Santa on Christmas Eve

A five star hotel did a big Christmas eve party in Siem Reap. Our kids were invited to sing six Christmas songs for the live entertainment. We were allowed to have a stand at the show and we sold Christmas presents that the guests could buy for the children. The catch was that CDO also had to provide someone who would be Santa for the guests and the CDO children. Stan was asked to do this.

Nicole, Stan and Mom at the CDO stand.

Everyone wanted a photo with Santa. All the hotel staff and guests each wanted their own photo. The nice thing with the beard is you didn't need to do a big smile all the time and get a sore face.

Our kids sang their six songs very LOUDLY and I thought they were the star of the show.

After the show they each got a present from the guests.

After they sang for the guests, Stan finally had a chance to play Santa for the CDO kids as they were taken away behind the stage. This was his highlight of the night.

This is Stan's favorite little girl Kounthy. She is always so well behaved and polite.

More interested in the present than Santa.

Group photo.

After the show, Stan and Nic were invited to have some of the buffet dinner. What a feast! Crabs, roast duck, lamb, beef and every other kind of meal we had not been able to have for a year. We ate until we could hardly move.

After the show was completed, we were invited to our friend Eric's house for a Christmas Eve party that lasted until well into the morning, though we left early at 2 am.

Nicole with some new friends. The one in the middle must of had a very uncomfortable Christmas day as we watched her finish two bottles of red wine. She did get some hydration as she drank the wine over ice.

Christmas day party

We went to CDO for their Christmas day party that they threw for the local Khmer people in their neighborhood. They make their English lessons available free of charge to the poor families around them. These families were invited to the Christmas dinner.

Sajune was struggling to stay awake after her late night.

The kids sang their songs again to the visitors.

A big feast was provided.

A good turnout

Christmas at CDO and elsewhere around town

The kids at CDO are very excited and looking forwards to Christmas. They have a tree and decorations in the middle of the compound. The children are going to a 5 star hotel on Christmas eve where they will sing some Christmas carols for the guests and get a meal as well. Stan will be Santa for the occasion. They are a bit nervous of singing though and are scared their accents will make the songs sound bad.

Stan has been fixing some old computers at CDO. These things are old. The dirt and dust in the machines don't help either.

A few weeks ago a popular night club burnt down here and officially six people died including one Australian man. Unofficially we heard that there were 20 unclaimed motor bikes after the fire and someone we know was employed to go in and clean up the bodies and we heard that it may have even been 20-40 people who died. Three days later the night club was open again. To cover up the tragedy, the old entrance is now covered with Christmas decorations.

The smaller shops are also in the holiday spirit and coming up with really creative ways of doing their decorations.

Even the little market stalls on the side of the road try and have a christmas tree as you can see in the background of this photo. We are having a meal with Nicole's cousin Louie and his girlfriend Michelle.

Bring a meal to a village

One of our Singaporean friends has a program where visitors can pay for a meal which is then made in a Cambodian village and you eat with the villagers. He had some family visiting and they invited us along for the evening. All up nearly 30 people were fed with much food left over.

We arrived at the village just on sunset.

Once we arrived, the villagers started to prepare the food. They had electricity due to a generator that Eric had provided them.

One of the delicious dishes Eric himself made was this seafood stir fry. You can see how he made it step by step.

Our table started to fill up with a variety of different dishes.

It was about 22 degrees Celsius that evening and the poor Cambodians were huddled around the fire.

Nicole was freezing cold as well.

Sunset around our house

Went out for a walk around our house the other evening. This is what we see within 200 meters from our place. Note the locals fishing in the swamps and the amazing cloud formation we had that night.

Christmas in Siem Reap

Christmas time is coming. This is even evident here in Siem Reap. This will be our first Christmas away from family. But we'll try skype into the respective Christmas parties.

We have one mall in Siem Reap and they recently put the Christmas tree out front. This is the only place in Siem Reap with escalators. When we first took the kids out here for an excursion, they were too scared to go up the escalators and we had to carry them up one at a time.

Out front our mall.

Inside.

A five star hotel is doing some charity fund raising on Christmas eve for the kids of CDO. As Stan is the oldest and fattest barang (white person) they know, Stan has been asked to be Santa clause for the night. It is going to be one very hot night for him in the suit and beard... even if we get our 22 degree Celsius cold spell.

Stan recently went to the temples with Julian who visited for 5 days. Here are some photos of that trip.

Our friend Sitha tried to get us to eat some curried spiders. She told us that when she was a little girl, she used to catch them and eat them on her own as they were very poor. She likes the bulbous bit the best and she pulled that off first thing and ate that. Stan tried a leg but was not very impressed.

Government warns us to prepare for cold spell

From today's newspaper:

The government has been warning people to be prepared for a cold spell. People should 'bundle up' during this time. Temperatures may even drop to 22 degrees Celsius.

I wonder how Nicole will cope. She pulls out her North Face Jacket when it gets to 26 degrees Celsius. We may need our next lot of visitors to bring some ski jackets!

:-)

Best new idea I have seen in November

People here are very innovative and are coming up with new business ideas all the time. Sometime it may be a mobile kebab restaurant attached to a moto, or it may be a bread delivery business. The best one we have seen this month is the tuk tuk pizza restaurant.

A Cambodian entrepreneur has made a brick oven pizza delivery restaurant. How it works is you call him with your order. He makes the pizza and puts it into his wood oven, then drives it to your house/hotel while it cooks.

The only minor problen is there is no such thing as an address in Cambodia. Everything is described as in being near such and such landmark. This makes the delivery very difficult to arrange.

More daily life in Cambodia

It is actually cheaper to go out and eat local foods than to go to the supermarket and cook at home. We have been struggling with the plummeting Aussie dollar lately and we have been hunting for even cheaper places to eat. We're now on in the same restaurants as the locals on the main highway through the city. The dogs lie around hoping for any leftovers.

Flat tyre

With the roads being so bad and rubbish, nails and glass thrown everywhere, it is quite common for us to get a flat tyer. We have had three or four already. A couple nights ago we had one at 7pm so Stan pushed the bike several hundred meters down the road until we came to a moto repair shop. The owner was in a wheel chair. He had been born with two small misshapen  legs which he could not use. His nine year old son immediately started to work on the flat tyer when we pulled up.

The work was done under one very dim light. Stan had to use his flashlight app on his phone so people could see. After replacing the tube and for an hours work, they charged $5. We gave them a little bit extra as a tip and they were exceedingly pleased.