Cambodia is Complicated Feb 15 - March 6: "People We Met"

Yarann is cousin to Ronnie Yimsut team member of Project Enlighten, with whom I had corresponded about staying at their place in Siem Reap. Yarann met us at the airport and took us to "Yimsust Suites". They had gone to considerable effort to provide a warm and welcoming place for us.

Yarann's wife, Saeng, daughters: Thavy and Chien, as well as a family friend, Somali, live on the ground floor. Often during the day, Yarann and Saeng go to the family home in Bakong Village, west of Siem Reap where she supervises and does accounting for the cow bank and micro lending projects connected with this aspect of Project Enlighten.


Three key Project Enlighten team members meet for breakfast at Soup DragonRestaurant (old town Siem Reap), Lisa McCoy (far right), Bill Morse (left of Lisa) from Palm Springs, Ca and key sponsor of demining activities. Across the table is Richard Fitoussi a Canadian journalist and International Project Manager of CAMBODIA LAND MINE MUSEUM RELIEF Fund

Lisa McCoy, all around maven of good works, and Naret, try to pinpoint the sites of the various on-going efforts of Project Enlighten in the Bakong locale. See Lisa's AMAZING blog at http://schoolsforcambodia.blogspot.com/


Naret effectively fills the role of the indispensible translator and coordinator (along with Yarann and Saeng) for projects such as Micro Lending, the Cow Project, and now the Bike Project that serve the villiage of Bakong. Ronnie has also undertaken a major project of building a technical college (BTC) with lots and lots of potential to affect the lives of these folks. The Cambodian people "get it" that education is their future.


Canadian Jay Harrison, a Rotarian, consults with Mr. Tough, principal of the free school at Volunteer Development Children's Association Cambodia on the edge of Siem Reap town near the temples.


Linda Harrison, visiting from Canada with her husband handing out shoes for village kids (and adults) Linda, a nurse, was also able to utilize her considerable health care skills in several other endeavors during their 2 week stay.

Sim Sao, designated #1 tuk tuk driver for Project Enlighten enjoys bringing visitors to his home village of Pongro in Kantreng Commune. Sao was a very young survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide. He lost his identity in that he never knew his parent's names--so he didn't know who he was. He has a family now and a purpose. He heads up TukTuks for Peace.

At Sao's village we are priveledged to meet his beautiful wife and 9 month old daughter.


Next door (actually across the road) from Yimsut Suites, while out walking, we met this young couple enjoying their newly born son. Their pride and happiness were contagious. I love this photo for capturing their evident joy.


Keith's painful joints became more and more aggrivated and we finally had to admit that we needed to be in a slightly more convenient location. So, we called on our tour guide from 5 years ago, Srun Sopheak. He helped us relocate and also to revisit some of the great ruins we'd been wanting to see again.


Mr. T. was still the driver for Sopheak. It has been a slow year since tourism generally is down. However, there are more and more Korean, Japanese, and Chinese tourists these days which is a good thing.


Sopheak's family: Tarro, (age 7) Naret, and Vichea, (age 3.) Join us on our last night. The Pizza parlor next door to our hotel had a playground setup for kids which was roundly enjoyed by the boys and we got a chance to say good-bye.

Cambodia is Complicated Feb 15 - March 6: "On the Street Where We Lived"

This charming site was rather an anomaly and a little anachronistic.
Don't get the wrong impression. Siem Reap is no "horse and buggy" town.
It is a bustling, vibrant, amazing city! We were here 5 years ago, and it has
vastly changed. Because of the tourism for the ancient temples of Angkor,
it has quite exploded -- especially with high-end resort hotels.


We were fortunate enough to have learned through a
friend about a Cambonian-American couple who had a
guest house available a couple of miles from the center
of old town. Here is the dirt road in front of the place
where we spent the first two weeks. It was a neighborhood
of wonderful variety. We really felt we were allowed to
see a part of what living in Siem Reap would be like.


Here is the first flight of stairs to our third story room.
I had a wonderfully long phone conversation at its top
one day when my son phoned from Brussels. Unfortunately,
Keith acquired some mobility problems and these quickly
became problematic. Ah, to be young again . . . .


The third floor with an overview of the big high school.
Always there were at least 2 or 3 soccer (excuse me: football)
games going on if there was any daylight at all. This veranda
was shared with one other guest room (the suite) occupied by
a Canadian woman who was involved with several NGO's
(more about Lisa later). Internet was by a pre-paid card and
connectivity was spotty at best.


I loved Somali's laundry domain here. She stays with the family
of Yarann and Saeng who live on the ground floor with their daughters.
Yarann is the cousin of Ronnie Yimsut, the owner. All of these folks
are very involved with small NGO's trying to help the Cambodian
people improve their lives as they recover from a generation
of war and genocide.


One interesting feature of this neighborhood was the prevalence of
numerous "private" schools. (Small crowded desks or benches with a
single white board or green chalk board. These are attended in addition
to the public schools. It is said the kids love school here. I tend to
believe it if attendance is any indicator. Of course, I couldn't tell
how many did not go to school. It was suggested that some
teachers deliberately omit some necessary part of their subject
so students must take a private lesson to complete the curriculum.
It is true teachers are not particularly well paid.


In Thailand gasoline for motorbikes was stored in
soda bottles. Cambodia goes for whiskey bottles.


The University of South East Asia is a few short blocks
away at the paved street that took us west into town. It was
just a wee bit too far to walk in the heat of the day, so
we rented some bikes that helped us get around. It was
still best in the early morning.


This is the turn off from the paved street onto
our little neighborhood. We enjoyed patronizing the
local stores. As much as we'd like, we couldn't quite
pull off being a "local," but folks were patient and
very friendly with us "barang"

Feb 14, Last Days in Thailand

Tom and Tae take us to BKK where the new airport
was efficient, friendly (absent of protesters) and our
flight to Siem Reap went very smoothly.

Tom was a gracious and informative tour guide of
this Heritage Park "Ancient Siam" which featured
ALL of Thailand's history and then some. Very well
done and HUGE! She had also arranged a very
convenient hotel for us afterward and called for us
the next day to enjoy the cinema before the ride to
the airport. We certainly hope she can visit us in the
US some day so we can return the favor.

Waiting outside Yupadee's shop house and keeping company
with the newspaper lady while waiting for the pick up
from Tom and Tae. We're down to four bags. Wishing
Rotraud was around to give us a bad time about it tho.

The BanPong ferry is still running and an early morning
stroll allowed us to catch the photo on the nice still
river. A dinner conversation with Yupadee about possible
strategies to help clean up some of the litter on the river
bank led to her calling her brother, the mayor, which in
turn resulted in an effort of a pick up crew while we were
gone. It looked better.

During the two months we had been gone, Chinese
New Year happened and this festive decorating
of the town clock tower was a distinctive improvement.
We quite liked it in red and gold.

Feb 6. 2009 Last Days in Chiang Mai

Hey Dottie! I finally got the photo of the inside of
the 2nd class sleeper train between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
This one is going to Bangkok. The smoothest one yet. (Until
we got there to learn our connecting train to BanPong was
not running due to a closure of the line because of a derailing.
We ended up taking a taxi which while a bit pricey was probably
the most efficient.

This, our floating sky lantern, was sent up from the balcony of
our upstairs neighbor in a small ceremony with our sincere
wish for returning next fall.

The lovely pla mauk at the Sunday Night Walking Market!!
Yum!


We visit the new aquarium with a walk thru tunnel
and a shark stops by for a tummy scritch. We hardly
need to fit in a snorkeling trip, this seems so "in the water."

Chiang Mai University senior English students presented
their senior projects to which the public was invited. We
were privileged to see both a Pocahontas production as
well as Phantom of the Opera. Amazing!

Jan 31 An English Teacher in Her Element

I decided to attend a locally held production of
Romeo and Juliet. Thai students have a happy habit
of engaging farang with "Hello, where you come from?"
It turned out these were freshmen from Chiang
Mai University also interested in Shakespeare.

This was a musical performance with some very
serious and compelling choreography. Here Father
Laurence counsels Romeo while school children
look on. It was in Thai of course, which gave it all
a remarkable flavor for my Thai-challenged ears.

Mercutio dies an elegant death. The staging was
masterfully done in this rather elegant theater.

Curtain calls, since there was no curtain, were quite
fun.

This budding actress was enjoying being photographed
by an appreciative farang. (foreigner)

Jan 26, When in Chiang Mai, You Do Elephants

Chiang Mai is all about elephants. They are highly
revered and a source of pride. There is quite a lot
of controversy over they fact that since they are
no longer needed in the obsolete logging industry,
their livelihood has turned to entertaining -- it's
not the best of all possible worlds, but there seems
a sincere effort to provide many with a good and
healthy place to live as well as a means of self-support.

Ok, so teaching an elephant to paint for tourists may
be a bit of a stretch, but it could be a LOT worse. And
this guy has some talent.

They seem affectionate and it's hard not to anthropomorphize
that that is really a smile when their mouth corners turn upwards.

Each elephant gets his own lifelong mahout, who in
turn is truly proud of his charge. I've never seen
a female mahout . hmmmmm.?

Here is a very female and very pregnant female.
Gestation is some 22 months. Yes, the babies are cute!
They had better be after 22 months.

Jan 25, 45th Anniversary Serenade & Walk-About

After ice cream, it was the Sunday Street market
which we prefer to the Night Bazaar because it is
attended by more locals, the vendors are less
aggressive and food shops seem fresher.
Here a farang practices bargaining for a Hmong
stitchery piece that caught her fancy.

Later at our regular Sunday afternoon Jazz in
the Park, Keith let it be known that today was
our anniversary for which we got a spontaneous
rendition of "Happy Birthday" It was great fun!
Then we went out for ice cream with a group of
Canadian visitors from our condo.

This was the house. We spent an hour lounging on
the deck in fascinating conversation about his life,
and future plans.
Keith promised to help him advertise to other
farang who would be staying longer and wanting
to be near nature.

We met a man who had a house to rent. He was a
teacher of English, a collector of antiques, a player of
tennis, and a singer of karoke. Quite a guy!

Walking in the neighborhood south of Wat U Mong, there
are no shortages of interesting sights. This hedge (and
garage covering) was vibrantly blooming.

Jan 22 A Few of Our Favorite Things About CM

One of these wires is our internet connection. This
little office runs our unlimited high speed internet system at
a charge of 300 baht per month. (about $8.50)

Across town for a 60 baht song teaw ride, we can
enjoy these great musicians on Sunday evenings
during Jan. and Feb. They do a pretty good rendition
of "Ain't Misbehavin'"

Finally got a good light angle to get this of the entrance
to Chomdoi Condo (Interior view at this link) I've
already posted the sunrises. Despite the concrete
nature, we have been here nearly 6 weeks now and find
it just too convenient to move -- or NOT move asthecasemaybe.

Try not to look too closely at the green yolks and the
transparently brown whites, it TASTES really good.
These are the pink shelled fermented (30 days) eggs.
The ginger and shallots are an added treat.