Goodness me. It feels like I have been here months and seems like the last time I wrote on my blog was far far too long ago. I feel I havent properly updated you on the cambodian bambino's at school and the roasting sun which is turning our pasty skin a tiny bit less pasty. If truth be told I am loving every minute, and have even considered taking up permanent residence abandoning the lot of you. However, Anna awaiting our arrival in Vietnam would be less than amused and Pea and I are too polite natured, so my eager plans and a cambodian matrimony shall just have to wait.

We have had the best first week teaching and have met so many quirky and friendly people. The collection of staff we work with are to say the least a varied bunch. Leading the show is English born and bred Bridget. A rather stumpy and sweaty sight in the heat, she has proved to be v good with the children and appreciative of our work and lets us do more or less as we please. Alongside her is her toothless and incomprehensible husband Allan ressembling a flinstone, who occasionally is seen on site and due to his murmuring and lack of enthusiasm isnt quite a firm favourite. But fret not, we work with the sweetest most welcoming and warm smiley bunch of cambodian teachers. They range from 20 to 40 yrs old and could not be more fun. They have worked so so so hard to work there, earning a salary of $150 a month and therefore teach like troopers, enthusing their keen students daily and have so much time for Pea and I and have taken us immediatly under their wing. We couldnt be luckier.

Now a quick sum up of my daily schedule. I work for four hours a day. One hour with the kindergarten group, which includes endless sing songs and shaking our hips to me screeching versions of 'head shoulders knees and toes' and various arts and crafts. Teaching is bliss, instead of the enclosed basement at The Minors I am adoring the opportunity to work outdoors in the sunshine under something similar to a large bungalow beach hut. The resources are plentiful and we can do whatever we wish to abate the childrens quite wild characters. Its been heaven.

I then spend an hour with the most advanced students who are around our age. Their English is quite amazing and I am there to assist with pronounciation and certain concepts they are oblivious to. I have had to bite my lip at times listening to them discuss certain topics. One the other day was shopping and one boy said 'when Im rich I will go to the supermarket', they have nothing but food to survive and learning English is their only means of attempting to get out of the poverty. They all want to be doctors, nurses, tour guides etc and yearn to break the mold of their parents slaving working patterns. But not for a moment are they glum, the lessons are hilarious as they chat away in English and laugh at the smallest of things, proving they are still extremely content!I then do the same 2 hours again in the afternoon after a long lunch break sat lying in a hammock or chatting to the children who are always on site whether or not they need to be. This is because it is a space they can freely play in, something which their cluttered villages cannot accomodate for.We finish at 4 and then have routinely been biking back to shower, change and then head to town for cheap but exquisite mojitos and caprinias over a joyous game of cards.

One day however the day took an unusual turn, as a marquee popped up directly opposite a classroom, and endless people were rushing by, bizarrely carrying huge piles of furniture towards it. Following this, a large music speaker was installed and a painful shreek was heard for miles around us. Some huge birthday celebration we assumed. Until we were informed that a grandmother in the village had just passed away and this was the Cambodian way of mourning. The whole village congregates for music and food to wish them a joyously rich life in heaven. The only thing I thought though was, poor old woman. Who before her corpse has even been budged has the rest of the village jostling their hips and stuffing their faces around her. This may take some getting used to. However it is definitly more appealing than the black, depressing funerals we at home are accustomed to.

Yesterday we headed to the temples on tuk tuk and were just astounded by the beauty of Ankor Wat, Tomb Raider, and a most spectacular temple with heads carved into huge headstones. Only ruined at one point by a swarm of camera clad chinese tourists who yapped to one another in every direction forcing me to ask them to ssssssssh and shake my head in their direction. They are quite outrageous at times and Pea and I had to censor our emotions. But apart from them the day could not have gone better, we had a tour guide and ended sitting watching the sunset at another stunning temple. It was B E A utiful and I now completley understand why everybody raves about them.

Today however we surrendered ourselves to the sun and lay by the most glamorous of pools at a nearby hotel. Costing $5 for the day, it was a bargain and Pea and I were heard frequently saying 'This is the life!'. Fingers crossed I have built up a good bronzed base, as the photos portraying a rather stumpy white hobbit infront of the temples yesterday are humiliating.

I havent stopped thinking of you all and this trip could only be better if you were all here to share it with us.

BIGGUS KISSUS AND SO MUCH LOVE FROM SIEM REAP.

x x x

Just thought it would be an absolute necessity to write to assure you I am safe and sound and to confirm for Granny and Grampa's sake that our accomodation is not a filthy brothel and trixie is in fact a wild but responsable character as opposed to an old creepy man. REST ASSURED. However it has not be far from strange. Yesterday we felt like we were being trafficked as we made our way from Bangkok across the cambodia border. We were endlessly directed to streams of buses and our bags thrown in copious nooks and crannys. Slightly worryingly we handed our passports over initially to the strangest of men with a wadge of money for the visa and were left an hour without them along with a bunch of similarly terrified passengers. After we contemplated what we had just done he vanished in the dust and we had no other choice but to wait. A prawn won ton soup and plenty of terrors later he returned gleaming with a 3 month visa in tow. Quelle suprise! We thought we could then relax. We were so wrong.

Next, we were chartered to a long line of offices to fill in and sign endless forms followed by a 2 hour wait in a queue. Here I could have felt rather suicidal if it wasnt for a hairy spaniard who cracked up conversation and had me blabbering and laughing away until the top. Pea stood in awe as I befriended a man who looked like a criminal on the run but he was CHARMING. And invited me if I was ever ill to the hospital he works in in vietnam. How sweet!
Then after two other buses and a tuk tuk later we arrived to utter bliss. As usual Pea and I were conferring endlessly about how to greet Trixie on arrival and avoid the most awkward of moments, however thankfully she saved us by grabbing us both for a hug. She made us feel at ease instantly and showed us our luxurious rooms equipped with big shower, comfy beds, english tv etc and then shuffling us off to town to meet the other volunteers. She said they were all out partying to wish two guys who had been volunteering farewell. If truth be told, Pea and I felt a piercing pain at the thought that two of the three boys working at global teer were departing. We had ideas they were the chizzled, bronzed bohemian travellers we had dreamt of meeting and therefore felt a piercing pain. However on meeting them we learnt they were a hilarious gay couple. Sad but not as sad if it had been the alternative!

Now dont get me wrong the ladies are WILD. Trixie wears pig tails in her hair, combats and smokes like a chimney, last night even to our horror she took a cigarette out as if to stub it and then sumasaults it in the air, consequently catching it in her lips! Each to their own. She is however the kindest most responsable woman alive and we could not feel safer. She made sure we were safe all last evening and showed us around all the bars, restaurants etc which are sensational! Amazing music, dancing in the street cocktails and bars to match those in mustique.

But dont for a minute think we are just here to lap it up like the stereotypical brits. Instead we had a briefing this morning about our teaching, the etiquette and we learnt some quite horrifying truths about the culture. Its shocking but fascinating to learn about the abuse that these children endure on a daily basis and the lows the women have to go to survive. Prostituion for example is rife however kept low key and women as young as 12 are forced out onto the streets. Not only that but there are tiny children begging 24/7 and people carrying around children which they may have rented for the night to pull the heart strings of local tourists. Can you believe it - renting a baby! Cambodia, and I have only been here a day, but has moved me more than anywhere Ive ever been and the mix of the bustle of tourism and the real poverty is quite something to take in. My eyes have been opened to so much already and I feel on arriving here I could stay for months. I really feel the teaching which starts on Monday is going to be challenging but so so amazing and cannot wait to tell you about all the edible babs. AAAAA cannot wait. Seen too many ones I want to throw in the backpack already!

Now must go the wrist is going, but just want to tell you all I miss you every day but could not be happier. Global teer is magical and just what I have always envisaged the gap year to be. Please midge and pidge read this to Grin and Grimp and tell them I miss them to pieces. Ill forward the link to the M-Ps.

Big hugs and kisses from Cambodia xxx