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.

More crazy things on the road

Here are some more of the funny things on the road in Cambodia.

Look carefully at/through this car. It is fully air conditioned. If you look carefully you can see the boy's foot sticking out the front door.

Finally a good photo of a person on a motorbike holding their IV drip. Drove right past us as we were having lunch.

This is the main road between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. It takes about 6-8 hours to travel 350km.

People don't have tow ropes here, so they chop a tree down and tie it between cars to tow it along.

Google maps is starting to do street view in Siem Reap.

When the car is full of people (sometimes 9 or so in a sedan) there is always room for people to sit in the boot.

Taking some roofing iron home.

There is a van under these baskets.

Street art in Thailand

Nicole and Stan went on a short visit to Thailand where we enjoyed all the trappings of modern life for a few days. We had air conditioning. We watched a movie in a proper cinema. We went to shopping centers. It was all very nice, but it was also nice to get back to our more primitive life in Siem Reap.

While we were in Thailand, we stumbled across a street art exhibition. These were made up of drawings that would come to life if you stood in a specific spot and could see the painting from the right perspective. To show this, we have tried to take the photos of the street art from different perspectives so you can compare them. The drawings were made with plastic and passers by were encouraged to stand in the drawings.

Toothbrushes and hygiene

Some days when we have some time and need the natural air conditioning of being on the back of a moto, we will drive for several hours into the country side and spend some time giving away toothbrushes, soap, combs and shampoo and teaching kids and their families how to brush their teeth and some other basic hygiene. We may also have the odd toy or two to give out. Many of the children have terribly rotten teeth. This is partly because of diet (eating nothing but rice), and partly because they do not care for their teeth and love sweets.

Little girl and her brother with their toothbrushes and a fluffy toy.

After we had given some toothbrushes to a number of children in a village, we rode back through the village about half an hour later and it was really cute to see the whole family of five children all standing around their well with a bucket of water brushing their teeth. It was nice to know that the message has at least sunk into five people. Unfortunately, we didn't take a photo, but it was very cute to see them all standing there brushing their teeth.

Some kids with their brushes.

Nicole giving the family toothbrushes, soap, combs and shampoo.

Never too young to learn.

Visiting a temple off the beaten track

We went on a moto (motor bike) tour. Along the way we visited an old temple which were were told was built in the ninth century. Apparently this place was still standing until the Khmer Rouge shelled it in the 1970's. The story our guide told us is that they heavily mined the area then shelled the villages in the area. When the villagers ran to the stone walls of the old temple, many were killed by land mines. Hearing that story made it a little scary to walk around the temple. There are still many millions of mines lying in the jungles of Cambodia.

Walking to the temple.

Destroyed by the Khmer Rouge artillery.

A tree in the temple ruins.

Hard to believe this is over one thousand years old.