Hey,

wow only two more sleeps in Cambodia!! Cant believe it. Have done so much though!!! Have visited one of the seven wonders of the world - Angkor Wat!! absolutely amazing, was built between 900 and 1300 and yet so resilient. and yes, i did go to the temple where tomb raider was filmed - the trees growing amongst the temple is amazing. the number of tourists was incredible, traffic jam everywhere! kinda spoilt the atmosphere - so commercial now.

today we visited the last village, it was a training centre for pig farmers - lots of cute babes!! i am never eating pork again.

throughout this trip the main focus has been on studying and meeting people involved in income generation projects and micro finance - i will try and desribe the amazing people i have met - for those interested, read on

one lady really sticks in my mind, she can best be desribed as fiesty. extremely outgoing and confident - she was one of the poorest in her village as her husband was paralysed after an accident - she and her children - four kids - were surviving on a tiny plot of rice and her children did not all go to school - she received a micro loan, i think $50 US and was able to buy a pig and some chickens - with the profit she made from her animal raising she biult a new house - three times as big as the old one - so it was 12 times 12 metres and made out of wood, not straw thatch, now her old house is the barn!! so amazing, she was able to pay back the loan at 2% interest, which then went on to help another family. its a revolving loan and all across cambodia with funding from NGO's like caritas villages have established a micro bank to enable sustainable income generation. it is understanable why handouts and th welfare system in Australian is not working when you compre it with this grassroots movement which empowers people, rather than just feeding them. i can defintely imagine pig and chicken farms sprouting up in the suburbs of perth!!

anyways hopefully that will give everyone a taste of what i am actually doing here in Cambodia!!

i will never be tired of the smiles of the people here! so friendly and genuine.

shopping is going great too - i am getting good at bartering!!

i am in love with a buddhist monk! doesn't sound possible but they are so lovely and very approachable - not focusing entirly on the inner spirit!!!

the monks here wear orange/yellow robes and shave their skulls as part of their beliefs, they also tend to carry umbrellas around in the hot sun!! they also hoon aroung on motorbikes with their robes flapping in the wind!!

we went to a pagoda (which is what buddhist churches are called) to visit a project that provides accomadation in the city to people who have hiv/aids and are coming from the countrysde for treatment. the monks look after them and do spiritual exercies with them and workshops with other aids victims - really really good project. we were breifed on it in the pagoda by the monk team leader!!! so funny, we thougt they would be very distant - i almost fell over the first time a monk came up to me in an internet cafe and said "hello"in perfect english. the monks are not allowed to touch females at all but they are so friendly and approachable - and they love taking pictures with their digital cameras - the monks at the project we visited were only in their twenties, whilst we were listening to the monk team leader another monk was taking pictures of us and laughing - we "barang" (the cambodian word for forienger) were apparently very funny!! the icing on the cake was when the monk team leader whipped out from under his robe a stack of business cards and gave them to us!!! that is a wicked sourvenir!!!

have had so many wicked experiences its hard to remeber them all!! drinking from fresh coconuts with a straw stuck straigt in is memerable though! i am a pro at khmer dancing as well - have been treated to heaps of traditional dancing.

heaps of the villages we have visited have been intereste in australia and particuarly the agriculture there - i have been delegated by my group as the farm girl and have been answering them all - hard to explain the concept of an australian farm such as my family's of 400 hectares when the average "farm"here is half to one hectare!!

am seriously considering coming back to volunteer in an orphange here - have had such a ball interacting with the kids and teaching them nursery rhymes - i think i defintely want to be a teacher! dad r u happy!

lee - ta for your profound message!!

i am going to phnom penh tomorrow morning and will fly to bangkok the day after

anyways will have to say chum reap leah no - which means goodbye in khmer

love trisha