Halloween in Siem Reap

The locals went all out for Halloween. The center of town was packed with young Cambodians, most aged about 16-25. They were having a ball and much makeup was used. It is interesting to see how they embrace some of our western holidays and how much fun they derive from them. In the west, these events like Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's day, etc have become hollow events which are really just centered around corporate marketing and advertising. Here in Cambodia, these same events are fun. Wonderful Halloween costumes are MADE (not bought) with sheets, plastic bags and makeup. It is very refreshing be be out of the media manipulation where large corporations tell you what you have to buy to have fun. For Cambodians who own very little, fun is what you make yourself, not what you buy.

A girl on the street dressed as a ghost.

A girl on the street in her Malificent costume. Entirely made from black plastic bags and black tape.

Some kids sitting next to us at dinner getting their zombie makeup ready.

Temple Bar. All decorated for Halloween and the staff all dressed as zombies.

Nicole going to buy drinking water

We want to post a little more about daily life here for us. We tend to see everything as 'normal life' here, but on reflection it is very different from home and some people may find it interesting. For example, all our drinking water comes from a 20 liter bottle that we have to go out and replace every time it gets empty. The closest little shop is about 400 meters from home. In the photos below you can see Nicole going down our muddy road with our little swamp on the right. Stan is sitting on his bike locking our front gate.

This is the shop we buy our water from.

When we do get to the tarred road around the corner, we have to navigate through the little calves who have made themselves comfortable on the road.

Phones and laptops

We would like to say a big thank you to those who donated phones and laptops from Deakin University.

People who I should specifically thank are: Arnie Philips and Jenn Day who organised the items to be donated and collected. Matthew Berends who gathered them all and brought them to Nicole's mother, Marion Christou who delivered them all to Cambodia.

Organizing and charging all the phones and laptops

We are still giving them out, but here are some of examples of where the phones are going to:

To an organisation that rescues girls aged 10-17 from the sex trade. Phone will be used by the Cambodian women who live with them in various safe houses.

I mentioned earlier that our friend Sitha is trying to start a business doing real estate. Sitha starts work every morning at 6-7am then works at one job until 1 pm. She goes to the next job at 2pm and works until about 10 pm. For all this work she gets about $250 per month salary. If she can develop her real estate work, she has a chance of getting a much better salary. We gave her an iPhone 3 so she can take photos and send these to prospective customers. She was extremely happy with this. We spent an afternoon showing her how to use this.

Some phones went to volunteer teachers who travel a fair way out of town (by boat at this time of year). They can now call if anything happens or they need help.

More strange sights

A few more photos for you guys to show the funny things we see here.

Here is a motorbike towing a car with a family in it. They loved us taking photos and were all waving at us.

A family on the way back from the pagoda where they went to honor and give food offerings to their ancestors.

Our neighbor's daughter waiting for Nicole to take her for a ride on the bike. (The bike is great for doing our shopping.)

We love the spelling mistakes here.

Taking the cucumbers to the market

New visitors! Mr and Mrs Atasever (Bill's parents)

After our first month in Siem Reap without any visitors, we had Bill Atasever's parents fly in for a visit. It was really nice to see some people from Geelong again. We met them at the airport to make sure that everything went ok with the accommodation and transport we had arranged for them.

At the airport Stan was given some Turkish baklava freshly made in Geelong the day before. Delicious! This will be eaten very slowly and relished over the next three weeks.

We made them get the photo everyone takes in Pub Street with the angel wings.

We took them past the orphanage to see the children. The kids each got a gift and a lot of hugs.

A bit more about our house

This should give you a bit more of an idea about where we live. (Sorry, due to size limits, the quality is very poor).

Our new house

Some people asked us to post some photos of our new house so they can see how we live. We're trying to make it a comfortable home and fix up the glaring flaws in building work. But this may give you an idea on what it looks like.

Our little tiled garden.

Our empty living room looking into the kitchen and the back door in the distance. The office door is on the right.

This is the small master bedroom. About 2.8m x 3.8. With an en suite.

Our kitchen.

The front of our house.

Rainy season. Crabs on the doorstep

Never expected to wake up and have a crab sitting on the doorstep. The neighbors wanted to drop a rock on him, but this lucky guy was thrown into the swamp instead.