G'day Mate- Sydney

Sydney, Australia: 

We got a cheap airline to take us to Sydney , which was the equivalent of being on Easy Jet for 8 or so hours. When we landed we had no trouble going through it was very easy, unlike them TV shows you see back home. We walked off the plane, got our luggage and decided what was the best way ( or cheapest) to get to our hostel. We decided to get the local bus for only around 7 dollars each, In Sydney this is very cheap as we would soon find out. The journey to the hotel was easier than I had imagined, maybe this was because I was excited to finally make it to Australia. Last time we run out of money and couldn't go, so I

Beautiful View at Blue Mountains

was eager more than ever to make it here! We booked a bed each in a 6 bed dorm was something ridiculous, we were still use to paying ten dollars for a luxury room in SE Asia. We paid a little more to be central and to have a good hostel, when we arrived they upgraded us to a 4 bed dorm, which made me pleased. The two boys in our dorm were very quiet and worked during the day, so it was like having our own room to ourselves most of the time. The first thing we did was put our bags in the room, have a mooch around the hostel and decided that we were
hungry and KFC was definitely calling. Now we are use to eating gourmet meals for 3 dollars each, we were about to get kfc with no thrills for a mere 10 dollars each, it soon became apparent that I would be chef George for the foreseeable future. Anyway after using kfcs free wifi and eating their delicious hot wings, we decided to go for a walk. We were very jet lagged and ended up walking around 4 miles or so to see the Famous Sydney Harbour and Bridge, before we knew it, it was 1 am and we were roaming the streets in Sydney , we weren't even drunk , which makes a change.  We decided to eventually go back and try to sleep. We tried and almost failed, finally getting some shut eye at a silly time.

James at Sydney Harbour

The next day we had to go to the bank, get a bank card in Australia for when we start working out here, we also managed to sort out of tax file numbers ( national insurance for all of you wondering, keeping it legit and all that), and last but no means least a Aussie Number. Once all that was sorted we decided to go food shopping, our hostel had a huge kitchen and we defo needed to make the most of it, saving up our dollar. We was shocked a packet of mushrooms is literally 3.50 English pounds, how is that even possible? More interestingly meat was so so cheap. A huge piece of steak for 6 dollars, so it soon became apparent that we was becoming raging meat eaters because we couldn't afford the veg. we saved some much money by cooking, When I say 'we cooked' that means I cook, James watches and don't offer to wash up at the end of it. He needs whipping into shape. James's reply to him not helping out is usually along the lines of  'When your my wife in a couple of years time, you'll be a good one with all the practice I'm giving you now' , speechless. Thinking about it, I don't think anyone eats out in Sydney when they are backpacking it literally is far too expensive and I personally ain't paying 6 dollars for a bit of garlic bread that I could make better ( rant over haha).  After shopping we got some lunch 3 slices of pizza for 10 dollars, so one and half each, I'm definitely going to be loosing weight out here haha. We headed back to the hostel feeling accomplished because we had sorted out most things in an afternoon, good team work! 

Sydney Harbour

We were still so jet lagged, I ended up making us dinner, as always I have no control on portion sizes and James get fed a feast enough for two men haha. The night our hostel held a trivia Tuesday Night, we teamed up with 5 of us from the UK and one Canadian boy, who was overly excited, but a laugh. We came a impressive third in total and won lots of free drink vouchers , so we didn't spend hardly anything having a few beverages or two in the evening. Our hostel ran a free walking coastal beach tour the next day, so we had a relatively early night and got up to do the Beach tour. 

The beach tour saw us all take a bus to Coggee Beach and walk along stopping at a few beaches on the way and finally ending up in Bondi Beach. The walk was really nice and I enjoyed the walk, the weather was a nice temperature and the beaches were some of the best I have seen. This took up most of our day, a girl we met on a quiz team suggested we do the Sydney Walking Tour the next day, we was definitely going to do that. The next day we turned up to the tour, its a free tour but you pay a tip if your enjoyed it or not. The tour saw us go to all the historic sights in Sydney and explained the Aussies History of their convict past. We got to see so much of Sydney and got to

Three Sisters Rock

understand how Sydney became the city as we know it. On our tour we even got to pass the local news room and see a lady presenting the news and when it cut to a break, she got her make up done. I'm sure she appreciates the Tourists all waving at her, while she's presenting some news. The tour ended up at Darling Harbour and we finally got to see it in the light. We got told a story that if you wish to climb the Bridge you can't be under the influence of alcohol , George Clooney ,obviously had too many drinks the night before and was refused entry to climb. They take this seriously and breathalise everyone that wants to do it. The harbour has some cool cafe's, eateries and bars, all of which look beautiful, but Cinderella here had to go home to cook for her hubby haha.  We headed back to the hostel, full of facts from our tour. We were so tired as we still weren't sleeping that well since we landed in Australia, so we got an early night.

That famous huge steak

The next day we got a ferry over to a place called Manley ,which was good. The ferry was the best way to see the sights in Sydney . Manley itself is very good and relaxed a typical beach town. All you ever see in Australia is Beaches, and look another beach. So we decided to go back on the ferry. On the ferry the sky was orange , as if the sky was on fire. Unbeknown to us we didn't know there was bush fires close by and this was the reason why the skies were such a bright orange. You can see a theme through this blog :we aren't drinking or eating too much haha, maybe this is why we are doing so many excursions. We read up about a place called 'The Blue Mountains' , and decided that we was going to go there the next morning. The bush fires were still ongoing and it was very close to the Blue

The effect of the bush fires from the years before

Mountains, but we decided to risk it and go anyway. The train ride to the mountains was around 2 hours, so we left for the 9.30  am train and made our way to the mountains. The blue mountains are for those who want to go on scenic walks and visit the national parks. You can purchase a ticket for 35 dollars , which allows you to go on the worlds steepest train, cable car, sky car and another one that I can't seem to remember. After going on all four we decided to go on a walk around the National Park , and we got to see the famous three sisters. The three sisters are a set of rocks that look like you guessed it...Triplet Sisters. The walk was so scenic, I'm starting to like this trekking stuff! On our way round we got to see how the bush fires affected the national park some two years before, the trees were all black, but luckily nobody died or got injured this time. On the way back we walked through the town called 'Katoomba', it was such a peaceful, serene town and definitely looked like what Australia should be.

Blue Mountains

We made our way back and decided to check out. A few days previous we had tried to extend our stay but because it was the weekend everywhere was full, so we had to settle on a 14 bed dorm in Bondi Beach. We got a confirmation that said we were being placed in the resort down the other beach. I gave them a ring and they said that because its the weekend , everywhere was full and we had no choice but to go to their other hostel that was down the other beach. Being annoyed already, we didn't have much expectations , we just thought its only two nights, what's the worse that could happen!? We made our way on Friday night to the hostel, checked in and had to pay 3 dollars for dirty stained sheets, so you can imagine we was not impressed.The hostel was full of long term people, who basically live there so was really clicky and people weren't so friendly. We got two top bunk beds that had no ladders to on to the top, so annoying and full of people's clothes and stuff everywhere, One of the worse place I have ever been to. That night was 'oktoberfest' and the hostel gave our free entry tickets, they had however ran out by the time we had arrived. We asked a man if he had a spare ticket, seeing as he wasn't going, he said 'yes' and he went to get us it, upon his return he decided to act like the knob he was and said he will give it to us if we pay him. This made no sense, I told him no. He said if you really want it, then you will beg me for it. I literally didn't know whether to laugh or slap him haha. I decided to laugh and told him,. I'd rather pay 100 dollars

Steepest Train

than give you him any of my money, he got the hint and did one. Anyway we finally made it to the bar with a another little hick up on the way. It wasn't worth it, full of stupid drunk Australians who were generally acting like idiots. They had a rap group up on stage, now I'm found of the music myself, but really? It's meant to be Oktoberfest for god sake haha. We stayed for a while and enjoyed ourselves, then it was time to go back to the dorm. The next day we just decided to get up and go to the beach all day. The beach itself was beautiful and really relaxing. Coggee Beach is a lovely place, its just a shame we had to be surrounded with such idiots. We spent the day and the beach at at night ate our for the first time in what seemed like ages ( no cooking for me ) . I ordered a steak and no lie it was the hugest piece of meat, I have ever eaten. Well James had a good third of it lol. And all of this for only 15 dollars, I couldn't believe it.  We then took a walk for a few miles to a place called ' Randick' . it had a old fashioned cinema called the Ritz and was just generally a really good town. Our time was coming to a end, we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep as we were leaving in the morning to head to a place called Newcastle and then Onto another town called Port Macquarie.

Beach

Note to anybody who wants to stay in Sydney avoid 'Cogge beach surfside backpackers'  it is filthy, dirty, a cold showers and the staff literally do not know what they are doing. 

Our time in Sydney had come to a end, and what a busy few days we had. Sydney is such a good place and we definitely want to come back sometime soon :))

Until Next Time...

Georgia and James. 

Katoomba

Kampot and Phnom Penh (Round 2)

Hello hello,

As you have probably guessed from Facebook we have been in Australia over a week now but we are behind on the blog so just think as it we are still in Cambodia!

A short journey in a minibus from Sihanoukville and we ended up in Kampot, a small French town with not much going on but there was plenty to see in the countryside including the famous Kampot Pepper plantations. When we got off the minibus, a tuk-tuk driver persuaded us in taking us around the countryside all day for 20 dollars and arranged for him to pick us up the next morning. We decided to rent a moped out and travel 30km down the road to Kep which was meant to be a good day to visit a few beaches and visit the national park.

Hiring out a moped was a big mistake, I'm sure we have said this several times but I don't learn. The road we travelled on to Kampot was probably better than the main roads in England so I assumed it would be okay to travel further down the road to Kep on a moped. What a mistake......I don't know where to begin. There was no tarmac in sight, just mud and gravel, roadworks all the way including having to dodge JCB's on our little moped, and so much dust that when I left my shirt was white and I came back with a orange t-shirt. Even my teeth had a layer of dust on! When we got about two-thirds of the way we basically slid off the road as it was a gravel road and we ended up bending the key and paying a local 2 dollars to use a hammer to smash it back into place. 5 dollars was a bargain as the man who gave us the moped could have charged as much as he liked because he had my passport as a deposit. As you can imagine Georgia was not impressed, and has now definitely decided no mopeds again!!! We decided to leave Kep and head back, luckily we didn't fall this this time. When we arrived back to the hotel and in one piece ( I had a few cuts on my knees), we decided to go to the local cinema and watch the 'Killing Fields', it was a film about the Killings In Cambodia, which was worth the watch. Everything shuts at 9.30pm, so we headed back to the room as we were up early for our tour the next morning.

The next morning our tuk-tuk driver arrived on time just as planned . We took a tour to the countryside, the first stop was at a local fishing market, there was not much to see here, so we headed back into the tuk-tuk and went to see some salt fields. The salt fields were huge and they had barns filled with every kind of salt you can imagine. Next stop was to visit the pepper plantations; we stopped for lunch here. Georgia was upset that she couldn't buy any fresh pepper because we wasn't sure if we were allowed to take it into Australia, nevertheless we had Kampot pepper stir fry for lunch and were satisfied with that. The next stop is where all the action starts...
We were on our last place to visit the temple in a cave ; it had started to rain and the roads became even worse although we didn't think that was possible Our tuk-tuk got stuck in mud literally in the middle of nowhere. We both got out and attempted to help our driver get his vehicle out of the mud. We were covered in mud and almost fell over ourselves, it was quite a funny experience when we look back. We eventually stopped and almost made it to the caves where our driver mentioned we had to walk the rest of the way as the road was so muddy. We couldn't walk it in our flip flops as the roads were so muddy from the rain so we took off our shoes and walked in mud for about ten minutes to get to the cave. By this point we were laughing and Georgia wasn't even saying it was my fault! We walked about 200 steps or so to get into the cave, there wasn't anything too impressive about the caves but the experience to get into them was funny. Our driver had to hold Georgia's hand to walk across the river back. There was no bridge just a tree trunk to walk across, Georgia wasn't confident enough to walk over it on her own so she had to have the trusty hand of our driver, who then gave her a flower at the end of it for all her hard effort ;) We have a load of photos but haven't managed to upload them onto Facebook yet!
We then took a 2 hour drive back to our room, with many locals on the way back saying 'hello' to us in their small villages. There isn't much to do/see in Kampot and we had a couple of nights spare before we headed to Australia, so we decided to visit the capital of Cambodia again; Phnom Penh....

Phnom Penh

We got a mini van to Phnom Penh , we paid 2 dollars extra to have the VIP van, In Cambodia you don't take notice of VIP anything, if anything VIP means your in for a treat and not in a good way. The minivan was literally VIP with free WIFI to help pass the journey, leather seats that were still intact  and a free water of bottle... smiles all round!
We got to Phnom Penh and checked into our room, our hotel told us all the things we could do and see, the problem being we had already visited here before and do most of them all. Phnom Penh is really busy and dusty ,as is most of Cambodia . We decided to walk around in the blazing heat to go see the Royal Palace, we made the mistake of walking 2 miles or so in the heat, got to the palace and only had our debit cards which they didn't accept, we decide to go back and go early the next day to avoid the heat and actually bring money this time. On the way back we visited a pagoda that was close to our room, and of course there is always a entry fee for

the tourists. The pagoda itself was similar to what you see all over South East Asia , fancy Buddha's and similar decorations. That night we ended up in A Indian restaurant and the food was really decent. We ordered far too much and had to take it away, our plan was to keep it in our fridge in the room and have the Naan bread for breakfast the next morning. The next morning came and we went to the Palace which was worth it as mentioned before we had seen and done everything Phnom Penh had to offer. We seemed to walk for ages in Phnom Penh, that night we rewarded ourselves with a night out after all the walking we done over two days. The night out consisted of a walk to the river front, people watching which ended up with a girl tripping and falling flat on her face (hope she;s okay now though). The weather in Phnom Penh was really hot and sticky, so we took refuge in our air con a lot of the time. We visited a Russian market with no Russian in sight.I bought Georgia a back scratcher for a dollar, which was a good investment haha. The next day was time to leave for the airport , our flight had a stop over in Malaysia so we got a hotel at the airport for a few hours to have some sleep and shower. Phnom Penh left a better impression on us this time as we wasn't depressed from visiting the killing fields this time round!
We was really looking forward to leaving Cambodia and heading to Australia.

Next Stop Australia.....

James and Georgia

Sihanoukville

We got a bus from the school to Sihanoukville which we was told would only take 3 hours. In Cambodia you expect 3 hours is roughly around 4 hours or so. We waited for over two hours for the bus to come, it finally picked us up and was over crowded with locals and a monk. I got told to sit next to the Monk and he refused me due to me having a vest top on, needless to say I was beginning to get annoyed by this, anyway I finally managed a seat next to a local girl. We were finally on our way, when the bus driver told everyone who was heading to Sihanoukville to get off and wait '5 mins', we got off and was on a motorway in the middle of nowhere waiting for another bus ( it came after 35mins). This again was very crowded, however this time we had our seats reserved probably because we paid more than the locals. I instantly felt bad because the locals had to get off our seats and stand/seat in the aisle, some of them were clearly over 70 years of age. The bus driver gave them a plastic seat to sit in the Aisle, so that made me feel much better, you can't have the elderly standing all that way! All in all we arrived some 7 hours later, 4 hours more than expected which by Cambodian standards is good going.

Otres Beach at night.

Dinner

We made our way to the hotel we stayed at before in March, it was luxury with a pool and only for $16 or Ten pounds English. We booked for 7 nights and ended up staying 11 nights. Just as we left the Village James woke up being sick and a high temperature, so when we arrived at the hotel , we went and stocked up on tablets for him. The next day I caught what James had and we were both ill for a few days, not ideal but we had 11 days to play around with. When we were finally better we managed to go out; Sihanoukville is a party place and there isn't much to do other than eat,drink and sunbathe. Feeling much better we got a moped out and headed to the secluded part called Otres Beach, where we had dinner on the beach :) 

Football in the bar and winning our bet :) 

After dinner we headed to a few bars along the beach front, I was happy that I found a bar that played Drake, Lil Wayne and others haha, I was in my element with my $1.00 vodka redbulls. After a certain time of night you can have laughing gas for only a dollar. I think James got addicted and I am now calling him Blake ( Amy Winehouse's ex husband) haha ;). To put it bluntly this place in Cambodia is like the Magaluf of Spain, you can even add ' Happy' on to anything, food, drinks etc for no extra, they practically give away weed for free! 

We decided to book a tour as all we were doing was sleeping a lot, the tour was a party boat that went to another Island called Koh Rong.The Island is secluded and only has electricity for 4 hours per day, so we decided to just go for the day. We got on the boat the next day and what a journey it ended up being. They gave away little plastic bags, which we soon found out where for sea sickness, everywhere we looked there was Chinese Tourists being sick in bags. I thought we got lucky then about a hour in I started to feel very sick, luckily I wasn't actually sick though! The tour on the boat included a lunch buffet and snorkelling,the Chinese tourists were so greedy. When we went down to finally get some lunch, it had practically all gone. There was enough rice to feed 300 people ( literally) and they seemed to be piling enough portions of their plates for 4 people, no lie. Me and James ended up with a little bit of rice, we didn't let it bother us too much though. When it came for the time to snorkel the Chinese tourists again were the first to get to the front to make sure they did it first, needless to say they annoyed me so much that I didn't end up even bothering to try snorkelling.  We was on the boat for some hours by this point and still not at the Island.We finally arrived and only had 2 hours on the island, the boat we was on was too big to dock, we had to get in little fishing boats and then jump into the water to reach the shore. I literally couldn't jump and got myself stuck on the boat, much to the annoyance of James. Anyways I finally faced my fear and jumped in the water haha, and we found a secluded part of the beach and sunbathed for a couple of hours, it was now time for the boat home ( nice and easy). On our way home our boat took a little detour, the boats captain said the waves were too high to dock at the main pier. We ended up being stuck on the boat for another few hours, it was starting to get dark and the Chinese tourists were still being demanding as ever. They got little fishing boats to take us to the main pier in another town. There was 200 people to get in to two little fishing boats, so we had to wait our turn and just about got on the third boat. The tour finally ended 3 hours over the time we were due back, and it all felt like that we was stuck on a boat all day. All in all it wasn't a good tour, laying in bed at night the room was spinning, I literally had sea sickness in bed from the boat! 

James

Having dinner on the beach.

That night we went out to the front and went to the bars again, they offered free beers or whiskey most nights which we took of course. There wasn't much else to do in Sihanoukville, other than drink etc, so one night we managed to find a casino. James will find a place to bet anywhere he goes! We visited the Casino about two times during our time there and won some dollar each time ( Only because I was so good at roulette) ;) . I don't think there was a dress code in the Casino as the local women were in their pj's betting away their money. Cambodia is so poor so it shocked me to see them betting their money away ( lets hope they were winners). 

Otres Beach

The last couple of days we headed to Otres Beach as it was so pretty and relaxed. I got a manicure on the beach for $2 , might as well for that money you can't complain. On the beach there was local children who would try and sell you things,they clearly did not like James, he told them he had 5 girlfriends and they was annoyed by this . The little girl said to James 'you are nasty and I will get my brothers to cut off your banana' haha. She then goes 'why do you need another girlfriend when your girlfriend here( me) has big boobs like Nikki Minaj'. I carried on letting them abuse James, then she got a stick and starting whacking him with it haha. That will teach him.... After a while they were calling him gay and lesbian, and carried on hitting him, so I eventually told her to stop and that he was only joking. She then goes to me 'you can lie to yourself, but not your heart'. I think she got a little crazy and I had to tell her to calm down and chill out. 

So after 11 days in Sihanoukville, we finally decided to move on to another city called Kampot.

Sorry this blog isn't as detailed, we literally slept, drank and ate for 11 days :) 

Georgia & James :) 

Our week volunteering at a school in Cambodia

 Hello, thought I would write the blog this time! (Georgia)


After leaving Koh Chang we arrived at the land border between Thailand and Cambodia and was just as stressful as any other land border we have been to. The minivan dropped us off on the Thai border and then we had to walk a few minutes down the road to enter Cambodia. There were a load of locals on the Cambodian side trying to con as many tourists as they could and we fell for a "health check" which included an old woman shining a torch in our eyes saying we were okay and charging us. We eventually found a taxi and a bus to take us to a little village called Andong Teuk and we was on our way. The bus driver decided to drop us off in a field about 10km from the village and we had to call up the school to say we were stranded on the main road in the middle of nowhere. He agreed to pick us up and arrived on his little motorbike thinking we were all going to fit on the back plus too huge suitcases, needless to say we had to negotiate a price for a tuk-tuk with a local.

We were volunteering at BCDO school and was teaching and living at the school for a week. The BCDO school was a place where children came before school, at lunchtimes and after school to improve their English as well as to play games.When we first arrived they had lunch prepared for us by the mother of the family who lived at the school. We were fortunate to be teaching with 2 other volunteers called Ben and Amira who were only staying for 4 nights and were from Australia. Amira had previous experience teaching children from her main job back home in Australia and was sure to put our non-existent teaching skills to shame! When we had all finished lunch we were shown around the grounds of the school by the director including the "luxury"" bucket shower, squat toilets, the classrooms and the bedrooms. We were lucky that we arrived before the Aussies as were given a choice of bedrooms. One bedroom had no bed with just a carpet on the floor, the other bedroom had a bed with no mattress so we grabbed the bed. My theory was that the spiders, geckos, and other strange wildlife could not get us so easily especially as we had a mosquito net that covered  the whole bed. It was now Sunday evening so we decided to have an early night ready for our 8am morning class the following day.

The legend that was Mr Hong Thong Song.

Kids playing games before lesson

Cebloase posing in the background

We woke up on the Monday morning ready for work to be told that there were only a couple of children coming in the morning as it was their school holidays at the government school and not as many children would come along. Me and Georgia were relieved and we followed the lesson plan and we were given the task of teaching the letter "B". The kids were practicing their handwriting and learning new words beginning with B. We also taught at lunchtime to around 15 children that increased to 20 by the end of the week. They were all aged between 7-11 and usually went crazy after half hour of teaching and had to abandon the lesson a couple of times but was still good fun! The evening class would consist of children 11 and over and was my favourite class as the children was older and not so naughty. One of the Cambodian teachers, ""Teacher Hong" who was only 19, and on the first day got confused and thought Georgia was with the Aussie man, Ben and that I was with Amira and was adamant we should teach together as couples lol. Nobody wanted to correct him as he was quite a strange character to put it politely. So we ended up teaching the classes with a different person. I hated teaching under Mr Hong, he would correct my English even though he barely spoke any decent English himself. He would constantly say 'you've spelt that wrong', I lost count on how many times I told him , he was the one who was wrong, needless to say I ended up bunking Mr Hong's class and by the end of the week switched classes to help James. James's class with Amira was alot better, they children were very clever and wanted to learn English. The work we set them was too easy and so we had to re-arrange our plan and teach them 'harder' words. With Amira being a teacher at home herself, the class was made easier. I enjoyed teaching this class and looked forward to my afternoon with the children who came. We had one more lesson that all volunteers helped out in 'The discussion class'', this class was made up of a few boys who were 16+ and had a good standard of English already. We took the time to discuss things in English and spoke with them; they were typical teenage boys and on more than one occasion when the conversation began to flow, we would speak about 'girls'and 'whiskey': not too different from home (I imagine ). They were interested in what England and  Australia was like, so a lot of the lesson was always based on home.

Discussion Class : Facebook, girls and whiskey

So they were the classes: what else did we do with our spare time?  PAGODA.

After lessons had finished we did what most hard working teachers do - pub, or in our case a cheeky Sprite down the Pagoda. (we had nothing but water to drink all week- Honest!). The pagoda was a place of worship in the village, where you could go to pay your respect to Buddha, or play darts, and gamble in this case. It was the most dodgiest (even a word?) place of worship I have ever seen. There was an old monk trying to keep the kids out of the temple, who were running wild! There was a few stalls selling soft drinks, that tasted like heaven after a week of water, rice and vegetables. And then comes the techno music... young boys had placed huge speakers into the pagoda and was playing music loud so that everyone could have a little rave up. All the local teenagers would go crazy when the beat was dropped. People watching was a must!

One night we had an invite from the Dad who lived at the School. He was a strange man with little English. He had one conversation with James, that ended up in him playing charades. James ultimately worked out he must of been in the Army, as the grenade noises gave it away. 'Pow pow I shoot guns'. We then asked his son who spoke better English if his dad was in the Army. His reply was 'yes', we didn't ask too much of his Army days, out of the fear he may of been ex Khmer Rouge. If you know your history, then we don't need to explain! Anyways cut a long story short he asked us to the Pagoda one night with him and his Army Pals. James went along with it, I however being the paranoid freak I was, was worried he was capture me and sell my body parts for dollar in Thailand. Thank god he didn't, I am here to tell the tale, ( or write the blog). No alcohol is allowed at the Pagoda, but The dad didn't seem to care. He was downing shots at the back in a secluded shots with his friends. They instantly looked like they could all appear on crime watch. I was already having nightmares. After politely declining Dad's offer of a shot, out came the beer! James had one, I was still refusing. Dad's mate consisted of a journalist (hmmm debatable) , and the other one was a 'lady boy" which in Cambodia doesn't mean a man who dresses as a girl , it means a gay man. After too many beers said Lady Boy was offering James more alcohol, whilst rubbing his leg affectionately. Needless to say we headed off home.

Peace

After a heavy night at the Pagoda, all you want is a decent bed and some decent food. Which leads us to our diet for the week- Rice, water, vegetables, occasional meat and more rice. The mum made us lunch and dinner everyday, to her credit she made good sweet and sour vegetables. Meat was limited because there were no shops where they lived. Just a simple daily market were the locals would get their basics for the day and cook up a Cambodian feast. The mum made sure we were full, we were expecting to be constantly hungry. Rice however dulls the hunger and literally bloats you to the point of being so full you don't want anything else. Although I'm sure for James a bar of chocolate wouldn't go a miss after dinner.

We end the blog by talking about the son in the family. Mr Cebalose Vorn; the nicest 17 year old young boy you will ever meet. He runs the classes when there are no volunteers. He dedicates his time between going to school himself and teaching English to those in his village community. He had a love for music, myself and him would have regular bonding sessions over the little music he had. One day he was singing 'all my bitches love me''. I told him what 'Bitch' meant and he was shocked haha. We would speak about how he wants to be rich, I really hope it works out for this boy because he deserves it.

So after all our classes had finished, we were ready to leave. James really enjoyed the experience a lot more than he had imagined. My experience was good, but hiding from the children is definitely a sign that I do not want to become a teacher anytime soon! Mr James Bond thought we should of stayed longer, I would have but the living conditions were starting to get to me. I didn't wash my hair for a week.

The children were fun and it was a good experience, to be able to teach someone something. Very rewarding. Oh and before I go, I've got to mention my main little man Jerry 'Jel', one of my fav children. Definitely going to miss him saying 'Teacher Angry Birds I phone'.... What a experience and memories made.

Until next time,

Georgia and James.