froginmythroat (FIMT)

Working in the environment sector, I am realising how much time us usually city dwellers spend indoors! Lately my work, and leisure, has been taking me into the outdoors.

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit the Ranger Station to talk with the rangers about data collection, and went out in the weekend to visit and stay overnight in a local indigenous community village with a Swedish research student. It felt quite strange just rocking up to this village in the middle of nowhere and asking if we could stay, the villagers were very shy people and they must of wondered what the hell we were doing there. After kicking around a ball for a while with the kids and the drunk adults (we arrived on the eve of funeral party) the ice was broken and I felt we had made ourselves more welcome, if uninvited. That night we spoke with the village chief – he told us about life in the village now and in times past- and slept in hammocks, I only fell out once with a big thud. The ride back turned hairy when I parked my motorbike nicely in a waist deep water filled pot hole, after which it failed to start. I got towed back to town using the strings from my hammock- they’re pretty strong.

The plane from Phnom Penh to Ban Lung hasn’t been flying lately because the battery is flat, so instead I took the 1.5 day land journey. On one stretch of the journey it was a nasty 16 hrs from 4pm till 8am to travel a meagre 100km. The driver might not have had a driving license but he was a practised bush mechanic. When we got stuck he would get out his axe and chop down a small tree, sharpen the end and use it as a lever to lift the back wheel out of the mud. This ritual was repeated more than enough times I might add.

The expat life cycle in Cambodia has been explained to me recently, and involves three stages:

1. Enthusiasm – This place is great! It’s so free! No rules! The people are lovely, so friendly! It’s so cheap!
2. Frustration – Hmmm.. this place is terrible, the corruption, the incompetence and lack of education, the different cultural values
3. Indifference

I feel I am now entering Stage Two after recent events. Last Friday I was returning home on my newly purchased motorbike. The lights at this particular junction were off. I proceeded to cross only to be hit by a faster moving motorcycle from the right. No major damage done but I was a little shaken. The policeman helped me to the side of the road and picked up my scattered belongings. Back at home I realised I didn’t have all my belongings with me – I was missing a bag of books. So I went back to the crossing only to be told by the policeman I would have to pay to get my books back. $US5 for the books the policeman kept from me. I got away with paying $US2 but was really annoyed, resigned to the fact that I obviously didn’t share the same cultural values as the policeman.

Other than that I have managed to get to the seaside once (Sihanoukville), and Angkor Wat twice in the last 2 months what with the large amount of public holidays at the moment. The last time was with friend Cecile, over here from France on holiday for the last 2 weeks, and who just left today. And I have just finished reading the 3rd Harry Potter book.

Too da lo!