Cambodia was a major empire - the Khmer Empire actually occupied most of the land that is now Thailand and Laos including modern day Cambodia. Attacks by the neighbouring Siamese (now the Thai) and Dai Viet (now Vietnamese) people reduced the size of the empire eventually resulting in Cambodia being the site of continual territorial fighting. This ended with the French forcing the king of the time to sign an agreement making Cambodia into a French protectorate and as such it became part of French Indochina. It was occupied by the Japanese during World War II but they were happy to leave the French in charge as they in turn we occupied by Japan's ally, the Germans. Post war Cambodia gained its independence as a result of prince Sihanouk who later abdicated in order to become Prime Minister. He was later deposed in a coup and went into exile in Beijing where he started making friends with an emerging revolutionary movement he'd nicknamed the "Khmer Rouge". Civil war was the result, escalated by the Vietnam war as the Viet Cong were now allies of the Khmer Rouge. This lead the USA to bomb a number of sites in Cambodia where the Viet Cong were hiding. This lead loads of folk to lose family members so they joined the Khmer Rouge (as it was something to do with their lives I guess) thus increasing it's size and power creating a lot of pissed-off people who later took out that aggression in unimaginable ways. 
The Khmer Rouge eventually won power under the leadership of Pol Pot (who was actually called Saloth Sar but no-one quite knows why he changed his name) who had this crazy idea that the country should be an "agrarian society" (pure farming) so he marched people from the cities to farms in the countryside to work as forced labourers. Intellectuals (including anyone who wore glasses), doctors, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Christians, Muslims, Buddhist Monks and anyone who didn't like this new set-up were tortured and executed until after about 4 years of horror, the Vietnamese invaded and the Khmer Rouge fled. Civil war continued for the next 14 years, ending in 1993 but flaring up again in 1997.That's it as I understand it - you're welcome to comment and tell me I've got a detail wrong but the result that we have today is the most important. Cambodia is impoverished with a large percentage of the country living below the bread line. This kind of poverty has led to things like the scamming that we encountered at the border, a pretty lawless society and a severe lack of infrastructure or trust in fellow man. What we did notice however was that while the taxi/tuk-tuk/scooter hassling continued, it was so much more friendly but also slightly desperate. Instead of ordering you to take their tuk-tuk (like in Thailand), the Cambodians almost pleaded with you.
Anyhow, back to our story. Our hostel in Siem Reap (which means 'Thailand Defeated'!) was lovely with some of the friendliest staff we'd encountered. We had a private room for about $6 a night with an en-suite bathroom, a TV with loads of cable channels (including BBC World!), towels, bed linen, toilet paper and soap - luxury! I reckon they were actually renting the rooms as a loss leader as the hostel had a load of other services it could provide - food, visas, tuk-tuks, taxis, buses, tours etc. so we decided to have dinner there as the food was pretty well-priced. Quite a smart business move!
If you've been following the Blog you'll have read that we've been getting a bit fed up of the constant tourism so we'd decided to try and do some volunteering in Cambodia. The problem is that most of the schemes want you to pay to volunteer (which seems pretty odd to start with) and there's plenty of dodgy "orphanages" that have a business plan involving getting however many visitors through the door per day and getting however much in donations off them. The "orphans" are frequently bought in from schools and families who need a bit of cash and get trained up to do performances for bleeding-heart tourists such as us.
Our research had turned up two leads which looked good and genuine and where you could volunteer for free. One was the Sao Sary Foundation which we'd found on Couchsurfing and the other was About Asia Schools. We met Tola, the representative of About Asia Schools in the Blue Pumpkin, a rather nice coffee place in Siem Reap. He explained a bit about the charity - it's actually a travel agent (About Asia Travel) which ploughs a portion of it's profits into setting up schools, mainly around Siem Reap. Education in Cambodia is free but materials are generally not and it's common that a family wouldn't be able to afford books, pencils etc. that you need for schooling. Tola had arranged for us to meet Ali, the headmistress of one of the schools. It turned out that the following day was their music and dance day so we abandoned our plans to go to Angkor Wat and instead agreed to do two sessions of Scottish music and dance with the kids.
That afternoon we took a walk around Siem Reap taking in a couple of temples along the way. There isn't a huge amount to do in the city itself as everyone goes there to go to Angkor Wat but we really like the cheery vibe around the place. We found another one of those rather nice BBQ places with the pan of hot coals like we'd seen in Thailand and after a pretty keen meal we went to "Molly Malone's", the Irish bar. We normally avoid these but we'd been given a flier for their pub quiz which was in aid of some local charities and it sounded like it'd be a laugh. 
The quizmaster, Mac was an English guy in a kilt who wandered around the bar asking questions even at one point ending up in the road outside being offered menus from other restaurants and tuk-tuks. We'd teamed up with a guy from Germany and a girl from Malaysia who were pretending they'd studied at Oxford and between the four of us we did pretty well. I had a bit of an "I've got a Ph.D in electrochemistry pal!" moment when the question "what is the name of a negative electrode" came up. I answered "anode" to be told that the answer is "cathode". In a sense we were both correct as he was probably referring to batteries and I was referring to electrochemistry but in the absence of other information he decided to accept either - a sensible move. 
There was a raffle after in which we one a $10 voucher for the Blue Pumkin - generally a good time was had by all. On the way home we ran the "hey you wan' tuk-tuk/massage" gauntlet. I'd made a paper frog our of one of the raffle tickets so I gave it to one of the women who offered us a massage. She seemed taken aback and burst into a fit of giggles.
We headed to the school the next day to be greeted by a bunch of enthusiastic but well-disciplined 5-15 year olds (good mo-a-ning tea-cha!) which we led in songs, dances with "Tatties and Herring" (Isla's actions again) being a particular highlight. We had some trouble getting them to dance and clap while still listening to the music as opposed to just dancing and clapping randomly so for the afternoon session we changed it and started with a load of simple clapping and stamping to music games which worked a whole lot better. The afternoon's version of "Tatties and Herrin'" took a whole new slightly-violent turn as the kids tried to "herrin'" both me and Charlotte. You can see the first round of T+H in our Cambodia video...We had a fab time - we were hoarse and wiped by the end of it but we treated ourselves to a slap-up meal at the Blue Pumpkin and life seemed pretty good. One interesting thing we noticed was the number of kids wearing outfits that were effectively pyjamas. We've heard that this is a bit of fashion which has come over from China and we saw plenty of adults dressed the same way when we went to Phnom Penh. It seemed to be 'a smart matching set of clothes' rather than 'something you wear to bed'. I does look a bit odd to our eyes.
We had to leave Siem Reap for a bit but we knew we'd come back so it didn't seem to bad. Our bus to Phnom Penh picked us up at the hostel and drove us to another bus which then drove us to a third bus which drove us to Phnom Penh. We met a tuk-tuk driver at the bus station who had an odd bargaining technique. I explained the destination asked how much and he said "4 dollar" to which I said "how's about 3 dollars?" and his answer was "5!". Bizarre. We settled on $4 as that seemed fair enough - he was limping and his pals were kidding him on that he needed the money for his operation - it was all good spirited. He took us to Patrick, our Couchsurfer's place and then tried to plead with us to take him on for the next day but since we didn't know what we were going to be doing we took his number instead.
Patrick is from Chicago but is spending some time in Cambodia teaching English. He was the first to admit that the system he's working in is flawed as he has no qualifications other than his degree in English Literature and the ability to speak English which is possibly not the best for the Cambodian education system. We quized him on his experiences and impressions of Cambodia and he was able to fill us in on some of the historical details we hand't quite got to grips with yet. That evening we had our first experience of a moto (scooter) when Patrick drove us to the Phnom Penh weekend night market. Cambodian traffic is mental - most moto drivers don't have licences and the lights just change colour and most people ignore them. Charlotte and I clung on for dear life as we weaved our way though the hoards of motos, tuk-tuks and 4x4s. At the night market we saw more folk in pajamas and some kind of "Cambodia's got Talent" dancers who's hearts really weren't quite in it. Dance routines seem to be a big deal here - there were parks full of people learning them all over the place. We also learnt about Cambodian actresses who are basically regarded as prostitutes and get killed off if they don't become the mistress of one of the really rich guys. Charming.
The next day was one of the "Museums that Ruin Your Day". This was the Tuol Sleng or "S-21" Museum. It's a former primary school that was used by the Khmer Rouge as a prison and torture venue. There's little in the way of explanation but it doesn't really need any. Some of the classrooms have been partitioned into cells, some of a make-shift brick variety and some of wood. Some of the bigger cells have a metal bed but this was not for comfort. It was for strapping people to. Every cell has a foot manacle, some have various devices that you couldn't (or wouldn't like to) imagine what they're for and there's photos on the wall of many of the bloodied bodies - you can't imagine what they'd been through. Perhaps the most revealing thing was a sign in the grounds in Khmer, French and Broken English. These were the rules...- You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
- Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
- If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
- If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
Altogether it was a really depressing place but we did begin to get an impression of this probably most important period in Cambodia's history.
That afternoon we decided we'd had enough of the Khmer Rouge so we gave the killing fields a miss and instead had a wander round some of Phnom Penh. It's a pretty grubby looking city, especially given that it's the capital. There's still the odd open sewer and plenty of open drains. The palace did look nice from the outside mind.
In the evening we met up with Patrick again and along with his flatmate Brendan, another UK Couchsurfer called May and Ryan from the flat downstairs and we all went out for dinner. As luck would have it, Ryan was a semi-fluent Khmer speaker and was able to order from the Khmer-only menu. We also had a lady come round selling frogs and crickets so I had to swallow my frog-loving nature and have a go. Surprisingly, thy were pretty good - crunchy (Crunchy Frog, oh yes) and a bit fishy. The crickets were nice and sweet. A pretty unusual snack for us I guess but when in Cambodia....
Our next destination was Kampong Speu (pronounced Spoo, not spew) where we were to spend a week volunteering. Our contact was Vichetr Uon, a Couchsurfer who uses Couchsurfing to get volunteers for his organistion, the Sao Sary Foundation. SSF has a number of different arms but the heart of the organisation is the centre which is a refuge for young people who are most at risk of sex trafficking - usually the poorest families. At the centre they get a variety of different lessons the most important of which is English, taught by volunteers but they also get IT when there's a teacher, social and business education and in particular skills such as sewing.
Kamping Speu is a dustbowl well off the tourist trail and when the bus dropped us off, we first had the challenge of getting to the centre. Vichetr had given us his 'phone number but didn't seem to realise that we didn't have 'phones. We wandered up and down the highway for a bit with motos, buses and trucks flying past us, making phone signs at people in the hope that someone would take pity on us. Eventually a guy leant us his mobile and we managed to get through to Vichetr who told us to wait and someone would come and get us. After a bit, Chanry, one of the SSF staff arrived and we went to the centre on the back of scooters with our giant bags on our backs and our little bags and fiddles balanced in interesting ways. At first it was difficult to figure out what was going on. There were a few people around making handbags out of poly bags and we had a chat with Justin (that's his English name, not his Khmer name. 
It got a bit confusing as the kids would all introduce themselves variously with both), one of the older lads but we were still a bit scared and confused about what we'd let ourselves in for. After lunch, though, the other volunteers arrived, Claudia (Germany), Isa (Austria), Carole (France) and Guillaume (France). They were all teaching English so Charlotte tagged along with them and I set to work on the computers. I'd been told that they had a few viruses. This was no exaggeration, they were flooded, probably the worst case I'd seen. In addition to that, if you tried to touch the metal case of the computer you got zapped. This also extended to putting in CDs and accidently touching the metal bit in the middle of the spindle. It was pretty exciting. The computers had web browsers and were good enough to open and write notepad files so I managed to give two of the boys a lesson in writing webpages. We decided that reinstalls and up-to-date virus checkers were needed and these could only be obtained at the office/guest house where we were staying.
I could go into lots of technical detail about the work I did at the centre but it would make for pretty dull reading. Suffice to say that my time was spent going to-and-fro between office and centre, downloading virus checkers, virus rescue CD images, trying to buy CD-Rs and installing some pretty dodgy version of Windows. It was frustrating as I knew that a job like that would be so easy at home but here with limited resources and flaky equipment it was a total nightmare. The boys helped me out and in the process I tried to teach them as much as I could. I gave them another HTML (web page) lesson and by the end of it, they we making their own webpage without any difficulty. They were really bright guys and a whole lot of fun - we got on really well. In the UK any one of them would be University material but here that's a lot more difficult and expensive, especially when things at home may not be so good. They were all so keen to learn and really wanted to be computer scientists so I hope in the future they find some way to do that.
Charlotte busied herself teaching English. I was to help her out with a lesson which I was bricking it about as I feel that I know nothing about language. I only ever teach stuff that I feel I know. Luckily she took the situation in hand and did a really amazing job teaching the kids about future tense. It became my job to come up with verbs that could be expressed in the future tense, a job I just about managed. Charlotte also took some fiddle lessons. As luck would have it, the centre had had a fiddle donated a while back and when the kids heard us play, they all instantly wanted to learn. One girl in particular was really keen so Charlotte took her under her wing and gave her lessons - she picked it up really fast and her bow control in particular was really good.
On the Thursday Vichetr took us on a wee trip around some of the local villages to show us some of the other projects that SSF is involved in. They involved giving people pigs, digging wells and building toilets but always targeting the poorest of the poor families. Vichetr was telling us how most other organisations (including some pretty big well-known names) ignore these people saying that they don't know how to work with them. SSF goes right to the bottom but always tries to be as responsible as possible so no-one just gets a handout. For example, the sows are "serviced" by a boar but 50 % of the piglets come back to SSF to be donated to other people. It's a pretty good system. At the end of the tour we stopped with one family who SSF had been working with to set up their own grocery business. We had some of a local crushed ice drink with some kind of syrup poured over the top and some tapioca-like seeds at the bottom. It was really nice and so refreshing as that day was a total scorcher.
That day also happened to be Isa's birthday so a night out was planned. This is a bit of a misnomer in Kampong Speu as there's not a heck of a lot in town but we did have a great evening at a local food/beer establishment that the other volunteers had been frequenting during their time in Kampong Speu. It was another Cambodian BBQ thing, this time with prawns, beef, veg and plenty noodles and lots of towers of the local brew of course!
Friday was Isa and Claudia's last day so they'd organised a special dinner with fruit and banana cake bought at the local market. Claudia could play guitar and had been practising some songs with the kids so Charlotte and I tagged along playing fiddle as well to "My Heart Will Go On", "Country Roads", "Yesterday" and "Stand By Me". We also had the obligatory rendition of "Tatties and Herrin'" - gotta love Isla's actions, a demonstration of the "Gay Gordons" and a sort of haphazard "Circassian Circle". Guillaume even did some fire juggling and a splendid time was had by all. There were a few tears to be sure as Claudia and Isa said their goodbyes - they'd been there three weeks or more.At the weekend we worked some more, I thrashed away at computers and Charlotte started to take a look at some of the funding applications SSF was putting in for. As much as I tried I couldn't get rid of the viruses - it was like a bubble in wallpaper that just kept popping up again every time I flattened it. Eventually I came to a realisation; while the virus checker can be kept up to date, Windows cannot be as none of the versions of Windows in Cambodia are genuine and if your version isn't genuine, Microsoft won't let you keep it up to date. In addition to that, it was likely that the Windows install CD had the viruses to start with. It was extraordinarily frustrating but I guess that sums up the situation in Cambodia. Things are difficult due to lack of money, infrastructure, corruption and apathy. I realised that Vichetr and his staff have a really difficult job to do and it's not made any easier by circumstances. It was also really interesting to experience the Asian attitude to education which is far more demanding than our attitude. The kids have a pretty tight schedule of school, classes, meetings and educational videos but little time for fun. It's a really different culture.
Eventually, the time came for us to leave and the kids at the centre gave us a lovely send off with loads of wee speeches, some lovely letters and drawings and a final rendition of "Tatties and Herrin'". We'd had a really interesting time there and learnt a lot about Cambodia and the difficulty of trying to do good things in it. It was also a really nice week for us, going to-and-from the Guesthouse and the Centre on bikes, eating in the local places etc. It almost felt like a kind of normality.It was back to Siem Reap and Ankor Wat for us and after a surprisingly expensive bus ($10 as opposed to $6 going the other way. Hmmm.) we arrived back at our lovely guest house. It was actually fully booked so we stayed next door for a night which also turned out to be a fine place. We'd eaten little but rice and veg all week so we decided on a pizza blowout at "The Pizza Company". It's a bit like Pizza Hut with that very special plastic taste that we all crave. Unfortunately, it all seemed to be too much for Charlotte (who'd already been ill with a cold all week) and an upset stomach was the result. The next day was spent in the guest house with many toilet visits...
We finally got to Ankor Wat (World Heritage temple ruins) the next day with Charlotte feeling a little delicate but in reasonable form. We decided to start small by taking a look round the Roluos Group before heading to Ankor Wat itself and yes, it's stunning. Cambodia may have had a bad time but when it comes down to it, Cambodians built Ankor Wat and it doesn't get much better than that. We took a day's rest the next day. The only noteworthy event was that evening when a young waitress in the place we were eating came up to enthusiastically complement Charlotte on her hair (which rightly enough is looking pretty nice at the moment - even more like a Victorian cherub that usual). She wanted to stroke it, saying that her own hair was so much thicker and she couldn't really do curls with it. It turned out she was an aspiring young actress and had just had a load of portfolio photos taken which were pretty nice (she showed them to us with joy). I really hope she makes it.
Back at the temples the next day we watched the sun rise over Ankor Wat (stunning and worth the 4.30am red-eyes) before heading to Bayon (the stone faces where some Cambodian ladies wanted their photos taken with Charlotte) and a load of smaller temples, one with trees growing all over the stonework (I think they used that one in "Tomb Raider") it was all amazing. What wasn't amazing however was the amount of tout gauntlets we had to run. As soon as our Tuk-Tuk stopped to drop us off, loads of folk would come jogging over to try and sell us hats, guide books, postcards, bottled water, coffee, breakfast, bracelets, paper hanging things, necklaces, wooden Cambodian figures, a wooden penny whistle type thing, a wooden jews harp, a carpet, a tablecloth, a brass rubbing or a painting. 
This is not a problem if you can just politely say "no thank you" but that didn't work and they would continue to follow you reciting things. The most disturbing and persistent were the children, some looked too young to even be at primary school. This brings me to my biggest moan about travelling (and harps back to Cuba). In Asia, South America and Cuba I am regarded as a walking ATM an everyone wants to make a withdrawal. To be frank, I find it as dehumanising, offensive and degrading as if I were to regard the locals as "poor little foreign-types who are really poor due to their low intelligence as a result of the colour of their skin". I am treated like it people's right to have me buy their products/give them money simply because I'm white and from a more well-off country. 
We were trying to be as polite as possible but in a few cases the touts swore at us (in Khmer but we could tell it wasn't nice) when we said "no thank you" for the umpteenth time and when we wouldn't buy one wee girl's postcards we got more Khmer swearing followed by "Oh My God!" - obviously an important English phrase. The problem here was simple, they didn't have anything we wanted to buy and we don't buy stuff that we don't want. Clearly a difficult concept to grasp. I should really evaluate this policy as because I'm a rich foreigner I should just buy everything I'm offered thus necessitating 20 extra bags to carry it all.Anyhow, moan over (for the moment). The Ankor area is amazing for sure but I didn't feel as I was in any position to be left alone to enjoy it.
We had a much nicer day the following day when we went to Bantay Srey, one of the further away temples. We also took a look at a couple of the other smaller temples nearer to Angkor Wat. They were all really nice, less touristy and given that we hadn't had to get up at 4.30am, we were in a much better frame of mind to enjoy it. The hawkers were a lot less mercenary as well and seemes to take our "no thank you" as a reasonable answer. Whether it was the heat or the proximity to Khmer New Year I don't know.We had planned to leave a couple of days later but since it was Khmer New Year the buses were all to pot and we'd have either had to take a night bus (which we've both had quite enough of by now) or take a day bus to Phnom Penh and take our chances from there. We decided that this was a sign that we were destined to stay a bit longer in Siem Reap so we decided to spend a few days just seeing what happens around new year and hanging out and relaxing. We'd kind of got into a way of life there by this point and we weren't quite ready to give it up yet.
The afternoon before New Year a group of kids came round all dressed up for the new year and did some dancing and singing. Chhorpoan who runs the Guest House took part by taking a cup of water, stirring it with incense sticks and flicking it onto the kids. It was all strangely familiar to us who have seen guising before - a tradition we have at Hallowe'en in Scotland where folk come round performing and looking for money, sweets, beer etc. We took another BBQ that evening with another couple from Edinburgh who were staying at the guest house. Rachel, a girl travelling on her own from Coventry joined us as well so we could have a right old UK time. The Edinburgh folk were going to be back there in a week - I was more than a little jealous.We had a nice wee party for Khmer New Year with some food and some dancing to the Khmer pop music we'd heard throught our time in Cambodia. Dancing in Cambodia is very genteel and invloves small foot movements and waving hands in a graceful manner. Chhorpoan tried to educate us but we were too badly coordinated to get it right.
The days in Siem Reap passed quickly. We read books, watched some movies and Charlotte tried to do funding applications for SSF to find that that brought it's own issues. We also ate some great meals since we were living very cheaply during the day. Of particular note were a couple of curries at "Little India" which were probably the best Indian-style curries I'd had since leaving the UK. We also had a great breakfast and evening meal at Molly Malone's. On our last full day in the Guesthouse we came down to find a chanting ceremony with a load of monks. After, one of them splashed water all over the Guesthouse to bring us luck and happiness. Nice.
So that was Cambodia. We had a bus journey to Phnom Penh with loads of people sitting in the aisles (I reckon the money they paid wasn't getting yo the bus company but was instead going straight into the pockets of the driver and his associates), being constantly stared at by a small girl. It was quite unnerving. And then a more luxurious bus into 'Nam (our bus from Siem Reap was about 2 hours late, but relief! The connecting bus waited. I feel for the other passengers who arrived on time). Cambodia was a fascinating country for us to visit and it really fires up the imagination as to what it could be, especially when you see the countries around it (the contrast as soon as we crossed the border into Vietnam was incredible. Suddenly, there was infrastructure and people going about their lives in a functioning country). Cambodia's got a way to go yet but we'll be watching for sure. Onward!
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