Battambang

Sitting listening to the dulcet tones of Cambodian wedding music is where I write this post. I've been a bit unwell so I am just taking it easy in our hotel room - I need to be in close proximity to the toilet... too much information?? Sorry :\

Being on holidays I'm no longer a slave of Monday to Friday so I would have no idea what day it was other than being able to check on the laptop. It occurred to me today that I hadn't really said what we were doing over here. I think it's worth mentioning.

Em is facilitating some workshops for Cambodian teachers from across the country in the area of literacy with Teachers Across Borders. There are around thirteen workshops being conducted covering such areas as maths, science, early-years education, school leadership, school administration and Khmer language - there are more but that's all I can think of. The workshops are happening from today through to Saturday - they go to school six days a week here... eek! The teachers are from all over Australia and range from having several years of experience right up to those who have many years of experience in a variety of roles including school leadership and administration. There are around 300 Cambodian teachers attending with each workshop having between 20 and 35 participants. All of the teachers are donating their time for this worthy cause and my hat goes off to them.

Em and Matt running their workshop

I am just helping out where needed but everything is well organised so there's not heaps to do. I have been appointed the 'official' photographer and have been taking some snaps. Today was the opening ceremony and our teachers were welcomed by directors from the POE (Provincial Office of Education) and the provincial Teachers Training College. It was interesting sitting at the back of the ceremony to observe the different cultural norms. Mobile phones rang regularly throughout the proceedings and the Cambodian teachers had no issues with answering a call, despite 'VIPs' giving what seemed to be important speeches (they were in Khmer so I have no idea what was being said). After a while the audience just started talking amongst themselves when I think they thought it was time to wind up. Our teachers of course, were very well behaved.

We arrived in Battambang (pronounced Bat-am-bong) on Thursday after about a 2.5 hour trip from Siem Reap. The next day the teachers met with their translators and went stationery shopping - which I think most teachers enjoy and Em LOVES.

Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city but to me it definitely feels less commercialised and less touristy than Siem Reap. The kids here are not as used to foreigners and come up to you and say hello. There seems to be a bit more of an industrial focus here with shops selling hardware and tools. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of clothing and food shops but less of a concentration I think. One thing Battambang doesn't have when compared to Siem Reap is the t-shirt selection... but Em assures me when we get to Phnom Penh it will be t-shirts aplenty.

On Saturday we hired a moto and I had a BLAST. Em was a bit hesitant at first because of the traffic and seeming lack of (or lack of observance of) road rules. I had to get my passport for the hire so I rode back to the hotel by myself... and got lost. To those of you who know me well, this will come as no surprise. I eventually got my bearings and got to the hotel and back to the hire place without too much drama. Before we hired the moto I did some reading and found basically a crash course to riding a moto in Cambodia. The main rule was to NEVER STOP MOVING - this worked for me the whole way through. Somehow the traffic here just works. People go round others and stay out of the way of vehicles that are bigger than theirs. It was just something that I wanted to do and I'm glad we did it.

We took a trip out to Banan temple, a temple about 20 clicks out of Battambang. It was of course impressive and it was nice to be able to appreciate it without the hordes of tourists that were marauding around Angkor, Siem Reap. I continue to be blown away at the Angkor people's dedication to their gods and the detail that they put into the structures they built to honour them. Oh, that was the other thing. Apparently decent maps here are overrated, so we had 3 maps that didn't clearly tell us where to go. So we just headed off in what we thought was the general direction and miraculously found a road with a turn off to Banan. There were some caves around the temple that were used by the Khmer Rouge and an old gentleman gave me a tour. The caves were a lot bigger than I expected with many large caverns. The old man said that he had been a soldier and had met an Australian and an American and both had offered for him to leave the country and go with them, but he said he didn't want to leave his family and fled to Thailand instead. I was surprised to see a sign warning about mines on our walk to the caves because I thought they'd all been cleaned up.

On the way back we ran out of petrol but I wasn't too stressed because they had roadside stalls the whole way that sold petrol out of used soft drink or alcohol bottles, every 100 metres or so.

That night despite feeling pretty tired we went out for tea and after, headed out with a few other group members. We ended up at Club KO and sat at a table surrounded by locals. One of the men on another table was quite 'happy' and decided to generously top up all our pots of draught with Guinness. Hmm, interesting. There was singing throughout the night and Lissie our tuk-tuk driver, who the group has befriended over the years said that people request songs from the various singers. Just about all of the songs were quite downbeat and a bit mopey, not the sort of thing you would expect at a club but that's just how they roll here in Battambang. Lissie ended up taking us to Sky Club. Now this club was a bit more pumping with their 'doof doof' music. A few of us couldn't get over the fact that they let children into the club. There was what I thought was a child kickin' it in the dance area - I may have attempted to pick him up but he ran away. I was later informed he was a short-statured person who was aged about 20... how embarrassment. His group was very gracious with this crazy foreigner. The DJs knew all the English they needed to know for example, 'put your hands up in the air', 'everybody scream' etc. etc. They played a techno version of Baby, (by Bieber) so I was happy... I mean, no... wait.

Sunday we went on the bamboo train - I use the word 'train' very loosely here. It was basically a bamboo platform on wheels powered by a small petrol engine. The line was pretty straight but every join in the track could be felt on the behind. There is only one line of track so if anything is coming the other way, the lower priority train/s need to be disassembled and taken off the track to allow the oncoming trains through. We were taken on a tour of the local brick making business at the end of the line. Our guides were a couple of young girls who were very cute. My guide shyly asked me for a dollar at the end of the tour - very entrepreneurial!

Our tour guides

In the afternoon a few of the boys took us out on motos to Phnom Sampov, a significant, religious site - both for the shrines atop the mountain and also the bodies which have been laid to rest there. There were many, many Buddhas up there and also chambers where there were still human remains. It was extremely sobering thinking about the loss of life, and still hard to believe what humans can do to each other.

One of the many shrines

There was a girl hanging around at Phnom Sampov who kept telling us stories and cracking herself up.

Got to wear some pretty awesome head gear when I was on the back of the moto