambodge

Thailand! A 5am stop after an 8 hour coach ride, before a boat ride to Koh Phi Phi!!

Hippies bar on Phi Phi!

Cambodia!!

Ocheuteal beach

Otres beach

Some of my secretarial girls on a Sunday afternoon!

NEW POST

I can't believe how quickly these last 4 months have gone - I've been a terrible blogger! I have to go and plan some lessons in a minute so unfortunately my long overdue post is going to be relatively short! Sorry!
The last time I blogged I hadn't even started teaching yet so I'll start by saying I am a teacher now! I started around the same sort of time as my last post - a few days later maybe? Anyway, first Claire and I moved over to our permanent room which is at the hotel school in the teachers' and students' boarding section - our room's basic but really large and we have a kitchen too where we store our vast supplies of watermelon, mangoes, dragonfruit and 'weetbix' (australian - crazy.) and UHT milk! All in all we are extremely lucky with our accommodation!
The hotel school is literally 2 minutes away from the technical school where I teach English Conversation to 3 groups of 10 in the Social Communication section, 2 groups of 30 in the Secretarial section and 12 groups of 30 in the Mechanics/ Electrical/ Automotive section. I love my students - from the first day they were all so friendly and smiley, all shouting out 'GOOD MORNING 'CHER!', "HOW ARE YOU 'CHER?", "HAVE YOU ATE RICE YET 'CHER?" whenever Claire or I walk past, which hasn't stopped this entire time. The main difficulty has been organising myself enough with all my different classes because their English levels are completely varied, even within classes. I have to make sure I don't get the lessons I'm teaching to my 12 groups of M/ E/ A mixed up. Their lessons tend to be the same but because there are so many public holidays in Cambodia (which I am, by no means, complaining about!) sometimes some classes get missed and so I might not have that class again for another 4 weeks, by which point I've moved on with the other classes. I've been keeping a work diary though which has been the most important thing at reminding me what I've taught from one week to the next, so I don't end up repeating myself!
I am getting bitten alive by mosquitoes here in the hotel reception area so I am going to have to be quick. I'll upload some photos soon of my students and of Sihanoukville!
Teaching has been a challenge but I'm starting to enjoy it and most of my students are so keen (although some not so. Disciplining has been hard, especially considering I'm younger than most of them, but also reasonably successful so far!). Students have invited me and Claire over to meet their families and see how they live which has been so nice - they are all so welcoming and bring out trays of sour mango and chilli for us, along with some interesting Khmer desserts, as soon as we arrive! I've been playing basketball with the students in the technical school aswell which has been fun - particularly as sports day is coming up soon and I'm part of the red team supposedly .. ?
At the beginning of December both schools travelled up to Phnom Penh for the arrival of Don Bosco's real life right arm bones embedded in a spooky wax figure of the saint in a white casket. It was a HUGE celebration, with all the Don Bosco schools in Cambodia coming up to see the relic, surrounded by banners and flashing lights. I can't think of a word that does the surreality of that situation any justice, so I'll just leave it as it is.
Claire and I vistited Kep during the water festival and ate loads of the famous crab with young Kampot pepper which was so delicious! We only stayed there for a couple of days in a french run guesthouse teeming with loud German toddlers, but it was really beautiful and we took a boat across to Rabbit Island, getting lost in the jungle and mangroves as we worked our way around it - luckily we made it out, although a little scratched and extremely sunburnt in my oh so ginger case ..
For christmas I was able to have fun with my students, making christmas cards and learning christmas carols and then, on the 18th December, Claire and I met up with the other volunteers in Phnom Penh. The next day 4 of us headed off on what was to be the longest bus journey of our lives to Bangkok. 16 hours.We spent 4 nights in Bangkok, eating so much thai food and so many mango shakes. There are stalls in massive rows all next to each other so it's just too tempting to eat some roast chicken and sweet chilli dip here, springs rolls there, pad thai, crepes for pudding, mango shake to wash it down .. oh dear.
Our next destination was Phi Phi Island; literally paradise. No roads, so walking, cycling or long boating were our only options. The whitest sand, clear blue waters surrounded by mountains and far off islands - it was incredible. We spent christmas day snorkeling around Phi Phi and then in the evening went out to the beach bars which are so full of life with Thai fire dancers and fireworks going off down the beach! We didn't want to leave and ended up staying an extra 2 days than we had intended before heading over the land mass to Koh Samui. This meant another LONG bus ride and then an incredibly packed boat, full of people trying to get over to Koh Phangan for New Years - which was what we were planning to do too! We stayed in some beautiful beach huts on Koh Samui and headed over to Koh Phangan on the evening of the 31st. Due to mass overbooking, we were stuck at a strange 'we're not on phangan yet' beach party while we waited for our speedboat to drop another lot off and take us over! We were meant to leave at 9 and so by 11.30 we were getting anxious about missing New Years so we managed to sneak onto the next boat and ended up counting down in the middle of the ocean, on a recklessly fast speedboat, with fireworks going off infront and behind us on both Phangan and Samui! It was such an amazing view that we didn't really mind about missing the countdown and we soon arrived at Koh Phangan where we bought our entry wrist bands and headed to the beach parties!
We arrived back at work last week so now back to normality! It was so nice getting back and the students being so happy to see us again - a round of applause as I entered one classroom, extremely good for the self-esteem!
So all is well here. I'm sorry there isn't loads of detail in this blog but I shall hopefully update again soon with some photos which will show better than I can my time here and in Thailand (photos only from a few weeks ago I'm afraid because finally bought a new camera in Bangkok!). I'd say I'll try to update more regularly but I only seemed to jinx it last time so goodbye for now, hopefully upate again soon!
Lots and lots and lots of love,
Niabh

monsoooooonjnflnjgfe

So, so much rain. So much. The last 4 days have been constant monsoon - really heavy and never ending! It rained so much on Sunday that the school was flooded with about 15cm of water. We had to trudge through the deep murky flood to get to lunch and there were snakes and cockroaches and bins floating down the road! Also, the second day we arrived in Sihanoukville, Claire's bag got stolen which had both our cameras and my mp3 player in it - foolish kids bringing it all out with us! So we haven't got any photos of it which is annoying! Finally though, the sun is OUT! It's back to being ridiculously hot again! Claire and I moved finally from our rooms in the technical school to our joint room at the hotel school with the other volunteers which is such a relief because now we can unpack properly and decorate our rooms - we're going to head down to the market this afternoon to pick up bits and bobs for breakfast and decoration with Anya, a volunteer we share a kitchen with. Tuk-tuk is in order I think because it's way too hot to cycle the many hills we have to cycle to get into town. We've done it a few times and have pretty strong legs now, i'd like to think, but the rain's prevented us from our fitness regime for a few days and we are dreading attempting the main hill again!
All the students are back from their holidays now and there was a big assembly to welcome back the 2nd year students and greet in the new ones which I can only describe as painfully surreal. Our whole time in Sihanoukville has been pretty surreal thus far but this ... we were told to attend at 7.30am so we arrived and sat with the other teachers and watched as the flip-flop clad students wandered in wearing their pink t-shirt uniforms. The assembly started with the longest speech, all in Khmer. They would then pass over the speech to another person who would continue to ramble in Khmer for an excrutiatingly long time! If we could only understand, it might have been bearable. They all started to sing the Cambodian national anthem at one point as well which was extremely odd to witness. It was pretty amazing but so draining and I can only describe it as surreal, like I said.
We no longer eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with the priests now which, although it was possibly the most awkward dinner table silence I've ever experienced, is quite a shame. We'd grown used to the spinning table and dishes of fish soup and rice, and the repetitive cricket chirp in the background that tried to drown out the silence. Now we're all a little confused as to where we eat, but we'll get the hang of things at the hotel school soon enough, I hope.
Today I spent the day helping Claire mark test papers for her students who have to be set into ability groups before she can teach them, and also I spoke with Father Eugene to get myself a schedule! So I finally know when I'm teaching and who but I have no idea what - apparently the volunteers aren't given a syllabus so we just have to decide what to teach ourselves! I'm quite happy with that I think but I'm gonna try and plan loads of material for them over the next few days, just in case they already know quite a bit. I have no idea of their abilities yet so should be interesting! The students here are all really friendly, we've been over to the boarding house to meet a few of the girls staying there. There are 9 to a room, with their beds all joined together. There are no mattresses, only wooden planks covered with a kind of stretched, woven sheet thing. They all seem happy enough to be here, only some extremely homesick; some of the provinces these people have come from are on the other side of the country. It's nice to see all the students around now, the school has come to life, it was slightly eerie when it was only me, Claire and 4 priests. The Christianity side of things is a bit hard to get my head around because the students are Buddhist but must go to the church at the school I think every night? I don't really understand it but that's how it works and the students are grateful to be able to learn. They study things like secretarial skills and mechanics at the technical school and over at the hotel school learn housekeeping, cooking and front office too. All really practical things that will hopefully get them a job afterwards! They're all aged between 17 and 23 and so burst out laughing when Br. Roberto told everyone in the hotel school that Claire was only 18 -  I am dreading when my students find out! I'm sure it will be okay because they are all nice enough, discipline is what I'm worried about though! My first real lesson starts at 7.45, either this Friday or Monday morning, depending on when the school is ready - at the moment the students are gardening and cleaning, preparing the school grounds for the year ..
We've explored most of the beaches, even stumbled across a strange pathway, decorated with flower pots and statues, where we were chased by dogs and Claire got bitten! We were on our bikes so cycled away quickly and luckily the dog didn't break the skin so, instead of rabies, she has a dog-mouth sized bruise on her leg! That pathway did not lead to a beach. The beaches near to our school, which is about 20 minutes out of Sihanoukville, are pretty dirty, littered with syringes and old takeaway boxes - we'd like at some point to do some kind of beach clean up, because it would be so beautiful without it. What's surprising is that it's the local beaches that are in the worst shape - the tourist beaches are a lot tidier although filled with persistent bracelet and fruit sellers shouting "you remember me - you buy bracelet!" for literally hours. We were told that the locals just don't really take care of their beaches and a lot of the touristy ones are looked after by hotels.
Right, to the market!

In Siem Reap!

Hi again! Just a quick update for you all :) All the other vols left for their project yesterday and today but mine and Claire's project doesn't start until sometime in October because the school is closed for the ancestors holday! Really keen to get started now - we've been here for what seems like ages! Bernadette has told us that Father Albeiro will drive us down to Sihanoukville on Friday morning so until then we are up in Siem Reap to visit the temples and keep ourselves busy! We were looking for voluntary work to do in this time in Phnom Penh but because it was so short notice and for such a short amount of time we weren't able to find anything! I'm happy to be seeing Angkor Wat and all the other temples though which we have been told repeatedly are amazing! We caught the 6 hour coach to Siem Reap at 8 this morning and arrived to a chorus of 'LOVELY JUBBLY' when we revealed we were english to the tuktuk drivers. I don't know if i'd mentioned that earlier but that has been a recurring theme throughout the last 2 and a half weeks! I've never heard that enjoyable cockney phrase so much in my entire life. Now we are settled in another guesthouse about to go out and eat somewhere. Just to set the scene, there's a little translucent gheko running along the floor next to where i'm sat and I am melting from the heat and humidity which is almost unbearable! Claire and I went on a little exploration of Siem Reap when we arrived and it's a really nice place, quite touristy but a lot cheaper than Phnom Penh! The drive up was nice, it was a bumpy journey but the views from the window were incredible - fields of yellowy-green grass for miles, floods of murky water full of water buffalo and stilted houses. Aside from the freezing air-con, screaming child, and repetitive khmer pop songs it was a lovely trip! We're off for our first view of the temples tomorrow morning at 9.30! Anyway, sorry this is brief - i'll hopefully write again to update you on the last week before Father Albeiro ships us to Sihanoukville! Lots and lots of love, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Photos!

The Cat-Napper! I forgot to mention him in my posts earlier but outside Wat Phnom we saw loads of little kittens on a wall; this little boy kept hitting the wall where they were sat with a stick and once they jumped down, for fear of his persistent stick, he picked up at least 3 kittens in extremely awkward looking positions and walked off into the sunshine. That was the last we saw of the cat-napper, or his cats.

There he goes, cats in arm, never to be seen again.

The Tonle Sap river

The Silver Pagoda

Monkeeeey

YAY elephant! It seems really surreal to think I fed that elephant last week! I'll hopefully upload more photos in the coming weeks, but it is a bit of a hassle to find time to rotate all the photos and then upload them - maybe I'll try to keep my camera straight next time :) I hope everyone is well at home or university! I really love reading all your comments so please carry on and tell me news! Miss and love you all! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 

My first post!

Chum reap sooa everyone!

Firstly, sorry for taking so long to post - it has been a busy few days since arriving in Phnom Penh! Luckily, I've finally managed to find some spare time before lunch to let you all know that I'm alive! I'll try to post as often as I can and be as detailed as I can for you :)

I'll start from after we landed! We arrived at the airport at about 6o'clock and we met our rep Bernadette who is a really lovely Belgian woman who has lived in Phom Penh for about a year and a half now with her husband.We sorted out our visas quite quickly as there was no queue and then jumped into a taxi! The drive to Phnom Penh was really amazing, we were all really tired from a lack of sleep on the plane but as soon as we were on the road we were all awake, looking out the window at our first glance of the mad traffic system there! There were motos and tuk tuks all over the place, weaving in and out of the cars, beeping at each other - I was surprised though at how organised it looked, the drivers were really alert and quick to move! We were drawing attention even from within a ten seater taxi - as we stared out of the window, Khmer people would stare back and wave, laughing when we waved back! Cambodians have so far been the most friendly, wlecoming people I've met - walking down the street it's almost as though we are famous, with people trying to practice their English as much as possible, coming up to chat with us.
The contrast in wealth across Phnom Penh is incredible. Just driving into the capital to start with we would drive past lavish mansions with tall, gated and barbed walls around them, and then just a few hundred metres later see the slums which are basically massive, windowless, doorless, shambolic looking flats which seem to have their own mini community, washing hanging everywhere, and the walls seemingly falling apart. It really is quite shocking to see, Bernadette, our host, has said not to go near them, especially not at night, because it is meant to be really dodgy, as you'd expect, and children are apparently picked up there for selling into prostitution etc.
After we arrived at our guesthouse, we unloaded our things, showered and changed before heading off for dinner at a Khmer restaurant. It was a really lovely place with the friendliest waiters in the world! I tried my first Khmer dish, fish amok; a sort of coconut, curry type thing, with red sticky rice which was so delicious, especially after plane food! We were able to speak to Bernadette about our projects and found out that our projects won't actually start until the beginning of October, due to the ancestors holiday, where Cambodian buddhists will flock to pagodas to make offerings to their ancestors, and so Claire and I will have about a week in Sihanoukville to explore and prepare for our lessons before we are put in front of our classes! After dinner we headed home and crashed out in our beds :)

Next day we met Bernadette at 10 and hopped in a tuk tuk to go to the Russian Market! The Russian Market is a fantastic, colourful place, with so many different smells in the space of 10 metres! It was swelteringly hot in there aswell, because it is roofed and all the stalls are very close together! There would be the smells of incense, shoes, fish, raw meat, fruit, bread and more all in the same row - really confusing to adjust to! Anyway, we only had a quick look round and, after buying a $5 watch from a stall, we left because it was so hot! We then headed to a cafe for a quick Cambodian lunch! Ahh I need to rush this last bit, before the battery runs out, but I'll elaborate on things later. All my days seem to be merging into one, so I'm sorry if I jump around from day to day a lot! I can't believe it's the 12th already!
Also, when we first wandered around Phom Penh we walked through the park where, after 5 o'clock every day, dance/ aerobic classes go on! They are the funniest thing, with atleast 5 in the same area of the park, all dancing to different music! The music ranges from western pop to Khmer music. We were able to join in a khmer dance class with Chonthol, at the Olympic Stadium, with people all around - it was so embarrassing, but really funny :D Bernadette introduced us to Chonthol on the 10th. After leaving for the city from a small village after disobeying her parents, Chonthol worked to pay for her studies and now has a degree in financing and english literature and works for a company which trains unemployed young people in English speaking and gets them jobs as tuk tuk drivers. She left her village 5 years ago and is now the business manager and has plans to buy the company from the owners once she has enough money - and she's only 24! She took us around the city and we visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, and Wat Phnom, as well as a Cambodian buffet! Wat Phnom was brilliant, a fantastic area, full of people and wildlife too! The day before the 8 of us had got a tuk tuk along the river front and AN ELEPHANT was just strolling down the middle of the road with its owner. It was completely surreal and happened so quickly that I couldn't get a photo! The Khmer people didn't even blink an eye! I hadn't expected to see an elephant in Phom Penh so I was really surprised when we arrived at Wat Phnom and there was ANOTHER elephant! You had to buy a bunch of bananas from a street vendor for a dollar and then you could go up and feed the elephant (I'll upload a photo at some point!) which was so incredible!! Ahh I have to post this before the battery dies but I'll try and write the rest later on! Lots of love, miss you all :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx