Touchdown

Well, it’s good to be back in New Zealand, although going from 34 degrees to 14 was a bit of a shock!  I managed to get through Biosecurity no problems, although my forest-walking shoes got “dipped” to kill off any nasty bugs.

I thought I should probably do a bit of a wrap-up with a few final thoughts.

I guess I’ve seen all three “Asias” during this trip

• Cambodia: a poor, developing country trying to overcome the massive hurdles it has had to face in the recent past and the difficulties of competing in the global economy, but where the people seem to think they’ve never had it so good.
• Malaysia: a brash, “go-ahead” place that likes to flaunt it’s wealth and progress, but still faces many of the issues of poorer countries – huge gaps between rich and poor, rural and urban, as well as underlying tension between the ethnic groups.
• Singapore: a modern, developed society with superb infrastructure, trying to walk the tightrope between too much control and not enough; where the people have everything they need but aren’t necessarily that happy.

It’s been a wonderful experience, and I’m very thankful to a lot of people for making it happen:

Firstly I’d like to thank the Birkenhead College Board of Trustees and school management for giving me this fantastic opportunity to travel to Asia.  The generous funding and time allowance meant that I could really “get into” the countries I visited and have a wide range of experiences.  Thanks also to all my colleagues for their support and kind emails while I was away.

A huge thanks goes to my lovely wife Christine and Oliver, Reuben and Daniel, as well as other family members who supported them while I was away.  I couldn’t have had such a wonderful trip if I hadn’t known that you were coping without me at home.  Lots of love to you all!  And I’m very thankful for WordPress, Gmail, internet phones and Skype!

A huge thanks to the Merediths in Singapore and the Moorhead-Owens in Malaysia for their hospitality and generosity.  I hope we can return the favour some day.

Thanks to Emily Woodroofe and Sota Sem of World Vision for making my WV day not just possible, but a hugely enjoyable and rewarding experience.  Thanks also to Kristin Jack, Chenda Net and Thary, Sokheoun and Vannak at Sun Rise School for being so accomodating.  And thanks to Pheakday for helping to organise my visit to the Sihanoukville Children’s Home.

I really appreciate the other members of my Intrepid Travel group for helping me to have such an enjoyable touring experience – you were a great bunch to hang out with.

Randal Meikle helped me to set up this blog and provided remote techie assistance while I was away.

Thanks to all my friends at Church of Christ (NZ) who read the blogs and prayed for me and my family while I was away.

And most of all thanks to God for his protection and for using the things I’ve experienced to ram home a few important truths!  I’m also very grateful that I was born and raised in this beautiful land of New Zealand.  “You don’t know how lucky you are…”

So that’s me signing off – goodbye and God bless you.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these blogs.

Nigel Cato

 

Back to KL

Hi everybody, my trip is almost over and I’m really looking forward to getting home and seeing you all again.  I came back to KL on the bus on Saturday and have had an enjoyable time with Geoff and Leslie over the last couple of days.  Included in the list of activities:

• the Canopy walk at FRIM (Forest Research Institiute of Malaysia) which is a suspension bridge type of thing way above the floor of the rainforest just west of the city.  Very interesting but also VERY hot and sweaty!  We were fortunate to get in because it’s closed for maintenance for a month from today.  Judging by some of the frayed ropes and cracked boards it’s a bit overdue, I’d say.
  

  Geoff on the canopy walk

• Dinner at a Chinese roadside eatery in Jalan Alor, a street which is completely lined with low-cost family restaurants offering very authentic meals at a pretty low price.  It reminded me of similar places in Cambodia
• Seeing the staff band play at a Japanese restaurant in town – a lot better than a certain staff band I was once associated with!  The drummer (who can play anything!) wanted to be a professional jazz musician in New York but couldn’t get the break and decided to teach instead.
• Attending a dinner at the home of the manager of KL airport – a very nice part of town. The dinner was for a lady who was retiring after 40 years service at the school where Geoff works (ISKL).  She’s Canadian, but is married to a Malay and has made her home here, as have quite a few of the staff.
• Getting some photos of the Petronas Towers in downtown KL – very pretty at night time.  They are built of stainless steel and gleam quite magnificently.
  

  Petronas Towers at night

Soon Leslie is taking me down to that area (KLCC) again to see the park and towers in daylight.  The towers don’t open on Mondays so I won’t be able to go up, but the viewing platform, which is in the bridge between the two, is actually lower than the KL tower where I was last Tuesday.  For some reason a lot of things aren’t open on Mondays.

And did you notice that KL tends to have more four-letter acronyms?

I’m flying out at 9:10 pm tonight, but have to leave here at 5:45 to get to check in on time.  I hope there isn’t a traffic jam like the one on the way home last night, where the motorway was blocked up for several km, all because of some random – looking police roadblock under a bridge!

I’d like to give a huge thank you to Geoff, Leslie, Emma and Sam for allowing me to stay with you over the last week or so.  You’ve been very generous and it’s been great to be able to meet your colleagues and enjoy exploring this very interesting city of KL.  Thanks heaps.

Geoff, Leslie, Emma and Sam

 

Raffles, Shmaffles; Orchard Rd, Bore-chard Rd

Yeah been there, done that, didn’t buy the t-shirt because they probably cost about $50 Singapore ($60 NZ).  Anyway I was most disappointed.  I strode up to this guy in a funny suit at the hotel and said “Can I buy a Raffle ticket?” and he didn’t even smile. 

Not a fruit tree in sight!

And as for Orchard Rd, what a disappointment!  NOTHING BUT SHOPS!!!  And here I was thinking we were going fruit picking!  We eventually found some strawberries, but not at that price!

That's per box, by the way!

And I found a nice jewellry shop but this big guy in a suit wouldn’t let me through the door.  Something about “closing time”.  Yeah right! I know when I’m not wanted!

The Bouncer

 Enough of that, lets get down to the important stuff!  I found out today that Singapore is the TWC.  That stands for TLA Capital of the World.  What’s a TLA? A Three – Letter Acronym of course!  It’s a fact that Singapore has more TLA’s per capita than any other MDC (More Developed Country).   And you see them everywhere! There’s the PUB (Public Utility Board), LTA (Land Transport Authority), URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority), HDB (Housing Development Board) and so on.  In fact they’re so fond of their TLA’s that when I discovered a four-letter acronym at the TLA Gallery the guide reported it straight to the ACB (Acronym Control Board) for immediate inclusion in the ARP (Acronym Rationalisation Programme)!

Thats why they all like it here so much - it's the water!

And of course that was all just a long-winded way of telling you that, apart from visiting the odd hotel and shopping strip, I spent the day learning about, and experiencing, Singapore’s infrastructure!!

First it was NEWater.  I had to take a long ride on the MRT to get there – it’s near the airport.  That place alone had enough TLA’s to fill a reservoir, including such gems as IPU (Indirect Potable Water).  Basically this is a plant where they clean up “used” water (yes, that’s right!) and re-introduce it into the water supply.  Actually they have the world’s best technology at work and most of it goes to industry.  However it shows that water security is a key planning issue for Singapore, and indeed for any country.

My next visit was to the LTA Gallery near Little India.  Like NEWater it was typically Singaporean – rather loud, very high-tech, amazingly interactive, and generally a lot of fun.  The sort of place I’d definitely take a geography class. This display traced the history of Singapore’s transport network and was very cool.  At the end was a display a bit like Google Maps and I got the guide to zoom in on 6 Hazelemere Rd (although first she was looking for NZ somewhere near Russia!).

Basically the government here is very good at defining their vision of the city, and spending a massive amount of money to achieve it.  In that sense it’s the ultimate planned environment.  Not very democratic, but they all seem to like it – although I thought they might smile a bit more, for a bunch of people living in such a “perfect” situation.  And as part of the “vision thing” the government is also very good at spending a lot of money on reminding everyone how good it is, and how much they all like it – hence the displays I’ve been to.  They’re all a bit over the top, but very good nonetheless.  And as they say, at least the trains run on time!

And to finish my afternoon I went to the URA display which features a huge scale-model of the central urban region.

Amazing scale model

And somewhere in there I managed another stroll through Chinatown and Little India.  I’ve walked a few k’s on this trip!

I’ve also added a few more photos into the Singapore album – same link as yesterday.

So it’s goodbye for now to my new friends, the Merediths in Singapore.  Thanks heaps Allan, Sue, Josh and Jessica, for letting me stay and have the use of your cool apartment, pool, basketball court, local knowledge etc etc.  I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you and I hope our paths will cross again.  God bless you all.  All the best for those camps, guys!  Hope the sea lice aren’t biting!

Tomorrow it’s back to KL for a couple more days, then head home on Monday night. Can’t wait to see you all again!

 

Singapore

There’s the “bus”!  It had better legroom and more space than a plane, and the seats were just as good.  The food and coffee were pretty awful, but at least you get to stop and walk around every couple of hours.  The border crossing was very smooth and straightforward.  I’ve booked to return with them on Saturday.

I’m really enjoying Singapore.  The Meredith’s have welcomed me with open arms, and I’ve had great fun travelling around on the MRT subways and buses.  You’ll have to forgive me for being a boring old geography teacher here, but to me Singapore isn’t about shopping, it’s about multiculturalism and infrastructure!

Today I walked through Chinatown and Little India.  They are fascinating, colourful places, but in a way what struck me was just how cosmopolitan and multicultural Auckland has become.  Many of the things I saw are duplicated at home, just on a smaller scale.

Chinatown shop - same, same, but a lot more

 I also wandered along the Singapore River and saw historic sight such as Raffles’ orginal landing place (not the hotel, I haven’t got there yet! or Orchard Rd!).  The contrast between old and new is a very important part of Singapore’s landscape.

Old and New Singapore

This afternoon I ended up at the Tao Payoh centre, one of Singapore’s main urban developments and the home of the Housing Development Board “Hub”.  This is where apartments in the state-owned apartment blocks are bought and sold, with bit of Singaporean – style social engineering thrown in.  To prevent the development of ethnic ghettoes the HDB has a quota for each ethnic group in each aparment block.  What’s interesting is the very community – oriented lfestyle that has developed as people shop, play, eat and to a certain extent work together in and around their apartment complex.  Tao Payoh has a mall and other shops, recreational and community facilities and a huge bus interchange.

Later on Allan showed me around the Australian International School where the whole family goes to work and learn each day.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the photo I really wanted – the two fully-armed Gurkhas on security patrol outside the school!  Apparently the government is concerned about terrorist attacks against ex-pats.  Probably just encouraging the ordinary security guards to be a little more active would be as effective.

Singapore is a "fine" place to live

There certainly are a few rules!  Funnily enough the traffic here seems a bit more dangerous than Cambodia.  I got talking today to a very English-sounding Indian man who’s lived here for 9 years and says he felt quite safe driving in the UK or USA, but not here.

Tomorrow it’s more public transport and more wonderful infrastructure.  I’m booked in for a tour of the water recycling plant!  Should be fun!  I might go for a mountain – bike ride in the water catchment area if I feel up to it.

 

A Geography field trip

Ah yes, the good old urban Geography field trip! All you need is a bus, a tower (although a light plane or very high mountain right near the city centre will suffice), a camera, a positive attitude and a good cafe and you’re in business!

The bus was a very nice coach with a patient and knowledgeable driver.  The tower was “the world’s fourth highest” – the Menara KL (KL Tower).  The views from up there are quite magnificent and give you a good visual impression of the city layout.

View ENE from KL Tower towards Petronas Towers.

Ampang Jaya where Geoff and Leslie live is off in the distance in that direction.  You can see the twin towers from their street, and some houses have views out over the city centre.  It’s a little bit like Wellington in that respect.

The cafe was Sao Nam, a superb Vietnamese restaurant in the cafe precinct just off Bukit Bintang.  The display of socialist propaganda posters with slogans like “increased food production is the key to expelling the Americans” was very “ironic chic”.

After lunch we wandered through Chinatown for a short time.

Chinatown Kuala Lumpur

Our last stop was next to the Masjid Jamek mosque.  The mosque is built right at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers, which is where Chinese tin miners set up their encampment in 1857.  This later became the administrative centre of the city of KL.  The mosque is a beautiful building, as is so much of the Islamic architecture.  Several of KL’s modern buildings also show this influence.

Masjid Jamek

Tomorrow I’m heading to Singapore on a “bus” which looks more like a plane – movies, couches, you name it it’s got it!  I’m looking forward to checking out the legendary Singapore public transport system!

 

A day around Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia is a bit different from Cambodia!  So far it has rained extremely heavily every afterno0n and evening since I’ve been here!

I’m staying with Leslie and Geoff and their two children, Sam and Emma.  I didn’t do much yesterday, as I was feeling pretty tired after my busy schedule.  Just getting to their house from KL International Airport was a mission – I felt like I needed to produce my passport again, it was so far!

Anyway, I needed to get out and about today, so in the morning Leslie took me to the Batu Caves, a bit north of where they live, and then dropped me off at the Bird Park.

The Batu Caves are fascinating. They are a huge limestone feature, surrounded by industrial areas.  It’s as though you went to the Waitomo Caves by cutting through the back of Penrose!  They are hugely significant as a religious shrine for Hindus in Malaysia, and attract a lot of Indian tourists.  I’ll leave you to decide what you think of the decor.

After negotiating your way past several shrines and assorted souvenir sellers, you have to climb up 272 steep steps to enter the cave.

Entrance to the Batu Caves

Inside the caves are numerous other shrines and temples, as well as lots of carvings depicting scenes from Hindu mythology.  And around the entire wall runs a large red and yellow stripe! Not sure why!

Inside the main cave

At the shrines inside the main cave, people pay to be blessed by a priest and to be able to stand in the presence of their god for a few moments.

A young Indian man came up and insisted on having his photo taken with me.  I guess I’m now world famous in India – mind you that’s over a billion people, so it’s a start.

When we emerged from the cave, carefully walking down the 272 steps, the crowd had built up, and so had the heat.  Next stop was the Bird Park.

KL is a beautifully green city, and one of its more lovely spots is the Tasik Perdana.  This is a huge park complex a bit like Cornwall Park (without the volcanic cone!), surrounded by urban development.  It includes a Deer park, a Butterfly park, Orchid Gardens, a huge lake with lots of interseting walks, a range of monuments and of course the Bird Park – “the world’s largest walk-in free-flight aviary”.  It was very impressive.

I spent over two hours in the Bird Park.  They have a wide range of species, many of them exotic and very attractive.

If anyone can, the toucan...

After leaving the bird park it became very apparent that this afternoon’s edition of the daily thunderstorm and deluge was about to hit, and I was far from shelter.  Trusting my sophisticated geographic map-reading skills I headed off down the hill by a winding road to the lake.  When I got there I discovered the shortcut that wasn’t shown on the map!  I just made it to the information centre before the heavens opened! There a very helpful man showed me how to duck across the motorway on ramp, up the stairs, cut through the Hilton Hotel carpark and through to the Central Station.  I managed to do all that without getting completely saturated, only about 90%.  However you dry quickly in the heat!

From there it was a steep learning curve, but let’s just say that with the help of some very kind Malaysians in malls and on public transport, combined with some lucky guesses and more advanced map-reading (I bought a better map!) I managed to make my way by monorail and bus to a shopping centre not too far from home.  There I met two taxi drivers who didn’t want to give me a ride.

The first said “I know nothing” in Malay, and the other kindly pointed out that it wasn’t far “you can walk from here”!  Apparently the fares are so low it’s not even worth them getting their taxis out of “Park” for short distances.  Fortunately it had stopped raining and was quite pleasant, so I walked home.  And by the way the public transport was very efficient and tidy and cost me RM3 ie NZ$1.50.

Tomorrow Geoff’s taking me on a school field trip round the urban area.  Should be good.  As I always say to my students “the worst day on a Geography field trip is better than the best day in a classroom!”

 

Farewell to Cambodia

It’s a bit strange to leave somewhere where you’ve been staying for a couple of weeks.  The “newness” of everything has worn off, and I caught myself the other thinking that this strange existence is quite normal!  However there’s very little that’s “normal” about Cambodia. 

As I type this I am sitting in the airport departure lounge.  The cafe sound system is playing some slow r’n'b love song – for the 10th time!  It just loops on and on indefinitely.  Now I know some of you would say “what background music” but those who know me well are aware that my brain locks on instantly to any music that’s playing.  And in a strange way I think Cambodia is a bit like that song- stuck in an endless loop.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ignoring the incredible turmoil the country went through from the 60′s to ’90′s , but the reality is that the vast majority of people, rural farmers, are busy doing things the same way they’ve been doing for hundreds of years – simply because they know that they work reasonably well, and experimentation with new methods could be dangerous if they don’t work.  In the cities, even though the products are different the vast majority of people are ”a nation of shopkeepers”, just trying to get ahead by selling something, anything, despite the fact that everyone else is trying desperately to sell exactly the same things to the same of people!  “Same same but different’ as they say!

Of course there are many factories, but most of them are owned by foreign companies or the “elites” of Cambodia, and they are busily churning out masses of garments or shoes or whatever, at very low cost, under licence to western companies such as Nike, Adidas.  These offer “easy” money to young Cambodians, an alternative to the grind of farming or selling, but the signs are there already that these jobs aren’t secure as the global recession bites.

And then there are the kids – bright, resourceful, accustomed to riding everywhere on motorcycles in heavy traffic at a young age!  The education authorities are concerned for their welfare and safety, and worried that they will voluntarily skip Khmer-based learning in favour of  the “trading English” which seems adequate to survive on the streets.  Someone is sending them out to work, selling things that people don’t really want or need, at all hours of the day and night.  Why? Who gets the money? Wouldn’t they be better off at school?  Ot at home in bed?  (if anyone can get to sleep in this heat!)  These are the questions that start to occupy your mind, and all I can say is, “thank you Lord for lettting me born in such a wonderful country as New Zealand”.

I have met some wonderful people in my time here – too many to name, but here’s a few.

• Pheakdey and her husband, and the staff of the Sihanoukville Children’s Home
• Sota and the other World Vision staff
• Thar, Sokheoun and Vannak at Sun Rise School – these three groups all demonstrate love in action, making a real difference in the lives of ordinary Cambodians
• Jay our Intrepid Travel guide – a great ambassador for his country
• The other members of the Intrepid group – thanks for making our time together so enjoyable.  (I’m glad I didn’t go Basics!)
• Our local guides, who all had terrible stories to tell, but didn’t have axes to grind
• Rout and his mother Men Morn – so resilient and pragmatic.  They don’t have time to think to much about the meaning of life, just surviving is hard enough at times.  I hope I’ve been able to make a difference to your life, because you’ve certainly made a difference to mine.
• All the countless Cambodians of all walks of life who have smiled at me, answered my greetings, let me take your photo, played along with my lame attempts at “haggling” and must wonder what my life is like.  Now I know a bit more about yours I can’t ever take what I’ve got for granted any more.
• And to you, for reading these blogs. I hope you’ve enjoyed them and I hope I’ve given you the odd laugh and the odd pause for reflection.

Signing off from Cambodia

 

The marvels of technology

Today was a funny sort of a day.  I didn’t feel like doing very much at all, still feeling rather tired and, dare I say it, a bit sunburnt after yesterday’s outing.  I spent the morning sitting out on the shady balcony making use of the hotel’s excellent free wireless internet service.  Finally the mini-laptop came into its own!  That is, until I accidentally pressed the numlock key and 5t started ty*5ng n40bers 5nstead 6f 3etters a33 the t50e.  Fortunately before I sent Kate Fuller an angry email and threw it off the balcony, I discovered the onscreen keyboard and then Randal told me to try numlock whle I was gmail chatting to him.

Anyay, the hotel is very nice, and the balcony is a lovely cool, shady place to sit.

Hotel balcony

Another funny thing was that at one stage a whole herd of water buffalo ambled past!

Heard of water buffalo?

Remember Pheakdey, the Vietnamese lady I met in Kampot the other day?  She was brought up in the Sihanoukville Children’s Home.  She gave me a contact name and number to ring when I got here.  I wasn’t actually intending to call, as “orphanage tourism” isn’t really encouraged – it can become a bit like a zoo if it’s not controlled.  Anyway I did, partly because Ann, one of the group members, is staying here for a further week and was interested in seeing if she could possibly do some volunteer work.

The technology bit is that I was able to google the school and find the address in the Cambodian Yellow Pages! The marvels of technology!

We headed off this afternoon and found the place quite easily, not too far from the hotel.  We were met by two of the admin staff and shown around the place.  We weren’t able to take photographs, as it impinges on the children’s privacy.

The orphanage is a very well set-up establishment, right next to the “School of Hope”, a Christian school.  The money for the orphange was donated by an American couple in the early 1990′s, using land provided by the government.  It is now funded by sponsors, mostly from the USA.

The dormitories are clean and spacious, and the children, who range in age from 6 months to nearly 20 years, are educated at the next-door school.  They also learn farming skills, as they have a vegetable garden, 20 pigs, some fish and four crocodiles! (pity about the photos!)

The office staff promised to discuss the possibility of Ann doing some voluntary work with the management, and let her know.  She didn’t get her hopes up though, as they kept stressing that many of the children would be off staying with relatives next week, as it is the Khmer New Year and school holidays.

Following that we wandered off into the main township and had a bit of a look at the market.  Right now the wind is getting strong again and lightning and thunder are rolling around… I think we’re about to get another downpour… here it comes!

Tomorrow it’s back on the bus again to Phnom Penh, where we’ll arrive at lunchtime.  The tour officially ends tomorrow night with a group dinner, and then on Saturday I fly off to Malaysia to stay with the Moorheads for a few days.  I’ll go down to Singapore on the bus and stay with Alan Meredith, another geography teacher, then back to Malaysia for the weekend and return home.  Bye for now!

 

Sihanoukville – cruising to a tropical island

Here’s the photo of the “two lions rampant…” I promised you.

"Two lions rampant, upon a roundabout verdant..."

We’ve had real weather extremes lately.  Here’s the view from inside the town market late yesterday afternoon, when a tropical downpour fell for about 45 minutes

Tropical downpour

The next shot shows the weather we had today, when we took this boat to a tropical island off the coast.

Need I say more?

Actually it was quite an eventful trip. There was quite a strong wind building up through the day. We got soaked going over, running into the waves.  I scraped my foot on a rock while “snorkelling” (give me Mimiwhangata any day!). So when we got to our island beach it was nice to just swim in the warm water, have a lovely picnic lunch, then sit under a shady tree and play my “new” guitar.  Getting back to the main beach turned out to be quite a mission as the wooden boat is very heavy and hard to control in the choppy conditions with swimmers around.

This is a beautiful area, but the beaches are very “un-kiwi”, lined by thatched bars and restaurants and pretty crowded.  Also I’ve discovered that there are actually about three really ill-mannered Cambodians, and funnily enough they’re all employed as front-desk staff at the Orchidee Guesthouse.

Tomorrow is a “free day” to do what we like around Sihanoukville.  I have no idea what that might be, so I’ll have to check out the guidebook and consult the others.  I’ve had a wonderful time here in Cambodia, but I think I’m now looking forward to the next stage of my trip.

 

Off to Sihanoukville

They say you should start every day with a good breakfast, and today I certainly did.  The food was good, but the “chance” meeting with a lovely Christian lady in Kampot was what made it very special.

Pheakdey

I didn’t understand everything Pheakdey told me, but the essence of her story is something along these lines…

She is Vietnamese, and grew up in a very poor family.  When she was about 12, someone (a relative?) offered to take her to Cambodia to live with another relative and “find work”.  She got a bit suspicious when there were several other girls also taken on the trip.  Anyway, the plan was dramatically changed when she had an accident on the way.  Her foot was hanging out of the tuktuk and another vehicle came too close and crushed her leg.  She fainted immediately and was eventually taken to hospital.  There the foot was amputated, but as a young naive 12-year-old she “thought it would grow back like a crab’s foot”.

Being all alone in Cambodia, she ended up in an orphanage, where life was a daily struggle.  However her lot improved when the United Nations came to Cambodia in the early 1990′s and she was able to go to school to learn Khmer and English and find legitimate work.

At some stage in this story Pheakdey ended up in an orphanage run by Christians in Sihanoukville.  While there she found a brand new life and relationship with Jesus Christ.  She married a Cambodian Christian man and they worked to help orphans also.    They now have one child of their own.  Recently they moved to Kampot, where they run the Sisters (II ) cafe (the original is in the Russian Market in Phnom Penh), help to run an orphanage, and train young people in ICT skills.  I also met Pheakdey’s husband, who is a handsome young man with excellent English and a great skillset in ICT and teaching.  But their real strength is their love for abandoned children and Jesus Christ.  Truly beautiful people!

Cambodians love large public sculptures.  Here we have the “Millenium Seagull” in Kampot.  Kep had a giant crab, and Sihanoukville has “two lions rampant on a roundabout verdant” as the heraldry buffs would describe it (no picture yet, but I’m working on it).

The "Millennium Seagull"

Kampot would once have been a lovely, gracious French colonial town, with wide boulevards and spacious public areas.  I can just see myself wearing a pith helmet and Hercule Poirot moustache, sipping iced tea and being fanned by a bearer.  The river frontage is particularly pretty.  Today however it is tired and rundown, although with a quirky charm.  And to the well-meaning but essentially misguided individual who stretched a length of No. 8 wire straight across a footpath at throat height for a tall European male – what were you thinking?

The journey to Sihanoukville was a dream run on a Korean-built toll road.  The best entertainment was provided by the people transporting livestock – pigs, cows and chickens were all seen in transit.

The Chicken Express

Sihanoukville is a very spread-out tourist town.  I’m about to go out exploring.  Tomorrow we go on a boat trip to one of the offshore islands.