Chris Todd at the Cambodian National Library, Phnom Penh
Hi All
My first real expedition out of Phnom Penh was a great way to mark the beginning of full-time work at the Library.
Four of us hired a minivan to take us on the 3 1/2 hour trip to Kep on the coast very near the Vietnamese border. Apart from being a bit bumpy, the trip down was pretty uneventful and the scenery flat, with dry rice fields and sugar palms for most of the journey. It's wedding season - the dry season and therefore easy to travel, and after the rice harvest so people have less work. This means that in many of the small towns along the way there were restaurants set up for wedding receptions and people in their finery.For women this means lacey and/or brocade silk blouses with brocade silk sarongs - very elegant.
Kep itself is a strange sort of place. It was a French/wealthy Khmer resort in the 60s - there was even a casino. Now deserted villas line the beach front - a few still looked after, but most slowly decaying. There is still a town with government offices and services at one end of the beach, the market is in the ruins of the casino (destroyed by the owner in the 60s - some kind of weird scandal at the time) At the other end of the town is the crab market, a school, a few more offices and a cluster of cafes and hotels.
Our hotel was only 4 months old and the Australian co-owner was down from Phnom Penh for the weekend. The life of a volunteer seemed pretty cruisey on Friday night as we all sat in the spa pool drinking gin and tonics and watching the sunset! Saturday 3 of us took a boat to a nearby island and spent the day at the beach, swimming and reading and lounging in hammocks under the trees. A huge group arrived from Phnom Penh with chilli bins of seafood & inner tubes for the kids adn they all had a great time. It was much cooler there than in Phnom Penh so I went for long walks each morning, as well as climbing the hill behind the hotel to a small temple.
A most relaxing weekend and as usual good food - including the first pavlovas from the recently trained cook, in the oven that arrived the same day as us. We also enjoyed the pool cleaning party which involved all the staff, both the owners and the guests.
Now I've finished my first week of full-time. The hours are 8-11 and 2-5. 4 days I went home in the middle of the day, but on Friday I stayed up near the Library and went to a cafe for long lunch. That was in a way more relaxing than going home - I read the paper, did some language study and people-watched. It is great being able to get stuck into things at work and everyone is very receptive. They have a real struggle to get resources, but the director is a marvellous woman who is really commited and uses every chance she gets to improve things for the staff.
Delights this week:
1. Seeing a motorbike rider and cyclist holding hands as they ride along, so that the cyclist gets a tow.
2. A motodriver drove us up onto the footpath so that we could be in the shade of a tree while we were waiting for the lights to change
3. Walking home from the Library after work - took about an hour with stops to buy vegetables and browse some shops.
Amid the usual city smells there were also gusts of incense, jasmine and frangipani - delicious. Everyone seems to be out and about at the end of the day walking and talking and the parade is quite wonderful. It's now Saturday and housecleaning day, punctuated with cold showers when all this activity gets too much! My reward will be High Tea at the Cambodiana. I'm taking Louise, the Australian volunteer there as a pre-farewell treat & later I'm going to see some Shadow Puppet Theatre.
Was going
to check out an acoustic jam night at one of the riverside restaurants last
week but as I'd been out 3 nights in a row (2 movies and the launch of a learning
centre at one of the language schools) I decided to leave it for another week.
Now it's time for High Tea - have a good week
Love to you all
Chris
Greetings All
Life here is full of treats. Last Saturday I bought myself a DVD player. Setting it up was a bit of fun - especially when I inadvertently switched the language for onscreen instructions to Thai! Fortunately I'd bought it from a shop nearby so I was able to go back there and get help. My nearest DVD shop belongs to a guy who supplies the dealers in the Russian Market and I bought 7DVDs (buy 6 get 1 free) for US$10.80.
The next treat came after the DVD player was set up - I joined Mike & Mel and a number of their friends at the Cambodiana Hotel for High Tea. Out of the blazing heat into cool comfortable sofas, a buffet with endless goodies and a string quartet! Quite surreal. Most people there have lived in Phnom Penh a long time, so it was very interesting to meet them. I also met Mike's mother, here on holiday from NZ and my original contact, through Clare, with this lovely family.
NZ made it into Monday's Cambodia Daily - something about a nude cycle race and helmets? Dame Sylvia's nomination to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was also in the papers here. It's now Tuesday and my lunch break and listening to string quartets at home.
This morning's delight was my second visit to my local market - this time to buy smoked fish & green mango to make a traditional Cambodian salad. Did all the shopping in Khmer (I have to there, it's not a tourist market). The language stuff is a lot of fun, even though my pronunciation is still pretty awful. My official classes end tomorrow, but I am continuing with 1 class a week after that. My family have bought a car - 1999 Toyota corolla - Great excitement and on the first night there was an offering bowl with mandarins, jasmine flowers and incense sitting on the bonnet. Today there appeared to be problems as the owner and his mate (who I thought was the plumber, but clearly has a wider range of talents) were peering intently at the engine.
Also on Tuesday I went on an excursion to the countryside to visit a series of stupas on a hill outside Phnom Penh and the site of a former capital. 3 of us from VSA went and it was really interesting. Each stupa of a different age and at a different stage of restoration. So there was one very new one (4 -5 years old) and then others from the 17th and 19th centuries. The place was very quiet, but there was a vast area of food and souvenir stalls - mostly deserted during the week, but clearly set up for weekend visits. On the way back we stopped at a little stall to buy palm sugar.
Yesterday's treat (food again!) was banana and sticky rice, wrapped
in banana leaf and cooked over a little charcoal fire until it almost caramelises
- delicious! (I can say that in Khmer too, the second word I learnt after
mango). I'm a bit early sending this out this week as I'm off to the beach
on Friday lunchtime and not back until Sunday. I'm sure there are internet
cafes at Kep, but just in case...
Love to you all
Chris
Hi All
Sitting in my living room where I can catch a little breeze that flows through the house. On the table is a bowl of white scented jasmine that my landlady picked for me yesterday. The buds had no scent at all, but as they open the most delicious fragrance fills the room.
The event of this week was last Sunday's wedding. I joined 3 women from the Library on Sunday morning and we drove to the village (1 woman has a car). Feeding up foreigners seems to be a favourite pastime here, so fresh baguette was the snack as we drove.
The main road is properly sealed and the landscape very flat and dry at this time of year. The rice has been harvested, so not much to see except houses on stilts, sugar palms and a few white cows. The wedding was in a village near the Mekong and we drove across a very narrow wooden bridge and down a red dirt track to get to the actual house. The next snack was sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves - delicious! The formal ceremony was still underway when we arrived.
The bride's house is a stilt house and some people socialised outside, the local band were on the porch/balcony and everyone else was in the main room upstairs. There were speeches and some singing and at one point red threads were tied around the wrists of both bride and groom. Wonderful wedding dresses. We went for a walk down to the river to get a bit cooler returning in time for lunch. The reception area was in front of the house, with a couple of marquees and loads of tables and chairs. The cooking was happening in the neighbours front yard.
The bride
Lunch was not the reception proper, so it was a lighter meal, noodles and rice and a delicious chicken, celery and sesame oil dish. By this stage it was the middle of the day and pretty hot. We borrowed some straw mats and found a shady spot by the river and just chatted and dozed for the next couple of hours. All the guests seemed to team up in small groups to chat, play cards or just relax. Then my companions changed into their finery for the reception, following an elaborate makeup session - I felt very dowdy in comparison!
We returned to the reception area where everyone was greeted by the bride and groom - who had both changed into new gorgeous outfits - the bride changed clothes at least another 3 or 4 times during the reception. Each time wearing beautiful brocades with lots of gold or silver thread. Now it was time for the real feast - about 6 courses, with a lot of fish dishes and little delicacies like fried cashews, fish cakes, pickles and other things that I'm not exactly sure of, but which tasted nice anyway. There didn't appear to be a formal ending - people just gave their gifts (mostly money) and then drifted off. We had a leisurely drive back, stopping to buy fruit and veg (just like coming down teh Kapiti coast!).
Our final stop was a stall selling freshly cooked corn where they had hammocks instead of tables and chairs. I have to say that lolling in the hammock eating corn after such a lovely day was just perfect. Later in the evening (this was last night) I've just walked back from a one-man show/recital about Chopin and George Sand, by and English guy Michael Lunts. he's on his way to Australia to perform and has relatives here, hence the stopover. Not your usual Phom Penh event and the audience in a school hall, was almost totally ex-pat. Very strange to step out of the chilly aircon and the piano music, into the soft warm tropical night.A quiet walk home - with occasional drifts of scent from the jasmine in gardens along the way. There was a fruitseller outside my house, so I bought a mango before coming in. My landlord was dozing in his hammock as I let myself in the gate.
This part of town is a lovely peaceful
place to live. Another event this week was my first visit to the Russian
Market - one of the biggest markets in Phom Penh for tourists, with Mel, a
NZ woman who lives near there. It's a fascinating place full of everything
you can imagine, food, clothes (there is a lot of garment making for overseas
markets here), DVDs, handicrafts, silk, household goods, carparts. Not much
electrical stuff as there are other markets that specialise in those. Mel is
a great guide and we had an excellent time. I returned on my own later in the
week and bought a mortar and pestle and some cushion covers - bargaining a
bit, but not with great vigour. Exploring is so fascinating here - the little
things, all the street vendors, the flowering trees, the food stalls everywhere,
it's a delightful city.
Love to you all
Chris
Greetings,
I do like these long breaks in the middle of the day. I'm on the sofa in my
new flat, drinking coffee and listening to the Grateful Dead - another 11/2
hours before I start at the LIbrary.
My new flat is really nice and much quieter during the week than the last one. I have cane furniture, tiled floors and walls, lots of windows with screens, so there's good airflow , and a balcony. The front yard has a mango tree, a longan tree, and lemon grass growing in tins and there are 2 gorgeous little tabby cats that peer through my screen doors every so often. I think they expect to see the previous tenant as they always look a bit startled when I appear. The owners are a lovely couple and the 2 daughters (both late teens I think) speak English. I've been trying to practice my Khmer and the wife is pretty good at getting me to repeat words until I get the sound just right.
Dan's visit was a real treat. Somehow it didn't seem off to be meeting a Wellington friend at the Phnom Penh boat terminal in about 36 degree heat! The boat was a bit late, but I had a delightful time chatting with various tour guides waiting for their clients. There were lots of jokes about my sunhat which they all said looked like something a Japanese soldier would have worn in WWII! Time to get a new ha t..
I also met Dan's Cambodian colleague Yim Mory and 2 of her staff and we spent most of the weekend with them - being fed. Wonderful food, including a really lovely evening at the house of one of Mary's sisters where we had dinner with the family. The sister and her husband and kids had spent 2 years in Melbourne so the kids had fluent English with Australian accents.
Meanwhile back at the Library, on Wednesday there was a staff meeting, so the two overseas volunteers (Louise from Australia and me) were in charge of the reference desk. I managed to help a bit with a question about a Cambodian king who went to the Philippines in the 1880s, and then I also issued a couple of books to a borrower. The poor guy was very forgiving of my attempts to find out how the circulation system worked.
Apart from the obvious things like heat and dust, there are little visual gems that are such a joy. A couple of days ago, in the midday heat, a motorcycle propped up against a wall in the shade and the owner stretched out on top of it sound asleep. Yesterday there were the 3 monks in saffron robes absorbed in the study of mobile phones in the Nokia shop.
Friday was my first excursion to a proper local market, just around the corner from the VSA office. I needed to get a brush and shovel and broom, etc. and was very pleased to do it all in Khmer - very slowly and with a few howls of laughter when I got my vowels wrong, but it worked. My Khmer doesn't stretch to 'nail polish remover' however so that one I did as a mime.
It's now Saturday and I've been for a walk around bits of
the neighbourhood, finding out where the local shops are. Then I'll be going
to lunch with an Irish woman who is doing research on reconciliation in Cambodia.
She works with one of the other VSA volunteers and he put her in contact with
me as she lives just around the corner.
A phone call from Jenny was a nice surprise on Friday morning. The sound was
fine from here although Jen said it was a bit delayed at her end. It's
great to be able to stay in touch so easily.
Tomorrow is the wedding so I'll be able to report on that
next week
Love to you all
Chris
Greetings/Chum riep lia
This week has a lot packed into it as well. I've started learning K'mai - classes at the VSA office with just me and Sokounthea. I think my lack of homework is a bit of a disappointment to her, but I'm enjoying the lessons and have learnt some very useful stuff already. The most important is that I can now direct the motorbike drivers who take me to the class. After getting street numbers confused a couple of times this is certainly an improvement.
The language is interesting, but the consonants are really tricky - so many of them seem to fall between ours - there is a really common one that is somewhere between a "ch"' and a 'j'' Motorbikes, cyclos and tuktuks are the main forms of transport around the city. Motos are cheapest and are pretty safe and lots of people (locals as well as foreigners) carry their own crash helmets. On my first trip to work I arrived at the same time as the Library director and she made sure that I paid the local price for the trip - much to the disappointment of the motorbike driver.
So language classes have been 2 hours every afternoon this week and I have that for another 3 weeks. I've also been to the Library 3 mornings, still pottering there, but have had a couple of good talks with senior staff and Louise, an Australian volunteer, and a couple of sessions with the cataloguers. I've also been invited to a wedding! One of the staff is getting married next Sunday and a group from the library (including me) are going to the village, just outside PHnom Penh. That should be a lot of fun, although I'm not sure that my fancy gear is going to be fancy enough.
The big news is that I've found a flat! Withthe help of the VSA guy of course. It's a one-bedroom flat in a family home - so there are just 4 of us in the entire house. There's a large kitchen, good-sized bathroom and reasonable bedroom and living room - definitely room for visitors. There is a narrow balcony on 2 sides, so it is very airy, but doesn't get too much sun (I think). There is a space for plants and pots so a trip to a garden centre is in my plans. The family are around virtually the whole time, so the place is very secure and is in a quiet street, but just across the road from a well-known hotel.
The location is brilliant - quieter than where I am at the moment, but still close to the little shops and restaurants that I'm starting to get to know. There's a yoga class not too far away, and a Seeing Hands massage centre close by as well - What more could I need?
The week has also had a social side. Last Sunday's dinner with Mike and Mel and their daughters was a real treat. They're a delightful family and after 5 years of living here were full of hints for how to have a good time in Phnom Penh. I hope to catch up with them again very soon - after I've moved and settled. I also went for riverfront drinks and then dinner with a woman I'd met on last Saturday's boat trip.
Alcohol is very cheap in Cambodia (note to potential visitors: don't worry about the gin - but if you can tuck in a nice bottle of wine it would be much appreciated) - and many of the fancy hotels have Happy Hours, so we went to a very nice place and drank cheap cocktails by the river, before our dinner at a Cambodian restaurant. The next night I found what might be the Phnom Penh film society!.
Same woman rang to suggest I joined her and some of her friends at this film screening at a restaurant. We sat around the pool and the screen was against the trees - little bats flew across every so often. The film was Turtles Can Fly - very good and very grim - some of you may have seen it. I think I've got my name on the email list for their next screening. Last night I visited a couple of the VSA volunteers who live not far from the VSA office and had a drink with them on my way home - a very relaxing way to end the week.
Later
this morning I'm meeting my first visitor - Dan from the university is passing
through after doing some work in southern Vietnam. That's it for the moment
- I''m going to try and walk up to where the boat arrives - not that it's
far, but it is hot, so I may give up and take a motorbike.
Love to you all
Chris
Greetings All.
Week one in Phnom Penh has left me reeling so this morning I've been seeking a little routine.
I'm drafting this on the balcony of my temporary abode. Cane furniture, tiled floor, potted palms and a slight breeze blowing though. From the street the noises are motorbikes (predominant), cars, a grinder of some sort (last week's abode had a panel beater across the road) - then occasional tinkle of wind chimes from next door, chattering of mynahs and sparrows and the little bells when food vendors walk past below pushing their handcarts. So far I've seen soup, milk and baguettes being sold this way.
I guess when I get a bit of language I'll be able to sing out the equivalent of 'hang on a minute'and get myself down 2 flights of stairs, through 2 padlocked doors, making sure that the little pug dog who lives on the floor below and would love to go for a walk, doesn't get out, before the food man has vanished ... not up to that yet. I have my plunger of coffee and some biscuits and am here while the washing machine does its thing. Just checked over the balcony and the ice cream seller went by, closely followed by the coconut man. The first 4 nights here I stayed with my predecessor Gillian in her flat near the National Library. We talked non-stop. A combination of library stuff and handy hints for living here and it was a fantastic way to begin my stay. I'm also having quite a social time. On Wednesday we went to a dance performance - a Khmer version of a tale from the Ramayana - a guy from the Library told us about it. Fabulous costumes - rich colours and gold thread embroidery - plus stunning dance and live music.
What I wasn't prepared for was the agressive aircon - we froze! Friday night was a farewell dinner for Gillian - at a Thai & Khmer restaurant, not far from my current flat, and very very nice. I met quite a few of the other VSA volunteers and will be having dinner with one of the women this week. Saturday morning I joined a half-day trip on the Mekong to a silk weaving village, organised by a couple of the other volunteers. We chugged up the river for about an hour - it has quite high banks so we couldn't see much. The main sight was people washing their lovely white, long-suffering cows in the shallows of the river. Once at the village we were besieged by people trying to sell us silk and cotton cloth and scarves. There were enough tourists that I was able to edge back and watch for a bit while all the negotiating was going on (bought some scarves on the way back).
Then we strolled around the village. Wooden houses on stilts with looms and hammocks underneath in the cool so we were able to watch the weavers at work. After the boat trip it was time to pack up Gillian's flat and move here. We loaded stuff into the VSA 4WD and the rest went by tuktuk- a missed photo opportunity - it looked fantastic loaded up with cane chairs and all the boxes.
So I have a day to rest and relax and tonight am having dinner with a NZ couple who are connections through a friend of Clare's. Tomorrow I work at the Library in the morning and start my language classes in the afternoon.
I have a phone - 012 235 141 and the code for Cambodia is 855. I think phoning NZ is pretty expensive so I'm more likely to try internet phones if I want to talk to anyone. Cambodia is 6 hours behind NZ time. There is also a postal address which need to be written, line by line as below:
Chris Todd
c/o VSA
NZ
P.O. Box 1352
GPO Phnom Penh
Cambodia.
That's it for the first week. I thought
I'd try to make this a weekly email - if life is interesting enough. It would
be great to know that it's actually reached everyone (I'm still getting used
to the Google email) and whether or not you're interested in staying
on the group email of 'regulars'
Cheers
Chris
The Cambodian National Library
