your pals are now in Phnom Penh

And so we are here!

The last few days in Perth went by in a blur – so much to do in terms of saying goodbye to people, organising what to take with us, clearing out my flat (how I ever managed to fit all of that stuff into one wee flat I will never know), attempting to pack, more clearing out, more packing, more clearing out… you get the picture. (My poor mum and dad have been left with a list of things to do and a pile of things to take home / to the charity shop / to wherever they decide. I really can’t thank them enough for their help with sorting out the flat. Dad’s going to paint, mum’s going to clean. They’re superstars!)

It’s only now that we’re here that it’s finally beginning to seem real. Even on the plane Gordon and I were in agreement that we didn’t “feel” anything. No excitement that you usually get about going on holiday, no decisions about what we would go to see first or where we would eat, or wondering whether the accommodation we’d booked would be any god – our fate was in VSO’s hands!

Our fate took a little longer to get to their hands than planned as we had a delayed flight from London, which meant we missed our connection in Bangkok. Luckily there was another flight to Phnom Penh (PP) later that evening so we finally landed around 11.30pm. 

lots of forms to fill in before we can enter the country

The lovely Pirit from VSO met us - and then had to hang around even longer as we discovered that only my rucksack had made it to PP. Our three other bags were waiting for us elsewhere.  My favourite part of the night came when we worked out what had been packed in what bags and tried to see what we had for the next day. I had clothes but no toiletries – and Gordon had nothing. Gordon, in all seriousness, said that he could wear a pair of my shorts the next day. It took me a while to stop laughing – I know he’s lithe (skinny!) but I don’t think he’d really thought it through given that the only shorts I own are short shorts. He might have managed to get them up to his knees…

So finally, much, much later than planned, we made it to our home for the coming week; the Burly Guest House. Sadly, our room looks nothing like the one pictured on this site, and going by the cold shower this morning we might not have the warm water either, but it’s home and it’ll suit us just fine (and it has free WiFi so I can do the blog!)

After a surprisingly good night’s sleep (thank you ear plugs) we got picked up by a tuk tuk and taken for lunch with the seven other VSO volunteers (a lovely bunch) then had our first afternoon of In Country Training (ICT). We’ve missed quite a few days of it but this afternoon we had gender training and then a “staying healthy” briefing. Who knew there was so much to worry about! Dengue fever aka “break bones fever” being my ‘favourite’ so far… Tomorrow we have a morning of finance and corruption training (not linked obviously) and then we’re all genuinely looking forward to a two hour session with a Monk about Cambodian culture and religion in the afternoon.

I just realised that I’ve only taken two pictures so far so I’ll need to get going on that. I’ll leave you with Gordon practicing his Khmer on the weird big fish in the very small tank in the reception…