Where are they now.... red cross kids

So, this one is mostly for past volunteers who want to know what the kids are up to.

Ha and Thanh

feeding time

As you can see both these girls are feeding themselves now (remember back in January when getting Ha to hold the spoon would be a battle Sally, Now she won't let you take the spoon off her when she is done!). Thanh is still a bit messy, but practice makes perfect I say! I am also an advocate for shirtless lunch times. That way even if I wasn't here to supervise..... the carers might see, and follow suit, and have one less reason (cleaning them, washing more clothes) not to let the girls feed themselves. At least we can keep practicing everyday I am here!

Ha playing with other kids

Thanh is also walking all by herself. She will grab at anything possible to hold on to, but she will walk across the room alone as well! Such an improvement! She does still throw toys - a lot..... but she will also play with toys (particularly if someone sits with her to show her how!)

Ha's play skills are improving too. She enjoys playing with other kids now, often riding on the cars with them. Even more of an improvement though, she will play on her own and be quite happy. Bouncing on the "roger" horse things, riding around on the cars or sometimes pretend play feeding dolls. From the girl who would just follow you around with a sock asking you to put it on her, then taking it off and repeating the cycle, or wandering off out the gate if no one plays the sock game with her - it's a pretty big deal!


Nga

practicing drawing

Nga is a totally different little girl to the kid I met in January. Well, mostly different (we have occasional lapses into I'm-going-to-explore-this-medicine-cabinet moods if she feels ignored).

Nga loves to interact and does so much more productive play now! I try to give her jobs to keep her part of whatever we are doing (putting the dirty clothes into the washing basket when changing other kids nappies, I know Phuc has been getting her to help him while he does physio with other kids too). She does demand high 5's and much praise for each baby shirt safely delivered into the washing basket....... But that seems a small price to pay for happiness!

Nga giving herself at thumbs up after finishing
another puzzle

Nga quite enjoys drawing so today we worked on doing purposeful lines (up and down, sideways, circles, x's all those pre-prep groups watching OTs is paying off) instead of giant scribbles. When she gets it and gets a high 5 her whole faces lights up with pride and joy, it is amazing to watch!

Puzzles are still her favorite activity, and I am working on sign language while doing these. She seems to understand that different signs have different meanings, and get her what she wants! Teaching her more, and teaching the carers is the next step. The puzzles are getting more and more complex, from simple peg puzzles, which she needed lots of guidance to find the right hole and turn the pieces to make them fit, a few months ago to picture puzzles today - which she did amazingly at!

Deep in puzzle concentration

I am trying to think of a way to allow her access to the puzzles and building blocks, which stops that other kids being able to get into them. The difficulty is that most other kids are so young that they just want to pick up whatever toy someone else is playing with, walk around with it for a while, scream if you try to return the puzzle piece to the puzzle..... then drop it somewhere never to be seen again.

I am not totally sure how much she would enjoy the puzzles or blocks without the constant attention.... but as she gets more settled I am trying to lessen the high 5's for every single piece put in place - just for finishing the whole puzzle, or building the tower so high it falls down. Hopefully I can wean her off a little of that praise! Get her enjoying the game itself! But any suggestions of how a very tricky 9 year old can get into the toys..... but a collection of 3 year old can't, would be appreciated. I am thinking of going with height, but these kids are pretty good at playing stack-em-ups


I have ranted for quite a lot about Nga here....but to be honest I would say she is the child at red cross who has made the most changes. And who has gone from having basically nothing expected of her, to learning skills and problem solving. I am really happy with all the changes :)

Tam lifting her arms 

Tam is looking well. Her chest is mostly clear at the moment, and her cradle cap (or whatever it is that was happening on her head!) is almost all gone. These two health concerns clearing up have to make life a bit nicer for her! She adores the ramp and being taken for a walk outside in her chair. Bumps and lumps to go over have her laughing hysterically!

Tu and I work on a lot of standing when he is feeling up to it (he lets me know if he isn't!). He has such tiny little bird bones, I figure some weight bearing has to be a good thing for him!

helping to pack away toys

Thao (aka Spidie) and Phuc work on lots of standing and trying to take steps. She is still convinced that her craby crawl is the best way to get around. And she certainly does get around mighty fast! Hopefully seeing Thanh walking more and more will help motivate her a little.



The three (very cheeky) amigos are getting into just as much mischief as ever, but I don't expect (or want - I love their spunk) them to change any time soon! They really are only as crazy as I would expect any group of toddlers to be. Especially ones with minimal supervision!

"helping" to clean something up
(I'm not really sure anything needed mopping anyway :P)

I am trying to motivate them to do some drawing. They are always very excited to come and start, actually putting pencil to paper, or sticking with it for more than a minutes is no so successful. I have so far had no success in trying to teach one that the point of pencils isn't to bite off the end - then hold it out asking for a new one because yours wont write..... But with time, maybe they will come to enjoy colouring, or scribbling.

Trying his hardest to steal my camera! 

summaries of a new disability centre, and moving on

Our last two weeks in Phnom Penh have been spent at the Veterans International Centre (VIC) where people with disabilities can come to get wheelchairs/prosthetics/physiotherapy/etc.
We moved to here because with our lack of nursing skills, Nancye and I found that we aren't super helpful in a nursing clinic. And not so many people with disabilities were coming to the clinic as we expected.

The VIC was much more fitting with our experiences and busy!

There are a couple of dorms where people from out of town can come and stay. It seems people stay for around 3 weeks, then head home for a couple of weeks "holiday" and if need be come back.

The centre is pretty varied. They seem to see a lot of kids with torticollis or club foot. Lots of Spinal cord injuries (one from a bike accident, one who fell off a house and one who got shot in the spine by police while walking home from university, past a protest). Quite a lot of prosthetic leg making, some from mines, some from bike accidents, plus remaking them as people need new ones.

So we got shown around and introduced to everyone, then shown to a person. The physios here all talk at least reasonable English. But the difficulty is that they are all always busy with their own patients and not really able to translate for more then 30 seconds at a time. So there was a lot of smiling, and pointing at myself saying Lucy, pointing at the child and trying to guess how to pronounce their name. Luckily for us the notes are written in English and a lot of the people we saw had been seen by a previous volunteer from America.

The interesting thing to see it that the physio's seem to have very very specific areas of speciality. Like, rather than specialising in paediatrics - specialising in clubfoot only. So there seem to be a lot of gaps for people who don't fit into one of those categories.

some of our highlights:

Organising Heung to have a splint for eating made. Heung had a traffic accident and now has incomplete spinal cord injury making him a quadriplegic. Before we got this he was using both hands to try to hold a built up fork and scoop at rice. We didn't actually see any go into his mouth so in practice I don't think he ever actually tried to feed himself - just had family do it for him. with the splint he can get the spoon in his mouth with one arm (sometimes using the other for support). He had a really beautiful smile on his face once he got the splint working (it probably wasn't until then that he actually worked out what the heck we were all doing! We weren't able to remove the spoon from this. So we made a second one that he can use while he practices writing, using his phone etc.

Seeing a little girl come back two days after her initial appointment....
 Initially we were told that she has CP. But when we did the initial assessment it didn't seem like she actually has any diagnosis. At 1 year old she isn't standing or walking and her parents are getting worried. she can sit perfectly well (great posture actually) when placed in sitting. But refuses to stand. My diagnosis...... not tummy time. This kid started screaming when she was put on her tummy, even when she laid on Mums chest. Every time she cried or screamed she got picked up again. We tried to explain that she is crying because it is new, and hard and she isn't actually getting hurt (so leave her there!) but we weren't really sure how much got translated, or whether the parents would let her cry. Two days later she comes back. We actually didn't recognise her because when we looked over she was lying on he tummy playing happily. Amazing! Unfortunately most of the young kids were scared of us weird white people and would cry if we picked them up, touched them or sometimes - looked at them too long! This little girl was definitely in that category! So we had to use a teddy bear to demonstrate to mum how to help her roll over, or sit up by herself. Mum did really well, but it is so much harder without being allowed to touch the child. And without being able to speak the language!
It was a pity that we only saw her for the first time at the very end of our trip. I think if we had been able to see her more than twice she would have gotten use to us (we kind of got a smile out of her towards the end!) and we would have had her crawling! She picked up new skills so fast once she got tummy time!

The even more rewarding part of that session and trying to explain to the physio translator how very very important being on tummy is for babies came later that day. We weren't really sure if the physio understood what we were trying to explain about the importance, but then later thast day I looked over and saw him with a little baby on it's tummy. He was looking at how well it could hold it's head up, and even using a rattle to entice it to look. That was great! Hopefully they will continue to fight the tummy time fight. I think culturally here kids don't spend enough time just being on the floor, rolling around or whatever. Every time I go past a house and notice babies they are carried, or in a hammock.

Laos - the North

Firstly - apologies for the delays in updates. This is partly due to meeting up with more friends and embarking on a tour of Laos - with an extremely full itinerary! and party because my laptop has finally decided that bits regularly breaking off it isn't enough and it refuses to turn on.
So the next few collections of stories and photos may appear out of order - or with much delays!

From Luang Prabang we drove up the most impressive range road I have ever been on.
It was like the gillies range on steroids.... then some.
300km of winding up a mountain, then down the other side, then up another mountain and down the other side. I am actually not really sure if at the end of all it we were at the top, or at the bottom. It was a long long 9 hours in a winding van. For the two people in our party who get travel sick this was a particularly hellish trip! But the scenery was stunning!

We were rewarded when we finally arrived in Phonosovan. Land of the Jars. well, Plain of jars. Basically it is full of giant stone jars and unexploded bombs.

 

The Jars are of mysterious and not entirely understood origin. They are carved out of rock and clumped together in sites. Best guess seems to be that they were used to put human remains in, then when the person had completely decomposed the remains were removed and buried nearby. Or possible people were cremated inside, then buried afterwards.

This red sign apparently says - don't go past here. Bombs.
You do just keep getting reminded here!

Locally there are many stories - we heard that after a great battle the victorious army used them to make "Lao Lao" or rice whiskey. Which would have been a lot of effort for some lao lao - these things are
massive! and carved out of solid rock!
We also heard that a giant built them.... but I am not quite clear why the giant man wanted to build them.

Some talk was of a fertility ceremony, complete with claims of people being locked inside until they made a baby (Actually, I can't really remember if we were told about people getting locked inside - or we made that part up)

It was pretty amazing to see the field full of jars. Some of them 2 metres tall, most around 1 or 1.5. Plus the sun came out for us (an improvement on when we arrived the day before in pouring rain and everyone told us the weather would be the same today!). The view around fields and farm was stunning. Bright blue sky, lush green grass, deep red fertile looking soil.
But looking into the farm land did bring back the truth of the area..... bombies.

The night before we spent some time at the Mine Advisory Group (MAG) museum. It was shocking to get the full picture of how ravaged by bombs Laos is. Especially considering that they never engaged in war, and America technically "wasn't dropping bombs". More horrifying is the nature of cluster bombs - which are designed to kill and maim people - not to destroy military building or weapons. Add the fact that about 30% didn't explode on impact (usually on impact with villages and farms that may have been along the route of the Ho Chi Minh trail - or that the Army decided to destroy so that communists couldn't use them for food or supplies. Not that there was any suggestion these villages were providing them with food).

Anyway, about 30% of the 2 million+ tons of bombs didn't explode. Instead they are in farms, or school yards, or stuck halfway up a clump of bamboo just waiting for someone to shake the tree. People are constantly afraid of farming their own land, afraid of their kids playing or even going to school. Whole villages are unable to have a stable source of food because clearing new farm land, or new space for houses is terrifying! In one village the locals were able to identify over 100 bombs that they knew the location of from memory, and this is not the first clearing mission in that village.

The most shocking, disgusting part of this all.... assuming that you have got past the fact that 30 years on children die when they pick up a bright yellow, tennis ball sized object.... is that humans are still using cluster bombs.

MAG marker - basically stay on the white side
because the grey side might blow you up!

I don't really know how normal, regular people can help stop this. But we absolutely need to. War is a terrible horrible thing... but leaving millions of tiny bombs strewn around civilian land forcing people to live in fear, and risk their life just to provide their kids with barely enough to eat is unacceptable and we normal people need to find a way to stop it, because it is obvious that the people with bombs won't stop on their own.

Laos - the land of much templing

Yes, templing is a new word, verb meaning to visit temples. If you go to Laos you might just find that you also need templing in your vocabulary. It seems to be the popular tourist pastime!!

Laos is beautiful! It is the chilled out, calm, slow relaxed version of Cambodia or Vietnam. Only while walking around the tourist centric night markets did we ever here "hello, you buy something" and it was from maybe every 10th stall, not the constant barrage of harassment you get in similar situations in Vietnam or Cambodia.

Some of our highlights -
This temple in southern Laos that is dated at around the 5th century. It was a nice afternoon of wandering around and enjoying the view. We even ran into some other aussies that we met 3 weeks earlier in southern Cambodia!
The view here was stunning - all of Laos had pretty amazing views- unfortunately we couldn't linger too long because our plane from Cambodia was 3 or 4 hours late, and we had a long, long way to drive that afternoon!

The view down to the older temple

Down to the 4000 islands (or, possibly 400 islands seeing as it's wet season and so the river is up). We boated down the mekong and went looking for freshwater dolphins. Weirdly to look for the dolphins you boat to one specific place in the dead centre of the river and wait. Not sure why people seem to expect the dolphins to be only in that one spot..... but they weren't the day we were there!

someone asked the guide what the water wheel was for....
He claimed it was to change the direction of the water and
seemed quite put out when we disagreed and suggested it
is for power generation. Not really sure how it would change the
water direction even if that was the aim.

We spent some time visiting various waterfalls. One included a shrine - which appeared to be a giant tree encased in glass. We never managed to establish why they helicoptered this tree out of the river after it feel over and built a shrine it. I have to assume it was a special tree.

We went into the Danger Zone!

We also found a pretty cool coffee plantation /shop. We didn't have time to do the whole tour, but the guy was very informative informative and when he didn't have enough roasted coffee for us to purchase he showed us how to roast it.

From there we headed up to luang prabang for the real templing to begin. Not to mention some nice shopping in the night markets and sampling some good rice wine. As opposed to sampling Vietnamese rice wine - which can be used as a fuel source, this one was smooth and nice!

Luang Prabang also had this amazing waterfall. It was really a series of waterfalls heading up a hill, which meant we were able to just walk up a little way from the change areas and have a water hole all to ourselves (it was a weekend and this place is obviously very popular with tourists and locals alike). The amazing part is the water, which was crystal clear and a very inviting blue.

I very much enjoyed swimming and sitting in the water. I think I need to spend more time just hanging out in creeks and waterfalls - it always makes me feel perfect and relaxed and grounded.

We couldn't linger too long however as we had a Baci ceremony to get to.


The Baci ceremony was done by ex-monks and nuns. Basically it is a blessing and good luck ceremony. The white strings were tied to our wrists and with each one that was tied on the monk or nun tying it gave a special blessing.

This statue was probably my favorite.
I have no idea why he is lying on what
seems to be the roof of this little house!

We got up extra bright and early and gave alms to the monks. We were told we didn't need any thing special. I specifically asked if we needed a scarf, or if we needed to kneel..... the guide said no and he took us to buy biscuits (which, turned out to be individually wrapped chocolate coated biscuits). When we turned up in the morning with out bag of biscuits the kindly women next door took one look.... then went and got us each a scarf and showed us how to wear it, then they got some cardboard to kneel on.... and gave us their mats! Then they got bowls so that we weren't using plastic bags to hold our offerings. Then as each monk comes past we each put and offering in the bowl. Which made it hard to judge - do I have enough.... do I have too much, should we each give a chocolate to every monk.... or will we run out! Anyway, we were very grateful to the ladies who helped us out!

Vientaine featured plenty more temples. Which we were well done with by this point! but Buddha park does deserve a mention, for being so massive and for being quite creepy. If memory serves there are over 200 statues related in some way to Buddhist stories. Turns out the statues that aren't totally creepy themselves, have creepy back stories.One example being a statue of a man and a woman kneeling down holding out her hands. They looked fairly normal - but turns out he was going around cutting off people's fingers because he thought if he had 1000 fingers he would be immortal, and the woman is his mum whose had that last fingers that he needed.

This little girl and her brother live in a village we
stopped off in. Kari gave her a koala and she immediately
handed it back to her brother. So we gave her another one for
herself. 

I believe this is a frog monster eating the moon

Siem Reap

making palm leaf walls

We started our time in Siem Reap not with a trip to the temples, but instead by going on an eco-tour/sustainable help-local-people type tour. It involved visiting a local village and having lunch with a family (who get paid for cooking our food), helping families to do what ever jobs it is they regularly do so we can see what life is like for them, and walking around meeting people.

grandmother and children of the family we made walls for

We rode into town on an ox cart and met a local family who were busy weaving palm leaves into walls for their house. They showed us how to help and we sat down and made a few wall pieces. These will get fitted together to form totally waterproof walls and roof for the family.
Our guide also talked us through some of the other activities that they often do in the village and how local people typically live. Upon finding out we were Australian he also exclaimed - Australia.... your prime minister is funny. This was not the first time someone has made that as the first statement about Australia, but funny varies from crazy to stupid or hilarious.

school made from water bottles

We also went walking through the village and visited the school sponsored by this tour organization. They provide the school free for children to help them learn English and practice other subjects. Most kids only attend school for half days in Cambodia, so for the other half they can come here. The walls are made of water bottles filled with rubbish/plstic bags/cloth. Great recycling I think!!

the hilarious sewing women

There was also a hilarious collection of sewing ladies working at the school. They insisted we come in a sit down with them, showed us what they are making, and seemed to find anything we said or did outrageously funny!!



The next day we settled in for a good dose of temples! My advice to anyone thinking of visit Cambodia / Ankor Wat would absolutely be to go in summer. Yes, it is somewhat hot.... but Australia is somewhat hot anyway. Yes there is a good chance that you might get rained on - but this cools you down from problem number 1. Mostly, the level of other people is dramatically reduced! Even at this reduced amount I found walking around Siem Reap difficult due to the number of tourists (mostly it was those that are so drunk they are dancing in the streets in a bikini, or so rude they are walking around temples in a mid-drift top and short shorts that got on my nerves). We were able to get away from people and sometimes see temples more or less alone.... but in the main sites were having to squeeze past people and wait for entire bus loads of people to take 20 selfies each before we could look at a carving. I imagine that in winter - which is high season, it must be hellish here!


Once you cope with / find strategies to lessen the other tourists' presence - you start to realise the massive size of these temples. It is pretty incredible. Ankow Wat itself is the largest religious building in the world. It also features amazing carvings depecting legends around the base. We declined the offer of a tour (although other people said they regretted not getting a tour.... We had done some pre reading and were too cheap to pay 3 each!). We were glad we did, I read aloud from the lonely planet book at the start of each carving wall so we all knew what was going on. At one point we were overtaken by a group with guide - who must have been providing much less information than the single paragraph I had!

My favorite was definitely Beng Melea. It took us almost 2 hours to get there in tuk tuk.... but because we left at dawn we were already finished walking around and leaving as bus tours arrived. The rest of the time we were completely alone. This is one of the jungle temples. It is slowly getting eaten by forest. It is kind of nice to see that once people leave.... the earth will just take back it's space. Grow over anything we leave behind. It must be very hard for the people in charge though. On one hand they cant move these trees because the trees are now holding up temples, plus people find it so interesting and serene to see the forest taking over. But on the other side of the argument, if they don't do something it won't be too long before the temple is nothing by crumbs at the base of the jungle.

The boat from hell, actually a lovely trip!

We decided to take a boat from Battambang to Siem Reap.
This involved deliberation over a few days as we read various reviews for this boat trip (which would be 8ish hours stuck on a boat once we committed!). Reviews tended to suggest that the boat was a hellish horror ride and everyone was surely going to die on the capsized boat. Other reviews described it as the best part of their trip to Cambodia!

We decided that as long as our expectations were way low.... things could only go up and it would be a better way to see floating village and general life in Cambodia than taking a tour out of Cambodia's most touristy town ever!

our boat

farmlands from the boat

We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the boat. We decided we maybe set expectations a little too low.....There were 6 or 7 of us sitting on the roof (better views, a breeze and more space!) Plus around 20ish people down below.Also note the dark storm clouds that were threatening (and occasionally wetting) us the entire journey.

We were sharing the top of the boat with a dutch girl who kept telling us about how bad the sun is and that we all should go downstairs (she did go downstairs when it warmed up at about 8.30) - we figured that we had hats, long shirts, sunscreen.... and at least here there is an ozone layer to protect us! a kiwi guy, and 2 British girls who really should have been the ones getting the sun lecture.

Having to reapply sunscreen every hour (almost!) and have raincoats on hand for quick cover-ups was worth it for these views!

trading boat, it appeared to trade exclusively in green coconuts and blue poly-pipes

we did get blue sky for parts of the journey

We also past lots of little fishing boats and floating villages. Or people going to or from market, kids being delivered by boat to the floating school. Very different lives! Lots of kids smiling and waving and yelling out hello too. We stopped at various locations dropping of supplies and people before we reached the giant Tonle Sap lake.

Local kids and families

Some of the highlights

These are actually crocodile farms. When we went past a couple I was trying to work out why their fish farm had some much space out of the water. Then, after I managed to see into one, trying to work out why they had tires in them.... Eventually I got a better look and realized they were full of crocodiles

This weed is devastating the rivers. It is seeing stuff like this that makes me so glad that customs and DPI are so strict on people bringing stuff into the country. Apparently this was originally introduced by the French from the Amazon, because they thought it would be a good place for fish to breed and so the people can catch more fish. Turn out, the fish don't eat it, it grows incredibly fast and it jams up boat motors when you drive over it.

Tonle Sap lake. It is gigantic! I don't think think the lake is even really full yet because it is still the very start of the wet season!

exploring Battambang

The bamboo train carriages

Exploring Battambang first required a 6 hour bus ride. Luckily we managed to get into a minivan, so not a giant bus and we managed to get the seats up the front. Although, when we asked the travel agent lady if we can sit in the front she got this confused and scared and appalled look on her face. Then said... "you can sit in the back, not the front.... driver sits in the front". People are so literal! It is like, everyone has autism and takes everything totally literally all the time.

This kid hitched a ride with our train.
He got let off halfway along the track
at what I assume was his house

We found a friendly enough tuk tuk driver to take us from the bus to the hotel and so decided to got on a tour with him the next day.



First up the bamboo train. These train carriages are flat boards with a little motor and two sets of wheels that hook onto the very dodgy train track. Turn out, real trains don't run on this track because the lines are so dodgy and wavy and terrible. For $5 each we got to ride out to the end of the line and back.  It was actually a lot more fun than I had expected. We got to look at the countryside scenery, wave at kids, and the train went quite fast - now I see why people referred to it like a horizontal roller coaster! Especially as some parts the train tracks were noticeably uneven.

Unfortunately at the end of the line you are made to get off and spend 10 minutes standing awkwardly in the centre of a group of market stalls selling scarves and "bamboo train tshirts". At least, awkward if you don't want to buy - or even look at the products in the shop (not look at was because I didn't want the harassing. total indifference is the way to go).

The wibbly tracks

Also a collection of children trying to give us free little things (grasshoppers, stars etc) made from palm leaves. "For you" "no thank you" "Free, free for you" "no thankyou" "TAKE IT it free take it". For a "free" item the kids were incredibly rude and pushy. No doubt because once you take the free thing you are guilted into buying a selection of crap woven bracelets. Or something. I refuse to buy anything, accept tours for money, or give money to kids. My theory is if they are earning cash having fun talking with tourists or by handing out bracelets what is their motivation to go to school? Many kids I have met in Vietnam are so excited to see tourists and talk to them to practice English. And if these kids wanted to talk to us that would have been great fun for everyone - and I would have happily hosted an impromptu English lesson. But no, just forcefully yelling TAKE IT FREE does not make me inclined to interact with them at all.

Anywho, The bamboo train then got loaded back onto the platform for our return journey. we obviously got here before the rest of the tourists because on the return journey we had to disembark and dismantle our train to let other people go on the one way track. The rule is..... the least loaded train has to make way for the other train. It was fun to have to jump off and wave to people going past.... or be the victorious ones who didn't have to jump off!

This is how the dismantle the train to let others pass

The end was also a bit of a let down.... the money taking person started telling us to tip the driver. Personally I hate this. We payed $15 for this short ride on a basic train thing. Our tuk tuk for the whole day of driving around various bumpy country roads, talking to us and telling us stories and Cambodian fables and all his petrol/tuktuk/bike repairs was $20. We actually told the guy that $15 seems like enough money. I think tips are for specially good service. The driver didn't talk with us (I know he probably didn't speak English.... but I have had amazing and hilarious conversations / interactions with people with no actual language being understood on either side). It also wasn't the driver who asked for / looked annoyed when we didn't tip - It was the money taking guy who just sits around in the shade all day. So I wonder if when people tip, he pays the driver less and keeps more for himself. But maybe I am being too sceptical.

Much stairs at Ba Nan

Next we went to Ba Nan temples. These were surprising far away, but a really nice drive down little country roads and past villages. Lots of kids waving and shouting hi! We then had to tackle to formidable 356 steps to the top. The first section seemed like a cruel punishment (not sure why it was so bad.... in Phnom Penh we were staying on the 4th floor of an elevator-less hotel). I actually expected once we reached the top we would have another set as big as the first.... but it was nice and small.
The view over some forests and bamboo groves as well as the old, crumbling temples at the top made the climb well worth it.
Back down for lunch. We were pretty glad that we ate lunch AFTER the climb, we saw a few of the people who were at the bamboo train arriving and lunching - I pity them climbing those stairs on a full stomach!

More stairs. they seemed never ending!

There were 5 temples like this as the reward
at the top of all those stairs!

We were also pretty impressed that people
must have carried all these stones all
the way up this hill!

Some seem a little.... lean-y

Next we loaded back into the tuk-tuk, this time it was a little bit mystery tour like because we forgot to ask where we were going. It was also down a road that had suffered the beginnings of the wet season. But it was interesting because this road is obviously a short cut that gets a lot less tourist actions. People were staring and waving a lot more!

Monkeys hanging on the stairs

Turns out we were headed for a mountain with more steps (yey). The tuk tuk driver did give us the option of paying $3 each to get driven up the mountain. We opted to be cheapscates and get some extra exercise on the stairs. I am so glad we did. The views at each different height were really interesting. Plas I found a random little cave to explore, but I didn't have a light... and no one else came in with me so I had to turn back before it got too dark.We also turned a corner to discover..... treacherous path of monkeys.... Yes, last week I let monkeys crawl all over my head. and that was fun - but I was fairly certain that those monkeys wouldn't bite me (although, one did bite Nancye a little bit) and I was totally sure that those monkeys wouldn't have rabies. These monkeys seemed much less predictable.
We opted to follow the rules of the wildlife path - don't show your teeth, don't threaten and don't look them in the eyes, and slowly walk past the monkeys.
The strategy worked and no one got attacked. Our guide did later tell us that sometimes the monkeys bite people (thanks for the warning buddy!) but I believe those people had fruit / tried to touch or pet the monkeys.

monkeys hanging in trees above the stairs (just waiting
to drop down on someone)

At the top was a pagoda, a series of people guarding the pagoda from monkeys (with slingshots) and a few people trying to sell drinks to thirsty tourists. We found some stairs leading through a cave/valley and back up the other side. We then heading off down the road to find the killing caves (a place where the Khmer Rouge would kill people and use the cave as disposal for bodies). Here we had a 13-ish year old boy come running up and inform us that the killing caves are that way (up a side path that looked to us like it went to a statue of a buddha and nothing much else. We thanked him, and tried to work out how we can walk up there without him being our "guide". Eventually telling him that we don't need a guide. I felt a bit like he did help us, and maybe I should tip him a tiny amount. But he kept harassing us. Telling us that he needs money for school and going and going and going. We also quickly realised that actually, where we were walking towards would have taken us directly to the cave, and his directions were a detour designed to make us feel like we need to pay him.

The view from the top. 

the random cave we found to walk through.

The caves here didn't really have any information or much to look at. But, we also didn't have to pay to get in. I was glad that we walked up the stairs though - that was definitely the highlight of that part of the trip.

The amazing incredible fairly lame bat cave

Once back down the driver asked if we want to stay to watch the bats come out. He said it would be at about 5pm (in an hour). I have seen plenty of fruit bats at Tolga.... but I didn't mind sitting and having a cool drink to wait if the other people wanted to watch. 5 turned into 6.... and we were fairly ready to leave - but just as we asked to go the bats started. I guess if you watched the bats for an hour, the shear number might be amazing. but I expected more to be pouring out like some amazing column of batty goodness.







The next morning we were up bright and early to have breakfast. We thought it would be easiest to get breakfast at our hotel....  the sign said we had to order 30minutes before - but that way we could finish getting ready for our morning cooking class while we wait and still have time to walk into town for the class.

Market tour with the cooking class

Over an hour later I started to hunger rage a little bit.... particularly when we saw 3 takeaway boxes that had to be our breakfasts disappear into the hotel... and 10 minutes later no food was visible. I found a back room with our food, two people wandering around (as far as I could see neither were preparing our food or putting it on plates) they didn't speak English so I went to find the reception woman. She was wandering around cleaning a table and chairs (admittedly, this was where they served us breakfast - so she was making it nice.... but she had an hour and a half to do this earlier). After I got a bit short with her about where the damn cooked breakfast that surely must be cold is, she did go inside, and 5 minutes later our breakfast arrived.

live fish (well, some live)

less live bugs mmmm bugs

We devoured it before they returned with butter and jam for the toast. Not sure if that meant we ate way too fast.... or shows how much longer they took to bring some butter for the eggs and toast.

The cooking class was much more fun! and much more delicious! We learnt to make 3 dishes and ate them..... and I will be hosting some Asian dinner parties when I return! I miss cooking for myself!

We got a market tour, bought some of the ingredients for the food and then learnt to make Beef Lok Lak, Fish Amok and spring rolls.

That night we headed off the see the Cambodian Circus. This was originally set up as an arts school for refugees in camps on the Thai border who did art therapy to help them after the Khmer Rouge. It was hugely successful and evolved to include dance, music and circus. The aim was partly to help people but also to prevent the arts from being lost because many artists were killed during the khmer rouge regime.

Now the school is set up in a very poor community which has a lot of problems with drugs / gambling / etc. They aim to get all the kids to school, and also teach them skills that they can use at the circus and to get jobs other places.

Me with the performers :) 

The skills of the guys were amazing! I loved it! I mean, I love most circuses.... but this was extra awesome! I actually plan to go again in the next few days in Siem Reap (they have a second school there!).