Mum's Cambodian Christmas 2016

Arriving in early December (2016) Mum and I had some time together in Siem Reap to chill out. We had some nice dinners, hung out with friends, and took in the Angkor Photo Festival - much of which was centered around photos and interviews with Khmer Rouge survivors and was very interesting and special to see this older generation sharing something which normally remains silent.

Service of tea and lemon meringue pie at a little tucked away tea house.

'Tea is the elixir of life' - Lao Tzu


Dinner with friends at Mie Cafe.


Delicious cocktails


Flavored gin tasting party.
Both mine and mums were made in a hurry and tasted like drain cleaner! the passionfruit and pineapple ones someone made were delicious though! There were also some unusual flavours like blueberry, rosella and miracle tea. Somehow we were all pretty restrained (see quote below, no one wants that going down!) and I believe there is even some of the gin left to this day!

“The most dangerous drink is gin. You have to be really, really careful with that. And you also have to be 45, female and sitting on the stairs. Because gin isn't really a drink, it's more a mascara thinner. "Nobody likes my shoes!" "I made... I made fifty... fucking vol-au-vents, and not one of you... not one of you... said 'Thank you.'" And my favourite: "Everybody, shut up. Shut up! This song is all about me.” ― Dylan Moran

When I was at home sick over Christmas 2015 (and we should both have been in Cambodia) I promised mum dinner at Cuisine Wat Damnak - one of my favourite 'treat places' here and the dinner did not disappoint with Cambodian delicacies and a French Twist delicious wine and fabulous service, we had an awesome time. The final plate is of Cambodian fruits...

Served with chili salt two were quite delicious and the one that looks like cucumber is one of those fruits loved over here for it sour taste that sucks all the moisture from your moth - urgh!! The rest of the meal was so divine I took no photos!

We enjoyed a fabulous evening at Phare circus (acrobatic, no animals of course) watching their new show - 'Same same but different' which showed various aspects of life and how Cambodians and foreigners react to them. I love this show as I have been in so many 'same same but different' scenarios and have learned to love and embrace cultural differences here and in other countries (in the main!). The show illustrates how foreigners love to (Brits for sure!) queue and Cambodians all dive right in! How foreigners hate and avoid the rain, but Cambodians love and embrace it! How cultures eat and drink differently - and how foreigners sometimes overstay their welcome in restaurants and bars when Cambodians want to go to bed! It also illustrated aspects of the death of some of Khmer culture as foreign influence takes its toll, alongside how we can work together when things like power outs happen.It is a gentle, funny and poignant illustration of the world I straddle.

My work was very busy and mum had a really bad, persistent pain in her toe which really caused her issues in getting around. We had hoped to go to Myanmar, but for various reasons it fell off the cards. And will be enjoyed in Christmas 2017 with mum and bestie!

Christmas day was spent enjoying food, drink and silly gifts with friends, poolside. 

At the end of the year we headed first to Phnom Penh, before Kampot and Kep.

Our first stop in PP was the Royal Palace, then the Russian Market, followed by Toul Sleng (S21) and the Killing Fields.

Royal Palace.

Royal Palace.

Royal Palace.

We also headed to the Russian market... 

...and saw someone making the leather punched shadow puppets.

Having lived here a couple of years by this point I really felt it important to visit S21 and pay my respects. Mum and I took our own pace here in order to reflect and take breaks when needed. We were keen to be sensitive and took few photos - I did want to share a few as this is such an important part of recent Cambodian history and good for people to understand what happened.

The rules of the time.

S21 was a school (Toul Sleng) converted into a prison, during the Khmer Rouge regime. Here some of the worst atrocities took place. In some ways what got me the most was that the buildings were just like every other school I have ever seen or visited here in Cambodia, somehow this emphasized the juxtaposition of what normal life was like before it was destroyed.

The classrooms / cells here were filled with everyday objects turned into items of torture.

Memorial.

They also have a display of photos of people who were taken by the KR and some images, implements and stories of torture. Which, in my eyes, were not something to take photos of.

Killing Fields - somehow very peaceful, yet powerful. The place has many mass graves, and the infamous tree that babies ad children were killed against. Again, not a 'kodak moment'. We were actually quite shocked at the Khmerican tourist climbing on things and taking selfies and really not getting the significance of where she was. 

Soon enough we were down in Kampot, taking in river life and the sleepy town atmosphere.

One evening we enjoyed an amazing sunset river cruise where we saw both flying fish and fireflies!

There were four others on the boat with us and one of them had no idea how physics on a small, flat bottomed boat worked and kept running around the boat from side to side to take snaps, the guide had to keep trying to keep him still or move other people around the boat to keep us from capsizing, which could have been interesting!

 On my birthday / NYE we headed to the Fishmarket restaurant for a nice meal and some drinks. All along the river people (including kids as young as 2yo were letting off fireworks and soon enough we had made a couple of friends and were doing our best Harry Potter impressions too!

Soon we discovered that the place was due to shut at 10pm ish so the staff could have a party and welcome in the new year! We were soon ejected and realized everywhere else was also closing, so headed back to the hotel to enjoy the fizz we had bought with foresight by the river as we watched fire works and welcoming in the new year.

 We spent a day up at Greenhouse relaxing and swimming in the river. We also had a day in Kep - enjoying Rabbit Island, when we finally got there. Our tuktuk driver was about forty minutes and we had booked on a boat to go to the islands. We had to laugh as he seemed like a very methodical man whose tuk tuk read 'safety first' as he drove like a bat out of hell, looking through his one eye, way over any sensible speed all the way from Kampot to Kep (usually about an hour, this time about 40 mins) to get us to the boat! Terrifying!



We relaxed on the island for a while before heading back to get crab at the crab shacks on the mainland.

"The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach." - Henry Beston

Next up sundowner cocktails at Knai Bang Chatt looking out over the water...

Soon we were heading back to PP and then SR feeling refreshed and ready for the new year and after a few more nice treats and some time healing sore toes (mum) and bad tummies (both) it was time for mum to fly home. 

'I really don't want to say goodbye to any of you people.' - Christa McAuliffe

Nepal - Pashinupatinath and a surprise extra day

After a final relaxing morning at Shiva Puri I headed down the hill... 

..and back into the capital and to Pashinupatiath Temple - on my way to the airport. 

Pashinupatinath is on the banks of the Bagmati River which is the Nepalese equivalent of the Ganges in India. 

“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.
Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that? Always me, like the river itself, always flowing but always different, like the water flowing in the river, sometimes walking steadily along andante, sometimes surging over rapids furioso, sometimes meandering wit hardly any visible movement tranquilo, lento, ppp pianissimo, sometimes gurgling giacoso with pleasure, sometimes sparkling brillante in the sun, sometimes lacrimoso, sometimes appassionato, sometimes misterioso, sometimes pesante, sometimes legato, sometimes staccato, sometimes sospirando, sometimes vivace, and always, I hope, amoroso.
Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there’s too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain? Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen? Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want? Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own?” 

― Aidan Chambers, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

Along the riverside there are many people cremating their relatives. The place is bustling with reverence and also many sandhus and quite a few people begging and a couple of dodgy characters too- which I was not expecting. 

I wandered off into some side temples and found some smaller structures...

 

...and some beautiful paintings...

  

Then I headed up some steps and into another section of small temples....

 At the top of the steps amidst the small temples there was a class of young girls doing karate or jujitsu, a bunch of young men making a film, and a cow lowing. The whole place was unexpectedly noisy and alive with character.

"I can handle the craziness some of the time, maybe most of the time. But I know I can't handle it all of the time." - Chris Evans

 

  

Pashinupatinath Temple is a very holy place and as a non Hindu I was not allowed into some areas. Such as this, the very beautiful main temple.

 I did get a glimpse inside and it looked magnificent. 

I only had an hour as my flight was soon, so I rushed around and headed out, wishing I could have seen more or lingered a little.....

Soon enough I was back at the airport, heading through the initial security and trying to find the check in desk….still trying to find the check in desk…..joining queues and talking to locals who were off to Dubai and Oman and not finding my flight anywhere…..still trying to find the check in desk….discovering my flight had been cancelled and rescheduled……finding the Air Asia Office…..having a discussion with the staff about where on earth I was going to sleep tonight and 

how I was going to get home....

'An adventure is something that seems like a good idea, but when you are in the middle of it you don't want to be there!' - Grandma Lomax

....not to mention my meetings that were messed up…..and finally getting flights rescheduled and a bed at a rather beige hotel on the ring road for an evening. 

#Imissshivapuriandthefoothills #wheredidthecleanairgo #silencetoallnighttrafficlow. 

I had some dinner and managed some work despite the incredibly slow wifi before heading to bed.

Putting travel stress aside, I decided the best thing to do was make the most of the extra day. The wifi was appalling, so after a little slow going work I decided to walk to the Boudinath for one final last glimpse at the spectacular dome and a little painting shopping. Before catching flights back to Siem Reap successfully.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” - Helen Keller

“Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.” - Eckhart Tolle

Everest here I come! - Nepal - Himalaya flight

Our final breakfast together as a team before everyone headed off. It was strange to see the others go after such a lovely and interesting week. I spent the rest of the day typing up notes from our sessions and looking out over the view. My computer was still set in Cambodia time, so when it got to 6.45pm I headed up for a glass of wine, the staff looked a bit surprised to see me and once the wine arrived I found out it was only 5.30pm, but never look a gift horse in the mouth hey?! I sipped my vino, nibbled my popcorn and watched the sun go down over the valley. It was so nice to be up in the hills and above all the chaos of the capital!

 I was the only guest and had another lovely thali dinner with the owner who talked a little about the earthquake here, which was very sad and interesting. I headed for an early night as I had treated myself to an early morning Himalaya Mountain flight to look forward to…..

A very early morning saw me rising about 4.30am! The wonderful staff brought me some tea before escorting me to the car. The roads out here are interesting, especially in the dark! Some of the bumps and hills and corners and sheer drops reminded me of driving in Nambia.

We got to the tiny airport about 5.45am and I queued at the airline desk for about half an hour. The domestic terminal is smaller than the Falklands Islands airport, but bigger than Ascension, in other words, tiny. 

We had to ‘wait for the mountain’, but soon enough we were on our way. 

An hours flight in the Himalayas – with a bonus 20 mins extra as air traffic control wouldn’t let us land for a while (the only flight I have been happy to be stuck on – though I could have lived on that Harrods jet to the Falklands!).

I couldnt possibly remember which peak is which, but here are some of the best shots:

 

The triangular one sticking up - that's Everest!

"You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest." - Brian Blessed

The cabin crew were amazing pointing out all the mountains and even letting us in the cockpit to see the views from there. 

 

I was lucky enough to be in there as we turned and had Everest right in front of us – timing is everything!

"I had always fantasized about going to the Pyramids, the Great Wall; I've always been sort of obsessed with the whole notion of Everest." - Justin Zackham

I got back to the hotel in time for breakfast and discovered that the owner was taking coffee with a rather high profile government minister on his way for a walk in the hills. He is a leading MP of one of the districts and has held many government offices over the years, I was also told later that he was the father of the lady who had hoped to be engaged to the Prince that led the Royal Masacre after the engagement was denied – a very interesting and influential man and still fit as a butchers dog trekking up there in his 70's! 

"We don't even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome." - Isabel Allende

I felt rude to join at the usual meal table where they were sat, but the staff said it was fine, so I went out and hovered awkwardly for a moment before meeting them and taking a seat. Soon he was off on his walk with his gorgeous dog and bodyguard guide.

Then it was time for some sleep before lunch, and an afternoon taking in the view and doing some work whilst relaxing before dinner and another early night. 

"Sleep is the best meditation." - Dalai Lama