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.

So how am I getting to work today?

This is what I saw when I left my driveway to go to work. The road has only one exit street with only this direction to go. There is a pond/swamp to the right of the cows.

DON'T LOOK AT THE NEXT PHOTO IF YOU ARE A BIT SQUEAMISH!
Here is your typical Cambodian hot dog stand. Zoom in and look to the right of the BBQ. You will see what I mean. (Also seen on the way to work.)

Eating dog meat seems to be a new phenomenon here. The dog restaurants pay $40 for a dog, then sell it for $20-40 a kilo. They say it is so expensive because it takes 17 hours to prepare. The dogs of expats are especially well liked as they have been fed a good diet. When an expat loses a dog here, they quickly go to all the known dog restaurants here and see if they can buy their dog back before it gets eaten. Hopefully this practice ends very quickly.

Still here

We have to apologize for not posting in a very long time. We have had to spend some time in Thailand and we have had to move house as our lease was up. We moved into a new place that looked very nice but once in we found a myriad of issues such as plumbing, drainage and electrical. problems. We needed to build some new concrete retainers as well. All this work we had to arrange and pay for ourselves. It is very hard to do as a non Cambodian as they know they can charge you an exorbitant amount for their work. The minute you turn your back they try go to sleep or try to put a tile in upside down or back to front.

A plumber chipping away at our cement walls.

We are a bit further out in the countryside now, but still quite close to town. Our neighbors have been very welcoming. Their children are always here and while nice, they find everything about us fascinating and after trying to follow us into the bathroom a few times, they have atleast learned to give us some space when in that room.

The neighbors threw a feast for us last night. As it was an extra special occasion for them, they bought a monitor lizard and cooked that up to make us a soup.

It was quite nice. A little chewy, but we enjoyed it and appreciated the effort they went to to make a special night for us. We brought some brownie along for dessert and these were all eaten within two minutes.

All up it was a fun night under the stars. The only issue was the mosquitoes.

Khmer New Year

We enjoyed our third "new year" ceremony of the year in April; Khmer New Year. The celebrations roughly went from the 12'th to the 17'th of April. At this time we were invited to Khmer friends' houses and to huge street parties in Siem Reap. A big stage was built at the end of Pub Street and every night there was free entertainment provided by local stars, then a dance party with local and western music until the early morning hours.

On Pub St. looking at the stage.

Stan and Nicole join the locals in dancing. This is quite a sweaty affair in the 30+ degree weather. The street was packed with people.

We also attended a celebration with our friends in our Khmer classes. This was held at the school. There was a Khmer BBQ meal and dancing.

As far as new year parties go, we have enjoyed ourselves immensely. We liked the fact that this party lasts several days and we enjoyed celebrating with our Khmer friends.