Wednesday 9th August 2006 I am now in Cambodia, in Chris's house in Battambang. Chris has just gone back to work for the afternoon, having been home for lunch, and I am here with his Khmer (Cambodian) housekeeper/maid! Quite strange having what is effectively a maid - she cooks delicious Khmer meals - with lots of rice, vegetables, chicken, pork and fish which she buys from the local market. She also does all the cleaning and the laundry - and the washing up! Feels a bit wrong just sitting here typing as she slaves away - but by Cambodian standards this is quite a good job - and she seems pretty happy. She chats away to Chris in Khmer - I've been very impressed by the standard of Chris's Khmer. The house is a wooden building, on only one floor but with quite high ceilings - it has electricity and cold running water - but the water is never freezing cold and in this heat a cold shower is quite refreshing. There are two bedrooms with mosquito nets over the beds. There is no glass in the windows just screens to stop mosquitoes getting in and shutters outside. The kitchen is really basic and there is no washing machine - Poh (the housekeeper) does all the washing by hand in a bucket on the floor, scrubbing the clothes on a wash board. We came over to Cambodia from Bangkok yesterday - the whole journey took all day starting with a 4 and a half hour bus journey to the last town on the Thai border. We then got a tuk-tuk to the actual border - I then had to get my Cambodian visa before going over the border. We then got a taxi to Battanbang which took around 2 hours due to the road, which is just a dirt track, which turns to mud when it rains leaving huge pot holes for the traffic to negotiate around. There were numerous motorbikes, cars, lorries and bicycles all driving on whichever side of the road was better! After an hour or so the road became concrete with actual road markings. We passed through the town where my hospital is before arriving in Battambang. Cambodia is really different to Thailand - much poorer and a lot less developed, and the first town we came to in Cambodia is supposed to one of the worst.....I'll describe more about what its actually like here another time.