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a travel blog by
JillR
Jill packs her bags for Asia and embarks on a voyage of Discovery with a capital D and adventure with added extra hell yeah!
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Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
written by
JillR
on May 3, 2010
from
Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
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A is for....
Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
So here I am in Cambodia now! It's very very hot and humid, I can finally wear most of the t-shirts and skirts I originally packed and throw away all the jumpers and trousers I aquired in China! I'm staying in the centre of Phnom Penh in an OKish guest house, and teaching in an orphanage during the day. It's not exactly what I was expecting - I thought I would be assisting the teachers and keeping the kids entertained during their breaks. But oh no, I AM the teacher! The orphanage is about an hour out of town, there are about 70 kids living there from age 7 to 18. They have 3 classrooms; about 7 or 8 dormitories; a chicken farm; a herd of cows and 2 rice fields. The children are split into 3 age/ability groups and then again into 2 classes. One class goes to the local school in the morning and then has English lessons in the afternoon with us at the orphanage, and the other class does vice versa. I'm not sure exactly how the groups are split - in the morning I have 2 kids, in the afternoon I can have any number between 13 and 21. I have the youngest classes - some of them have a pretty high level of English, some of them can't recognise letters of the alphabet so it's hard to think of things to keep them all occupied! We've been doing 'a or an' for the last few days, although with one boy we are still doing A B C! I found the first couple of days very hard work, but it's getting better.
Music time at the farm
I have another volunteer in the class with me and he plays the guitar so our afternoon class mostly involves singing! That's the only thing that keeps their concentration! One of the more clever boys who sped through the work (and the extra work) I gave him during the lesson came up to me after class today and asked me to give him homework! A lot of them want to learn but it's very hard to explain what we want them to do because of the language barrier. There are several dogs at the school, and just last week they got a tiny puppy from a local village. The kids are very rough with it and love to pick it up and throw it about and put it in the trees. There are also 2 babies who belong to a group of builders who are building a new volunteer house, and the kids are very rough with them as well.
The baby at the farm. I would have taken him but his mum was looking.
Every lunch time we have to confiscate the puppy and the babies at least 3 times! We are planning a lesson for the whole orphanage entitiled 'Puppies don't climb trees and other things to remember when playing with things smaller than yourself'. But on the whole the children are very nice and seem to like us being there! There are 5 of us volunteering at the farm, and about 15 of us in total spread out on projects across PP. Everyone seems nice enough so far! A lot of them are also in the middle of long trips across Asia, it's nice to hear all their stories so far!
I haven't really had time to see much of the city so far, in the evening we tend to go to restaurants near the hotel so we don't have to walk far in the heat! We have the weekend off so we'll hit the sights then!
written by
JillR
on May 6, 2010
from
Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
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I'm the farmer, I work in the fields all day.
Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
Just doing some hoeing.
It's been a busy few weeks so I haven't been able to write for a while! All is going well at the orphanage, I'm getting the hang of teaching now! I'm sad that I've only got a week to go with the kids. My morning class is great - I only have one girl so it's more of a private tutoring session but she's very bright and speeds through the work I give her. She's very lovely, except for the odd occasion where an extra student joins us, and then she sulks because I can't giver her my undivided attention!
A busy morning class. Usually I only had the girl in the mornings.
The afternoon class is getting better, we have about 12 students monday, tuesday and wednesday, then on thursday we have 25. The large class is a nightmare, but this week we took them outside and played left/right/up/down which they loved. We had a sad moment earlier this week when the mother of one my favorite students died so he had to go back to his family for a few days. It's easy to forget that these kids are some of the poorest in Cambodia and don't have a proper family who can afford to look after them. But then again it shows how well the orphanage is doing - it's because they look so happy and content that we forget how much they don't have.
Last friday we covered the road outside the orphanage with new earth and stone so that when the rain comes in a few weeks the kids can still get to the local school. It was fun throwing dirt around with the kids and having wheelbarrow races, and the road looked great for a while but now it's getting worn and we don't really see how it will stop the path turning into a stream of mud in the rain! This friday was digging day! We spent the day in the orphange's greenhouses weeding and hoeing the vegetable patches to get ready to plant spinach. It was rediculously hot and sweaty, we could only do about 15 minutes at a time before we had to have a break! Our co-ordinater said I was an excellent farmer though! It's a shame we only have a week left and won't be able to see anything growing.
Last weekend myself and some of the other volunteers took the night bus to Siem Reap and did the temples at Angkor Wat. They were pretty impressive! We watched the sunset on our first night, then the next day got caught in a rain storm at Angkor Wat itself, and had to shelter in a tiny temple for an hour. The rain was like nothing we get in England, huge great big raindrops coming down by the bucket load! We went to the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed, although I'd never seen the film so that meant nothing to me!
This weekend we're staying in Phnom Penh and having a lazy couple of days - today I had a massage and then spent the afternoon at a lovely bar that has a really nice pool. We didn't get any sun though, it was a lot cooler today and it was so nice to not be covered in sweat (lovely). I think it's going to rain tomorrow, but if not it's back to the pool! We've been having temperatures of about 40c, according to one local this tuesday will be 50c! If it's that hot we're not allowed to go to work thankfully!! So I may be back in the air condidtioned internet cafe all day tuesday uploading all the photos I haven't managed to yet!
Hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather I've heard you're having this weekend!!!xxxx
written by
JillR
on May 22, 2010
from
Phnom Penh
,
Cambodia
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Call it Serendipity
Sihanokville
,
Cambodia
Serendipity Beach
I finished at the farm on friday! My final week was fun, the last day was the best (except for it being the last day)! In the morning we scrubbed the floor of the "al fresco" dining area - not so fun when we first started but great once we'd turned the whole place into a soapy skating rink! Then in the afternoon we played with the new toys we'd bought for the kids. The lego went down really well, as did the foam balls that you soak in water and chuck at people! It was really sad to leave, I'm going to miss my class a lot. I was given a lot of cards and pictures by the girls I taught - the girl I teach in the morning gave me a card that said 'you come back again pless you by me candy' I'm not sure if she was thanking me for buying her sweets or demanding more for next time!
My Wednesday afternoon class
On saturday we caught the bus down to Sihanokville in the southwest, which is Cambodia's main beach town. It was great, we found a nice hotel right next to the most popular beach called Serendipity beach. There are bars and restaurants all along the beach that set out sun loungers by day and tables and comfy chairs by night. Most of them have barbeques, so for each of the three evenings we spent there we ate absolutely delicious barbequed prawns and barracuda. The food and drink were cheap, there was a really relaxed atmosphere, and it was all stunningly beautiful! For one of the days we went east from Serendipity to Otres beach which was a quieter and more scenic strip. The weather was perfect but I got a bit sunburnt - not too badly though. Two of the girls I was with had hired a moped each so on a deserted dirt track road I had a go! They are pretty simple to drive...maybe thinking of going up a few cc's when I get home... That evening I went around town on the back of one, it was brilliant to have the wind in my face! We did lots and lots of sunbathing but the best bit was swimming and scrambling over the rocks to the west of Serendipity - I'm not sure what kind of rock they were but they were lined with something that looked really metallic - it looked like a Mars landscape or something!
BBQ on the beach. Bliss.
I've just got back to Phnom Penh - should have been going to Singapore tomorrow but have decided to move my flight to saturday to give me more time in the cheaper country!! I'm looking forward to moving on to Indonesia on monday. I'm joining an organised tour so no more worrying about booking buses and hostels! But I've really loved Cambodia, especially Siem Reap and Sihanokville. Phnom Penh itself isn't all that great - it's very dirty, pretty ugly and smelly, and if it hadn't been for the orphanage I would have happily spent my time somewhere else. But working at the farm and being with the kids made it all worth while! I think my favorite moments were when my afternoon class got so involved in and excited about the up/down/left/right game - and were able to remember it all the next day!
One of the most heart wrenching moments of my trip - not only did he figure out how to take my camera out of my bag, out of its case, turn it on and take photos - after a few days he also started putting the strap round my wrist before he started playing!
written by
JillR
on June 1, 2010
from
Sihanokville
,
Cambodia
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Hello City... again
Singapore
,
Singapore
Said good bye to
Cambodia
and landed in Singapore yesterday. I only have a day and a bit here. Yesterday I went for a bit of an explore in Clarke Quay, which is a trendy area with lots of bars and restuarants by the river. I got talking to an American who is working here for a few weeks so we had dinner and then wandered around Chinatown. Today we went to the zoo. It's pretty big and probably one of the best in the world. A lot of the enclosures have deep but narrow moats and no fences blocking the view, so you feel really close to the animals. It was nice to have someone to wander around with, I was worried Singapre would be a repeat of Beijing where I met no-one and get very bored!
Singapore's really nice - tons of modern buildings and skyscrapers but also lots of parks and greenery. They drive on the left (just as I've got used to looking the opposite way to cross the road!) and drive really safely - hardly any motorbikes and no crazy overtaking! The lanes are marked and the drivers stick to their own! The subway is great too - nicely air conditioned! Everything is really expensive though. I wish I had a few more days here, but I would have spent my entire budget for next month by the time I left!
I fly to
Indonesia
tomorrow afternoon, I'm not sure what the internet connection will be like - I think I'll be in the middle of no-where, but I will write again as soon as I can!
xxx
written by
JillR
on June 6, 2010
from
Singapore
,
Singapore
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If I had 1,000,000rupiah.....I'd be sort of well off, but certainly not rich!
Semarang
,
Indonesia
not a lot of rupiah
Arrived safely in
Indonesia
! We're on Java, in a little village call Ungaran near the big city of
Semarang
. It's been a pretty slow start, but today we did some hiking in the nearby mountains, visited some temples and had a tour round
Semarang
. There are 3 of us here, all girls from England. This is their first stop on their travels, so they are still a little unsure of the food, the toilet situation and all the creepy-crawlies! I keep telling them they'll get used to it, but it's a bit awkward when I'm the only one eating at meal times! We're staying in a really beautiful
House
with a pond in the courtyard and 2 pools out the back! The owners let the locals use the pool so it gets very noisy in the morning when the kids come down before school! It's not as hot as it was in
Phnom Penh
, so far we haven't used the pool because the water is too cold! We have no shower (just a couple of buckets and a cold tap) and no flushing toilet. It's not great, but never mind!
Yesterday we were dressed up in traditional
Indonesia
n costume - pictures to come! That was fun, but very hot and itchy!
The money here is so complicated - notes come in denominations of 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, 20000, 50000 and 10000. 5000rupiah is about 4GBP so it's quite easy to get 1,000,000rupiah!
We leave here on saturday, so I'll try and write again next time I can find internet!
written by
JillR
on June 10, 2010
from
Semarang
,
Indonesia
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Magelang
,
Indonesia
written by
JillR
on June 12, 2010
from
Magelang
,
Indonesia
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It's been one week...
Borobudur
,
Indonesia
Dieng Plateau - coloured lake
...Since I washed my hair. Yep, after two and a half months of having pretty decent washing facilities, I've finally reached the lowest of the lows washing wise. Pouring buckets of ice cold water over my head isn't my idea of fun! Don't worry, it's clean now, I just had to hold my breath and try not to scream or pass out!
W've been pretty busy since I last wrote - wading up rivers and
Magalang - the river we hiked up. That's up the middle, not just up the banks!
swimming in waterfalls, cooking Indonesian food, climbing mountains at 3am, taking very old rickety buses on looong journeys, and white water rafting this morning! It was brilliant!As well as being in the raft we were also able to swim down the rapids (swim isn't really the right word!) I swallowed so much water and had to be rescued from one very strong current at one point, but I had so much fun!
Sunrise in Dieng
We are in a town called Borobodur at the moment, in a very nice hotel (not a very nice bathroom though) and we've been eating lots of delicious things! Tomorrow we go to
Yogyakarta
which a pretty touristy place famous for arts and crafts, so lots of wandering round markets!
Got to go and buy a pair of flip flops now (pair number 3 so far!), so bye bye! xxx
written by
JillR
on June 16, 2010
from
Borobudur
,
Indonesia
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Yogyakarta
,
Indonesia
written by
JillR
on June 19, 2010
from
Yogyakarta
,
Indonesia
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He's a magician...
Surakarta
,
Indonesia
I don't have much time again so I'll give you a quick run down of what's been occurring... We spent a few days in Yogjakarta, which is famous for its arts and crafts trades, especially Batik the printed material which they use for everything in these parts - clothes, curtains, tablecloths etc. We visited the palaces and museums in the city, and strolled down the famous Malioboro Street with its hundreds of Batik stalls.
One of the magicians doing his thang
We met a couple of magicians who were staying in our hotel and doing a magic show at the mall up the road from our hotel. We went to see their show (pretty impressive) and then hung out with them by the pool later that evening. It was very random but a lot of fun! They tried to teach us some tricks but we weren't very good pupils!
Then we moved on to Solo (also called
Surakarta
), another arty place, and here we have been cycling, visited more temples and palaces and waterfalls, had a go at making our own batik designs and visited a water park with lots of slides and wave machines.
Most evenings we've eaten down at a street which turns into a food market at night, with hundreds of people setting up BBQs and soup and noodle stands etc. The food has been absolutely delicious and it's been great eating on the streets with lots of other Insdonesians.
This afternoon we embark on a mammoth bus ride all the way to Bali (about 16 hours)!
written by
JillR
on June 24, 2010
from
Surakarta
,
Indonesia
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