Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

For the last two weeks many children have been absent from school.  The long Lunar New Year holiday has seen Siem Reap's tourist numbers surge.  So, many families stop the children going to school and send them to the Temple area to sell instead.  There are many things that are very bad about this.  Firstly, the children are not even selling directly for their parent's,  they are hired out by the day to a middle man who pays them $1 a day regardless of how much they make, through begging or from sales.  These middle men are often Temple guards who can watch to see exactly what goes on and how much money the children are being given.  Often the children are told to say that they have a dollar they can go to school.  Rubbish. Of course, the kids are very cute, why do you think that they are chosen to go and make spaniel eyes at tourists?  But, before you cave in and buy think about the consequences.  If no one bought anything from the ch...

Rithy, one of our drivers, invited Lori and me to a ceremony to mark 100 days since his father's death.  In the Buddhist religion this has enormous significance. For the first hundred days that you are dead you are not aware of it.  After 100 days you wake up to realise that you have died.  It is on this day that you have to decide which path to take.  You can either decide to be reborn or go to Nirvana.  Obviously, such an important decision cannot be taken lightly and you need some guidance. So, off we went to Rithy's mothers house in the countryside not quite knowing what to expect.  Rithy's family are not rich, his father was just a very small time farmer with one field and his family home was typical of most Cambodian village house being made of wood and raised up on stilts.  A very grand canopy and ntrance had been erected for the party and many preparations were being made. The first thing that we were aware of as we neared the house was excep...

I have just returned from a brief sojourn in Hanoi, Vietnam.  What a wonderful city; it is everything one imagines the East to be but it so seldom is anymore.  Hanoi has all the mystery and charm of the Orient crammed into one part of the city known as the Old Quarter.  A jumble of French Colonial architecture, dark alleyways, frenetic street markets, pho stalls on every corner and lots of noise.  The French colonial buildings are everywhere painted in ochre with green shutters and interspersed with Chinese touches. There are mysterious Temples with the air thick with incense and ancient, tiny women praying.  The propoganda machine is working well,Uncle Ho would be proud.  The red flag flies everywhere and the references to 'The American war' are woven into the fabric of the city. It was Tet, the major festival in Vietnam, Lunar New Year.  There was pandemonium in the food markets as everyone rushed to buy all the special foods they eat for the festi...

While I was in Battambang I hired Mr Kim, a tuktuk driver with excellent English and a wide knowledge of the area to show me around. He is 30 and was born in a refugee camp on the Thai border.  It continued to be his home until he was 14.  His family came from Battambang originally; his father was  gemstone dealer.  During the KR regime they were moved into the countryside with everyone else. He told me that life in the camp was difficult.  There wasn't enough to eat and one of his jobs, when he was old enough, was to sneak through the guards and the searchlights at night to search for a little extra sustenance in the forest, bamboo shoots and the like.  It was a dangerous task.  Thailand was determined that noone from the camps should get into their country and security was great.  He went to school in the camp and medical care was provided but they were awful places.  Many former KR soldiers were there and there was an air of fear the who...

I went to Battambang for the weekend.  It is a small provincial town on the other side of the lake.  The bus keeps a loose schedule but, eventually, I arrived.  There is not a great deal to see there just a bit of faded, collapsing Colonial architecture. It is a sleepy place and has a certain faded charm. But, the real reason to visit Battambang is to ride on the bamboo train. The railway in Cambodia, like so much in this country, is in a state of total collapse. There is one line that runs from Phnom Penh to Battambang it runs once a week - sometimes.  It is meant to take about 9 hours, it often takes 15, that is when it runs. The bus takes 5 hours. The bamboo train came about because the area around was very heavily mined because of its proximity to the Thai border. During the occupation the line was the first area to be de-mined and so it made it the only safe way to travel.  In the country of make do and mend a solution was found.  Small platforms w...

There's time and then there is Cambodian time.  They rarely have a conversation.  As an overly punctual person I am having to learn the patience of a monk I am practising maintaining an air of serenity whilst repressing the frenzy inside.

I have already told you how vital it is that children learn English here if they have any hope of getting a good education.  Last week I went with Lori out to Knar School, an hour away on a tuktuk but a thousand miles away from the environs of Siem Reap.  The foundation does a huge amount at this school and there are many ongoing projects. Not least of which is getting some shower facilities available so that the children can bathe at school.. The villages have no clean water, no electricity and there is abject poverty. But I am not writing to tell you about that, that is for another day. The children from the nearest High School have not had the benefit of English classes from an early age and are now seriously disadvantaged. These are the brightest of the kids who want to go on to higher education; this will be denied to them unless they have a sound knowledge of English.  After their normal school day, which finishes at 5  they cycle for an hour to come to Kna...

Sometimes I think that my heart will break in this place.  Usually, I am not expecting it.  Just five minutes ago I was sitting on the verandah looking at the Times online in the cool of the evening ; all was well with the world.  Ponheary walked up the stairs on her 'phone and I heard her saying 'yes, my father and his brother  and aunties; they all died under the regime and she carried on talking for a few minutes - all dreadful.  She came off the 'phone and I asked her who she was talking to because it was too sad.  She smiled and said 'how can I say it through my tears, you cry for me'  I was crying already.  She sailed downstairs and said 'at least life is good now I cannot be sad any more.'  It is too awful to contemplate what has happened, not just to the Ly family but to families all over Cambodia.  We laugh  all the time here, but many of us do it with tears never very far away.

It is essential for children in Cambodia to learn English.  During the KR all intellectuals were killed and places of learning destroyed.  Therefore there are very few text books in Khmer for High School and beyond.  At University level all books are in English.  So you can see that English is not just an extra it is central to getting this Country back on it's feet.  We are not teaching the kids English so that they can be tour guides or work in hotels we want them to go to University and train to be Doctors and Engineers etc.  Cambodia is desperate for highly qualified people.  The Khmer English teachers do their best but their pronunciation is dreadful and the rote teaching doesn't help.  Part of the work here is also to train the teachers.  The kids are so eager to learn it is very rewarding.  I have some very bright children in my class. They need the opportunity to do well and to carry on beyond grade 6. It makes my blood boil wh...

Two recent items in the Phnom Penh Post, they were tucked away on the inside pages and only warranted a small paragraph each. A man set fire to his house because he was angry that his wife was not as pretty as his girlfriend.  The wife escaped serious injury. A man killed his sister-in-law because she would not cook him noodles