Oops.

Following all my previous ranting about how pants it is being a vegetarian, at Bangkok airport waiting for my flight to Cambodia...i had a huge craving for pastrami....and i couldn't take it anymore....i had to give it to temptation.....and so ate a huge sub with ham. And it was fantastic. No guilt - just pure unadulterated meat pleasure. And I haven't looked back since!

The two flights here from Thailand were fine, and not at all delayed like I had suspected. Although I did have to pay stupid excess baggage fee's (my bag is kg over evidently...). I threw a bit of a strop at the airport actually - I paid about 15 pounds fee for my first flight, and then 30 quid for my second - because even though it was the same distance it was "'ínternational"...b******s! Anyway, the flights were fine and I arrived here safely last Thursday. I was picked up from the airport by a woman called Trea who works for LanguageCorps who I am doing the course with and was dropped off at the house I am staying at. The house is really nice, although the fact that they call it a "villa" may be a slight exaggeration. I have a nice huge room with aircon, en suite, and most importantly hot water. I also have a gorgeous migraine inducing bright red floral bedspread. There is a communal kitchen and lounge with a TV and free internet. Its quite a way out of the centre near a big market called "The Russian Market" which sells everything you would ever need. It's in a residential area down a little road which is quite scary at night, purely because of the terrifying street dogs who terrorise me with their barking and snarling. I am a bit obsessed about rabies. They also have a puppy here at the villa - called, obviously, Kitty.

When I got here there were no other students here and so I spent the first night alone,which was a bit daunting. The next day however another girl Naomi arrived, who is really nice and definitely likes to party! She is also staying at the house and on Sunday the director of the organisation, Rick, arrived and he is also staying here for a couple of weeks. Friday night Naomi and I went out to sample the delights of Phnom Penh's nightlife - which is actually really good! Too many cocktails later we ended up in "Heart of Darkness is a dodgy and very touristy club and where I met an ex-monk. I though I could have possibly met the love of my life until he turned quite pervy and we were out of there before you could say 'moto!'. The next evening we went to a few more bars again, and in the last week I think i may have seen them all. Its Khmer (Cambodian) New Year here at the moment which basically means everyone escapes to the country and everything shuts. Saturday night was New Years Eve and at midnight on the dot it all went off. Cambodia, like Thailand, celebrates new Year's by having huge water fights and sure enough we got absolutely soaked in a bar. It should have really clicked what was about to happen when a guy came around handing out plastic bags 'to put your stuff in''. It was fantastic pouring buckets of ice cold water on people. Sunday was a hangover (dry) day but we did manage a little tour of Phnom Pehn and that evening we had dinner at a ridiculously posh restaurant with Rick and Andrew, who is one of the other two guys on the course.

So far I am actually really liking Phnom Pehn, although I thought I hated it. Cambodia is so very different to Thailand and Laos. I had forgotten how poor some parts of it are. Phnom Pehn is also completely different to Siem Reap where I was last year. Even though the ridiculous divide between poor and rich was obviously there, here it is even more so. Some parts of the city are beautiful - clean, big colonial buildings, bars, restaurants etc and just around the corner from that will be housing blocks which appear to built of paper with piles of rubbish and crumbling walls which look as though they are going to fall down at any moment. There is also a lot of begging here. If you go to the tourist areas every 3/4 mins you are approached either by little kids trying to sell you things or by women with babies strapped to their backs begging for money. Yesterday we were in a bar and this young guy who had no arm or legs jumped out of his wheelchair and started moving around the restaurant asking for money. It is incredibly hard saying 'no' to these people (and especially the kids) but I think it is probably best not to give them money and it encourages begging and validates it as an income. The more money these kids earn begging the less likely they are to enter into any sort of education. That's the way I see it anyway.

There are some things however which are ubiqiutous throughout Cambodia - like people bopping about the streets in their pygama's, and tuk-tuk's and moto's everywhere apart from obviously when you really really need one. The traffic is another thing will seems to be specific to Cambodia (although I've heard Vietnam is much much worse!) - there are cars, motorbikes, push bikes, cyclo's and tuk-tuks zooming about in all directions generally not looking at the road at all. The drivers, in particluar the moto drivers (who carry families of about 25 on one little motorbike) are always chatting on their phones, or to one of their many passengers, or staring at me, or playing chess and balancing another child on their shoulders. It is amazing millions of people arent killed on Cambodian roads everyday. The cars around here are all flash 4wheel drives whereas the motos are not in the best nick and are spluttering and stalling their way accross the city. In fact the moto driver who picked me up from the airport stopped a couple of times to fix his bike with a tiny bit of wire he happened to find in the back.

Its quite difficilt to explain why I love Cambodia so much (but then didnt I say that about Laos?! Perhaps Im just crap at explaining things...so much for my career in writing!). To me its a beautiful country, with beautiful people and a beautiful outlook on life.

I will tell you all about my course in the next blog!

Hope you are well, lots of love.

xxxxxxxxxx