Monday, 31 October 2011

Japan - the final chapter!

I'm now back at home, searching desperately for a job with a total of £6 pounds spread across my current and savings account. Reality is depressing! However, I thought I should really finish off the blog for now with the final part of my journey - Japan.

I flew from Sydney to Tokyo, where I stayed with an English couchsurfing host there for a couple of days. I'm not going to do any naming or shaming, and I sincerely hope this wouldn't offend him too much, but he was definitely not my kind of person. He was kind enough, but just had a very strange outlook on life - for instance, he told me that he was only interested in having people stay with him from the commonwealth, had no interest in visiting any countries not in the commonwealth (he'd been forced to work in Japan which was why he was there, he certainly wasn't a big fan of the place). His flat contained not one, but two photos of the Queen, and he insisted on calling Malaysia 'Malaya', even to the face of a guy that we met up with from the country in question! It hasn't been Malaya since 1946 my friend, get with the times! Oh and Singapore and Hong Kong were British Singapore and British Hong Kong. He apparently would still bow in London if he saw any of the royal cars go past. He had approximately 20 different types of tea in flat, for any occasion or time of the day. If you are pondering the age of this man, no he is not 70, he was in fact in his early 30's. I have honesty never met anyone so thoroughly obsessed with being English.

I guess I should actually tell you a bit about Tokyo now! I was expecting bright neon lights and a crazy energy, but due to the earthquake, electricity use had to be dramatically reduced, and so the bright lights had been dimmed. There seemed to be a bit of a sadness hanging over the city, quite understandably. Apparently there had been a massive increase of suicides after the quake, around a 30% increase in Tokyo, and a total of 3,281 suicides in Japan in May alone. That number isn't much smaller than the total yearly suicides in England to put it in perspective, so sad.

There were some areas of Tokyo still buzzing though, in particular the Harajuku district (that's the bit that Gwen Stefani always sings about if it rings a bell). Takeshita street was full of people wearing daring/ crazy outfits out to buy some more similarly quirky outfits. I just sat in a Starbucks people watching for an hour, the fashion is so out there and, for me, extremely interesting. I also enjoyed the West side of Japan, Asakusa in particular came alive at night with market stalls on the way to the large temple.



 Clockwise from top: sake barrels kept at a shrine; the temple gates in Asakusa; The craziness and cuteness of Takeshita Street; a tea ceremony in a temple. 











Speaking of temples, I took a bus to Kyoto after 3 days and went absolutely temple mad! I had originally intended to leave Kyoto after a few days and travel down to Hiroshima, but I hurt my back again on another night bus (I really should learn my lesson) and so didn't fancy all the extra travelling. If I had plenty of money, I would definitely have bought the Japan Rail pass, but for people on a budget, the buses are a great option at a third of a price, so long as you don't have a temperamental back! I was perfectly happy to spend longer in Kyoto though as I absolutely fell in love with the city.
 



Kyoto is a city that is described as being on a par with Paris, Rome etc as one of those places that you should see before you die, and I couldn't agree more. It is simply magical. It has hundreds of temples, a handful of UNESCO world heritage sites, a castle, and the exquisite Gion disctrict, full of atmospheric cobble-stoned streets, ancient tea-houses, and of course, geisha. Geisha-spotting became quite a hobby of mine, they were so fascinating to watch, with their impossible clog/ flip flop shoes, breathtaking kimonos and painted faces.


Whilst I was still based in Kyoto, I took a day trip to nearby Osaka. Osaka was basically everything I'd hoped for from Tokyo - it had the bright lights and buzzing atmosphere in abundance! I spent my day by firstly going to the aquarium, which is one of the largest in the world (it was amazing), then I got the metro to the castle (also amazing). I left there just after the sun had set, and headed towards Shinsaibashi, which was packed with people enjoying the neon lights and the food. I bought some octopus balls which caused great hilarity with the staff when I threw them everywhere immediately after buying them, as I tripped up the stairs to the restaurant. Saving face is a big part of the culture in Japan, like it is in China, so it was interesting to see how they dealt with it - by taking the mickey out of me. I guess they know that saving face isn't how it works in the Western world! Nonetheless, they restocked my balls and made a show of helping me up the stairs with them. They were tasty, and worth the embarrassment!


Left: Shinsaibashi at night. Right: Osaka castle.









The last evening I spent in Kyoto was so wonderful that I'm going to have to write about it in detail! I began by taking a late afternoon walk to Kyomizu temple (impressive after I escaped the thousands of schoolchildren), then I walked down to the Gion district at dusk to begin the geisha spotting. There's one main street that the tourists stick to, so I quickly walked off that and travelled back in time, finding my own quiet streets with the odd kimono-wearing lady performing household chores or having a chat outside their residence. After about 5 minutes, I struck gold - a geisha walked out of her house right in front of me, towards the tea house she was performing in that night. She seemed about as surprised to see me as I was her! After that, I decided to take the back streets heading back to my wonderful hostel (Khaosan Kyoto Guesthouse, if you ever get the chance to go). There was a tiny little vegetarian restaurant just by the hostel which I went into, which had enough space for a maximum capacity of 6 people, all sat at the bar where you can chat to the owner/ chef while she prepares the food. I was lucky enough to be in there with three men, one of which spoke reasonable English and wanted to chat, which is quite a rarity. He and his friends had come to Kyoto for a year of Buddhist training, and were actually staying above the restaurant. Apparently the owner/ chef was also an excellent Buddhist. At one point in the meal, a man arrived with a large package for my new friend. It contained a traditional southern-Japanese instrument which looked a bit like a banjo. After tuning it, he began to play, and everyone in the restaurant started to sing along to the traditional music. The man then bought me some sake to drink with him when he found out I'd never tried it. Feeling a little light-headed, I went back to the hostel, and enjoyed my ever anime film - an apparent classic Akira. All us hostel-mates were sat crowded around the TV, and it took us ages to figure out how to get English subtitles using the Japanese remote. One of the Japanese girls staying there eventually figured out, and got a massive round of applause for her efforts, which was clearly mortifying for her! The film was actually really good as well. It was literally the perfect evening, everything that I had hoped for of Japan.

I had two nights left in Tokyo before my morning flight out of there, so I decided to finish the trip in style - one night in a capsule hotel, and my final night in a real hotel, with a bath and everything! Worth every darn yen. The capsule hotel was fun, I had to put my shoes in a locker at reception and wear their slippers instead, until I needed to use the bathroom, when special WC slippers has to be used instead! The shower room was quite an experience as well - it was communal for start, not so much as a curtain between showers, with a ridiculously hot large hot tub (I think they are called onsens). The only saving grace for the shower room was that at least it was incredibly steamy, so visibility was limited!


The inside and outside of my capsule!

And so, we're all caught up. It took me 12 1/2 hours to get back to Heathrow, in which time I managed to watch 5 films and eat a lot of quite unpleasant food. The arrivals gate scene with my Mum was an emotional one, my Dad asked me where my tan was (typical), and it occurred to me that absolutely nothing has changed in England. I have actually started to view the last ten months as some kind of elaborate dream! I now have 2 months of potential unemployment/ shelf stacking before hopping back on a plane on New Year's day and getting back to the wonderful warmth and chaos of Asia (Bangkok to be precise) to begin my teaching there. I'm currently busy trying to find a job in an international school from next September - so far, I've applied for Spain, Qatar and Dubai, with an application for Hong Kong next on the to-do list. Let's hope that 2012 is as crazy as 2011!

To my 1000+  readers, I hope you've enjoyed reading the blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it. The last 10 months were the best of my life, even taking into account Delhi belly, broken backs, jacket potato shortages, and millions of terrible cups of tea! If you are someone considering a gap year, my advice is GO! GO NOW! Oh, and don't eat the street samosas in Delhi! xx

Monday, 10 October 2011

East coast - a pilgrimage to Ramsay Street!

On the East coast, I've travelled around 4000km in 3 weeks, spent around 70 hours on buses in that time, gone from around 30 degrees in Cairns to 16 degrees in Byron Bay, and had a whole lot of fun along the way! I'm pretty much at the end of my time in Australia now, heading back to Sydney from Melbourne tonight on another overnight bus (which I found out costs more than the 1 hour flight... gutted about that) and then off to Japan tomorrow night!!! 

I began in Cairns, arriving at the unpleasant hour of 4.15am. My transfer to my hostel didn't show up for an hour, and then when I arrived at my hostel I had to make do with the comfiest sofa I could find for a few hours until reception opened. The hostel was supposed to have a rainforest feel to it, and in the middle of the night, with all these birds and insects making strange sounds, I started to really freak out. I should not have watched a programme about Australia's most dangerous animals (all of which can be found in Cairns) before arriving! Thankfully I survived the night, and after a day spent wandering the city and seeing the lagoon, flying foxes in the trees, etc, I went the day to the great barrier reef. There was a special offer on that day to do a fun dive for just 20 dollars extra, so of course I decided to give it a go. I was so scared, and it felt so unnatural to be underwater, but it was INCREDIBLE! I could not believe my eyes, seeing the coral and the underwater world was truly magical and such a wonderful experience. I met some really nice people on the trip, so that night we went out to celebrate a great day in the party hostel/bar Gilligans. There was buy one get one free going on, so I made the excellent decision to drink 7 glasses of wine, which resulted with my head down a toilet and then a very dangerous and difficult mission getting up to my top bunk. I woke up about 4 hours later, still drunk, grabbed my backpack and lurched my way towards my bus to Airlie beach.

Airlie beach itself is a cute beachside town with lots of nice bars and restaurants, live music (like a lot of places in Oz - something I love about this country) and a very nice hostel where I lucked out on getting a dorm room all to myself. The main reason to go to Airlie beach is to sail around the Whitsundays, which is what I did the next day. I wish that I could have spent a few days on the Whitsundays, but finances caused me to just take the day trip, which was still a great experience. Whitehaven beach is the most incredible beach I've ever seen - the white silica sand is so pure that you could polish your jewellery using it. We also went snorkeling on the reef for an hour and spent the rest of the day enjoying the scenery of the islands and the esky full of free beer and wine!

After Airlie beach, I took another ridiculously long bus ride down to Hervey Bay, where I went whale watching. The sea was pretty rough the morning I went, and some people had the privilege of spending 120 dollars on vomiting for 4 hours. I'm glad to say I was not one of those people (glad the hostel owner gave me an anti-sickness pill though!) and so I loved seeing 4 or 5 pods of whales, with a Mum, baby and 2 male escorts being the norm. They were so huge, almost like torpedoes in the sea, and it was incredible to see them splashing around, and at times coming so close to the boat that we could see their massive eyes and bumpy backs. I also saw a flying fish and some dolphins on the trip.  Australia really does have some amazing sea life!

After Hervey Bay was Byron Bay, a quirky little town with lots of people living alternative lifestyles. The YHA that I stayed in was by far my favourite hostel of the 4 I stayed in down the coast, as it had a great community feel to it. I had some lovely dorm mates who I spent all my time with - we went to the great market on Sunday and ate as much free food as we could get away with, then walked up to the most Easterly point of Australia then on to Byron's lighthouse. It was ridiculously cold there, so much so that one night that we were due to go out, we decided it was a better idea to have PJ and duvet party in the room, and all snuggled around one of the girls' laptops to watch Cars. I was planning to have some surfing lessons in Byron, but I guess I'll just have to come back here in the summer and see what outdoors Australian life is really all about!

After saying a sad goodbye to Byron, I got another overnight bus to Sydney. I actually woke up in the morning as we were crossing the bridge - the Opera House was just in front to the left - so the first word that came out of my mouth that day was 'wow'! Sydney has such a buzz to it - the pace of life is very similar to London, with everyone suited up and running around like their lives are so terribly important. Such a change to all the laid back places I've been in the last few months - don't think I saw anyone so much as walk briskly in Cambodia, and half the time I had to wake tuk-tuk

A mammoth 17 hour bus ride got me from Sydney to Melbourne - should only take 12 hours but lets just say it was indirect, and involved a 3.30am meal break. Who the hell wants to eat at 3.30am?!?! Plus the driver decided once we got back on the bus at 4.15 to chat to a passenger very loudly for an hour before I got up and asked him to be quiet. I was probably lucky not to get chucked off but I've spent too long being irritated by selfish people on public transport over the last 9 months to tolerate this nonsense anymore! It was all worth it though so see my lovely friend Alice, who I worked with in SCAO. I've stayed with her for the last few days and had an absolute blast - we've been to a 1950's fancy dress party, been asked inappropriate questions by madmen on the tube ('hey chick, take it up the arse?'), been gay clubbing for my birthday (ridiculously good fun) and best of all, I've been to Ramsay Street and the Neighbours trivia night!!!! After watching the show for 20 years, it was so surreal to see Ramsay Street, or Pin Oak Court as it's really called. Walking around the set was great though - seeing where Paul got thrown off the balcony at Lassiters, the spot where Stingray died, and where his mural is, seeing the disappointingly small Lassiters lake, and Harold's store just to mention a few. Plus on the trivia night, I got to kiss Dr Karl, and see Paul Robinson on stage pretending to be a rock star (if you up for a laugh, check out his one and only hit song - 'don't it make you feel good'. Answer - no it doesn't. But it does make me cringe and laugh a lot.). Hilarious and wonderful, I couldn't have asked for more from the Neighbours pilgrimage, Melbourne, or Australia in general... well, apart from a bit more sunshine and warmth!

Friday, 30 September 2011

Western Australia

After my few lovely days in Singapore with perfect 30 degrees heat, I travelled overnight to Perth. When I arrived at the extremely unpleasant hour of 4.15am, the first thing that struck me was the cold, and this stayed with me for the duration of my time in WA! To most people from England, 18 or 19 degrees doesn't sound too bad, but for me, it was 10-15 degrees less than what I was used to. My body was so confused - why wasn't I sweating constantly anymore?! On my first day in Perth, I had to make a quick dash to the shops to stock up on jumpers. Horrible!

The second thing that struck me was the cost of everything. Again, if I'd come straight from England, it would have seemed reasonable to maybe a little expensive. But after living on 7 dollars a day in Cambodia, and now being barely able to afford a McDonalds for 7 dollars, it was horrendous! My money situation isn't the best at the moment, and that's putting it lightly. In other words, I'm broke, and being in this country is NOT helping!!

But now let's move on to the positives. The people, for a start. Everyone was so friendly! Wherever I was, bus stop or art gallery, someone would stop to have a little chat. It was lovely (and obviously a massive change from being in countries where this is just not possible). Their kindness was overwhelming as well - I stayed with couchsurfing hosts for the entirety of my time in WA, and I was put up in million dollar houses, given my own bedroom, fed, driven around, basically treated like an old friend. It was wonderful, I had such a good time and just wish I'd had more time in WA.

So, I spent my meagre 8 days in Perth, Fremantle, Hillarys (a Perth suburb where the million dollar house was) and the amazing Margaret river. Perth is a nice city, it has a great art gallery with lots of aboriginal art in, as well as lots of cafes and restaurants. Plus a Nando's, which was extremely exciting and which I enjoyed thoroughly on my last night with my wonderful CS host in Perth, Amy.

Fremantle was the sort of place that I could see myself calling home, mainly because it reminded me so much of Brighton, my favourite place in the UK. It had a great weekend market on when I was there, and the city had a chilled out vibe, with cafe's sprawling on the streets, competing with all the quirky alternative shops. My CS hosts for Fremantle and Hillary's were a Swiss/Irish couple who ended up in Hillary's catsitting for a friend, so I was lucky enough to spend 2 nights there with them in the gorgeous house by the harbour. They took me on one of the days to a park/ cemetary. Doesn't sound like the kind of place you would necessarily choose to go, but actually it was great as it was filled with kangaroos, literally hundreds of them. Being springtime as well, it meant that there were loads of joeys in their mother's pouches, with their little heads sticking out. We got to sit just a couple of metres away from them, it was such a great experience!


My next stop was staying with a couple in their 70's, Jack and Carroll. They were very much environmentalists, all about using sustainable energy and recycling, looking after the community garden and preserving Australia's wildflowers. On my first day in Margaret River, I went on a wine-tasting course day, as this is what the area is famous for. As soon as I touched down in Oz, I made the most of the things I missed in Asia - namely wine, cheese and salt and vinegar crisps! So, the wine day was perfect for me. We went to 3 wineries, a cheese factory, chocolate factory, liquor factory and a brewery, and tried 40 different wines during the day. As you can imagine, from starting at 10.30, everyone was a bit pissed by the end of the day! It was a bushtucker tour that I was on, so during the day we also got to try kangaroo (nice), emu (pretty bland), and a witchetty grub (absolutely VILE!!!!).

In the evening, I went back to Jack and Carroll's rather the worse for wear, and then went off to see a modern take on a Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theatre (Margaret River had a lot of arty things going on there, as well as being very much a close-knit community). None of us were particularly impressed by the show, but at least it added a touch of culture to my boozy day!

On my second day, I went into the nearby forest with Carroll, who was incredibly knowledgeable about the native plants and trees, naming most of them with both their common name and Latin name, and explaining to me which plant family they were in and how you can tell. To me, they all just looked like weird trees or pretty flowers so it was such an education! Plus, in Margaret River they had some unusual weeds - lillies and fresias being two! I personally thought they looked lovely, but apparently they were killing off the native plants so the locals weren't too happy about that.

I hope one day that I'll go back to WA with more time and more money, as it seemed like such a great place to explore, and there wasn't the drunken backpacker scene that's almost inescapable on the east coast. It was so refreshing to stay in houses rather than hostels and spend time with locals rather than travellers, in fact my whole time there was a highlight. 

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Malaysia and Singapore

After saying in my previous blog that I hadn't heard many rave reviews about KL, I would have to say that I felt the same. It was just another city really, the only really special thing that I saw were the Petronas towers, which are as cool as you would imagine! Plus, inside, there was a Topshop!


Anyway, I stayed for just one night in KL, and had a very interesting incident in the night were a guy woke everyone in the dorm up by rustling the dreaded plastic bags after arriving at about 2.30am, to then tell me repeatedly that I was in HIS bed and needed to get out. Like I was there just to warm it up for him ready for his arrival! I told him no many times (didn't swear at him shockingly) until he finally gave up and got in the top bunk, and then left about 4 hours later. What a bloody weirdo.

I then hot-footed it over to Melaka, which is a lovely albeit very touristy UNESCO site. There was a great weekend market there, in which a 60-odd year old man had a party trick of pushing a hole into a green coconut using one finger and obviously some kind of jedi mind trick. It looked ridiculously painful, but I was suitably impressed. The food was darn good too - Malay/ Chinese fusion food such as laksa (a seafood noodle soup dish) and cendol (ice shavings with coconut milk and what looked like melted palm sugar).


I had a brand new experience in Melaka as well - bed bugs! In one night, I managed to find 2 rooms with them in after surviving 8 months bug-free! The owner of the guesthouse was very apologetic and put me up in his much posher second guesthouse, and as I was about to leave to go to Singapore, gave me an envelope containing a full refund. So  I won't complain too much about a few bites on my arms and a restless night!

Another new experience came my way in Singapore - couchsurfing. I don't know if you've heard of this crazy, wonderful, hippy idea, but it's a website where you make a page about yourself ( a little like myspace) and then look for people in the area you're going to who would put you up on their sofa/ spare bed for a few days. I met a lovely girl called Christel and stayed with her family, who fed me delicious cake and curries and spoilt me rotten. I was staying there with another CS'er, and the three of us went to Singapore zoo for the day. It's an amazing zoo as there aren't any cages - the animals have open enclosures, separated from the humans using moats and hills. It was brilliant. We saw a particularly disturbing thing happen which might stay with me until the day I die - a mandrill get all agitated, then pleasure itself, then eat it's own love juice! Sorry to share such a disgusting thing, but it made us laugh for the rest of the day!

Singapore is one of my favourite cities that I've visited on this trip - it has a great blend of old colonial buildings plus super-modern architecture, and they've kept as many green spaces as possible, rightly earning it the name of the garden city. Plus the food is a mega fusion of all the yummiest Asian food you think of, and there's a lively nightlife scene - what more could you want? In my opinion, it's a bit like Hong Kong but nicer.

Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Thailand and Penang

Gosh, it's been a long time since I got around to writing on here, shameful! An awful lot has gone on in the last month or so - I spent a wonderful month volunteering at S.C.A.O near Phnom Penh, and still miss the children terribly. I then moved on to Siem Reap, where I spent a miserable time feeling very ill and wondering how long it would take the staff to find my rotting corpse in my room if I died. The joys of travelling solo! I got over it in a couple of days, and managed to squeeze in a day trip to the temples of Angkor. Angkor Wat was obviously impressive, although the scaffolding all over the front of the building detracted from it's splendour somewhat. I was particularly impressed with the Bayon temple, which was basically an old king's face made to look a bit Buddha-esque sculpted on every side of every column around the temple. The 'Tomb Raider' temple, aka Ta Phrom, was also very interesting to see. It was definitely a case of nature - 1, man - 0!

Anyway, after leaving Siem Reap I took an agonising 12 hour minibus ride to Bangkok where I stayed with my lovely friend Sophie in her flat. Not only did she take me in and show me the joys of Swensens (ice-cream parlour) and Sizzler (amazing salad buffet place), but she also helped me get a job for next year at her school! I'll be teaching year 6, which will certainly be a change, and it's only for a term, but still I'm really looking forward to it. We have weekly fancy-dress party plans for the duration of my stay, I can't wait!

Anyway, back to the tourist trail. I hopped on a delightful train to Chiang Mai and had a LOT of fantastic experiences in a very short space of time - elephant trekking, white water rafting, ziplining, playing with tigers, jungle trekking (a short trek so it was good!) etc etc. Please check out my facebook photos to see more. The hostel I stayed at, A Little Bird Guesthouse, was also great and I met a lot of fun people there. Plus they have excellent burritos in Chiang Mai... just a little bonus! I also did a cooking course while I was there, which fuelled my love for Thai food. Sometimes it is way too spicy for me, but otherwise it's delicious!


After all these action packed adventures, I decided to go and take it easy in a little hippy town called Pai for a few days. There's not much to do except hire a bicycle or scooter and ride around, meet people, chat about nothing, listen to people play the guitars, and generally just chill out. A lot of people get stuck there for weeks and months, and I could easily have been one of those people if I hadn't been on a tight schedule by this point. It's so strange to have very little flexibility now, but money is so tight and time is also running out quickly, and yet I still have so much to fit in!


After Pai, and a very strange day involving brief entries into Myanmar and Laos as part of a visa run with style, I briefly went back to BKK to get the aforementioned job, then went down south to Ko Phangan. If you've heard of the island, or read the lonely planet, you may well just think full moon party and generally craziness are the only things on offer there. Not true, happily! I stayed well away from the annoying 19 year olds and had a very relaxed time on the North-West of the island. I drove a scooter for the first time there, which I enjoyed so much that I kept the scooter for 5 days, and just beach hopped and explored the waterfalls. The beaches there were unbelievably beautiful, I've never seen such white sand and such clear water. I was going to island hop but once I found my paradise there, why bother?


After 6 blissful days, I decided I probably should move on, and that's brought me to where I am now... Georgetown, Penang. I really love it here, there is a massive Indian and Chinese influence, so the place is always buzzing with activity, and the food is spectacular. I've met so many interesting characters as well - if you ever go, go to Jim's Place and meet the man himself. I'm not sure if I could describe his character, but let's just say that he is full of character, and nonsense, and unusual opinions. He calls himself Sir Jim and has his own quotes written on the walls, which he regularly refers to during conversation. One of those people who you only meet when you travel! He had another very interesting friend, who apparently had once been certified insane, was covered in tattoos, had lived on the streets, been in prison, but yet was very enjoyable to talk to and had a lot of similar opinions to me! Maybe that should worry me...


Anyway, I'm about to leave the crazies behind and get a train to Kuala Lumpur. Not heard rave reviews of the place yet, so I'm just going to have to get there and find out for myself!

Thursday, 21 July 2011

My new home for a month!

As is the way with travelling, sometimes great opportunities present themselves which cause all current plans to go out of the window. Whilst in Phnom Penh, I was told about a school and orphanage about 7km from the city centre which was looking for volunteers. I decided to check it out for a day, and fell in love with the place and the children. The NGO is called SCAO (Save Poor Children In Asia Organization), and I have been living and working there for the last two weeks, and plan to stay for a month in total.


It is an orphanage and school in which 17 children who are either orphans or from very poor families live and nearly 200 children from the
local area come to learn English. It is run by a Cambodian family and
the father and director Mr Samith is an orphan himself who wants the lives of poor and orphaned children to be different to how his was growing up. The school is very basic, with a dirt floor and tarps for walls but it is a great place and it is helping many Cambodian kids get a leg up out of the poverty they live in. I have been teaching for 4-5 hours per day, everything from ABC to much more complicated grammatical rules. The students range from 3-24 years old, but all have the common goal on bettering their futures by learning English. Behaviour is so much better than children back in England, it’s incredible how enthusiatic they are to learn even though the recources are so limited.

At the centre, there are currently 4 of us volunteers living with the children and family, and getting fed some serious amounts of rice each day (yes, for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!). It feels like such a big family, I’m really glad I heard about the place and had the time to stop and do some teaching.


At the moment SCAO is about to open a second school and community centre further out of Phnom Penh in the countryside. It will reach a further 450 or so children and be a great centre for the local community. All of the projects are supported purely by fundraising, so any donations that any of you could make would be massively appreciated.



If you want to know more and see what the lovely children, school and centre look like, have a look at the facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/SaveChildrenInAsia or the website http://www.savechildreninasia.org/. .
 

Friday, 8 July 2011

Phnom Penh

I've only been in Phnom Penh for a day but feel the need to write about what I've seen. Today I took a tuk-tuk to the killing fields and S-21 (the prison used by Khmer Rouge for torture and interrogation). I've never been to Auschwitz but I can imagine that it has a similar feel - the evil that had been there was still looming over the area. These are a few of the facts I learnt today (not for the faint-hearted):

In Cheoung Ek (the killing fields), 8,895 bodies have been found so far. The largest mass grave had over 450 bodies found in it. One of the mass graves was full of bodies of women and children. The children and babies were often killed by hitting their heads against the tree next to the grave, they were then throw in with their mother. In the centre of the killing fields, a large stupa has been erected which contains around 5,00 skulls. You can get really close up to them so that you can actually see how they died- a lot of them had cracked skulls from being blugeoned to death. The KR rarely shot prisoners as they needed to conserve bullets.

In Tuol Sleng (otherwise known as S-21) only 7 of the 20,000 prisoners survived. Some were killed at the prison, most were taken to Cheoung Ek to be killed. A lot of the prisoners were women and children. The prison is particuarly haunting as it has been barely altered since it was closed in 1979, except that the mug shots of all the prisoners are now on the walls, as well as many pictures of the prisoners just after they died. There are different cell blocks there, some of which had large rooms which held 30 or more prisoners, others which had been seperated with brick or wood walls to create tiny claustrophobic cells. The way that the 7 prisoners who survived did survive is because their skills were needed. For instance, one of the prisoners was called upon to paint a picture of Pol Pot. As he entered the painting room, there were the corpses of other painters whose work had been deemed inadequate. Luckily, the survivor painted well enough to be kept alive to paint portraits of the top KR officials until the Vietnamese forced evactuation from the prison.

I find it absolutely mind-boggling that the Khmer Rouge were allowed to commit these acts of genocide without any retribution from the international community. In the 1970's, there were only around 7 million people in Cambodia, and the KR killed 2-3 million of them, targeting in particular intellectuals (to the point were someone would be executed if they wore glasses, as this was seen as a sign of intellect).The KR were even allowed to represent the Democratic Kampuchea at UN meetings, so the murderers were representing their victims. Pol Pot was never tried, and died in Thailand in 1998. So far, only one of the top ranking officials (the chief of S-21) has even admitted guilt, and he was given a measly 35 year jail sentence for his crimes. The trials of 4 other top ranking members of the KR are still taking place now. Crazy.