Entertainment

We have made some friends among the ex-pat community and have joined in the Friday trivia and raffle evening. There are three hotels which take turns hosting the event. The proceeds raised from the trivia and raffle go to a local charity. Last Friday they raised over $200 for what we think was a Christian orphanage, the "Grace Home" or something similar. The host hotel makes a lot of money by selling drinks for the evening (as you can see from the picture below).

This "beer dispenser" holds about 15 mugs of beer and the centre is filled with ice giving you a cold beers all evening long. It costs $10. 

We met some fascinating people at the trivia night. There were Australians who had retired there and were running a guest house. This guest house was supporting several schools in poor villages. There were many people who teach English part time in the local schools for about $7-10 per hour. They then spend their evenings teaching English in the poorer schools as volunteers. The most interesting person was Carl. He comes to Siem Reap for two months every year working for a British university coordinating students who do volunteer teaching in Cambodia. The rest of the time he runs his own charity in the Burmese refugee camps along the Thai border. He works with a tribe of people who get shot on sight by the Burmese soldiers. There are several camps with over 160,000 people in them. He invited us to come and teach in the refugee camps, but we would need to give a three month commitment because it is so difficult to arrange permits and passage into and out of these camps.

On Friday we won a raffle ticket giving us a $20 meal at the hotel which was sponsoring the event. Twenty dollars is far more food than we could eat on our own, so we invited a Canadian family we know out for dinner with us. Tina and Andrew have also been volunteering at CDO. They have donated a generous amount to build a new bathroom. They also help teach the children.

We walk a lot during the day to keep fit. With so much good food around we have to walk everywhere or we will come back to you double the size we were when we left. All this walking gives one sore feet and so we support the local economy by getting a foot massage every evening. There are hundreds and hundreds of people offering massages to tourists. We found a great place that does a good job for $2 per person for thirty minutes.