Cambodia: A Kingdom of Wonder

I had previously done research that showed that schools received 65% of what they expected and that because of ring-fencing rules, they received money for things that they didn’t need and no money for things that they did. For example, schools may receive money for electricity even if that school didn’t have electricity. I had created a budget planning and disbursement tool that would help provincial offices of education (POEs) avoid these problems.

In March and April, I travelled around 10 of Cambodia’s 25 provinces, some of which are not renowned for their beauty. Each one though provided me with moments of curiosity and awe that could justify the proclamation that this is a Kingdom of Wonder, and not just a Siem Reap of temples.

My two colleagues Vutha and Nipun sitting at the River Mekong in Kratie. Kratie may have the best sunsets I've ever seen. Either Vutha or Nipun did all of the training with me. Absolute stars

I started in Kampot, which is one of my favourite places. It’s a town on the river, has beautiful rice fields set against sharp, jutted hills, and sunsets that leave you at peace with the world. It also had two young female teacher trainees sitting all day at the entrance gate to the teacher training centre. 

People often joke that Cambodia really is the Kingdom of Wonder, because you can only wonder at some of the ridiculous things that happen here. 

Judging by their polite smiles as I entered and again when I left, they had obviously not been ejected from their class for bad behavior so I asked them what they were doing sitting outside all day. They told me that they were the guards for that day. My face must have conveyed slight astonishment as they reassured me that it was ok because they didn't do it every day; tomorrow it would be the turn of two other students.

How can you not love Banteay Meanchey, when this is the view from the Provincial Office of Education?

Cambodia has their own currency (the riel) which is used interchangeably with the US dollar. If something is 5000 riel, I can give $1 and 1000 riel to equal 5000 riel. Banteay Meanchey near the Thai border threw me a little as they began quoting prices at me in Thai Baht. It also surprised me with its love gardens. These lush manicured gardens were where people went for wedding pictures, romantic walks and just for general hanging out. Which this concrete little dwarf seemed to be doing.

More excitedly Banteay Meanchey also had a pop concert and fayre when I was there. I threw darts which bounced back off the balloon without bursting them, and was hung onto, for a full ten minutes, by a drunk woman who didn’t seem to be speaking Khmer or understanding my desire to keep my arm attached to my body. 

Battambang is famous for its cultural heritage, fertile land and beautiful women. But for those in the know (my colleague Nipun), it also has a famous place for duck noodle soup. The reason that it is only for those in the know is that it doesn’t have a name. It is simply called ‘three buildings’ because it has expanded to be housed in three consecutive buildings from its original one. Battambang also has various temples atop hills and one has a cave out of which millions of bats fly out every sunset darkening the sky immediately above you and drawing a weaving black line through the sky as they all fly in formation.

Another wonderful thing in Battambang is the bamboo train. Get two axles, put a bamboo flat bed on it attach a motor and zoom down a train track. The problem is that there is only one line, so when another person comes in the opposite direction, one train has to be dismounted from the tracks - as we did here. 

A cave at another temple is where there used to be an escape route to Thailand during the Khmer Rouge regime. There was also a drip of water being collected in a bucket in the ice cool underground cauldron. Many times in Cambodia, we have found ourselves unsure of what do when given something but aware that you are expected to do something. So, imagining that I was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I gently put the cup to my lips before being shouted at to stop. I had not chosen wisely - it was not for drinking but washing my face with.

In Ratanakkiri, Vutha and I had a weekend to explore and had our own guide, the wonderful Kagna - a friend of Vutha's. We swam in waterfalls, picked fruit at her family's farm and even drank a little of her father's potent home brew, which did wonders for my ability to follow conversations in Khmer.

Yeak Loum - a volcanic lake for a refreshing dip

Vutha, Kagna and me

Just before we jumped in for swim

Vutha and I had a guesthouse with a bar that overlooks a lake that the sun rises onto. In the evenings, we drank cocktails and played Khmer chess, which is slightly different to the international version. My record at Khmer chess is nearly unblemished - I drew the first game I ever played and have lost every one since. The magic of Ratanakkiri is the colours though. The red dirt, mixed with a setting sun and green hills casts a haze over your senses that Mark Rothko has never done.                                                                                                      

Sunrise in Ratanakkiri, and me getting beaten chess. Again. 

I was in Stung Treng for less than 24 hours. The training with the POE went well although the Director of Finance was unable to stay for the whole time. We understood why after returning to our guest house at lunch time to find her, as the owner of it, sitting in the reception area. 

Sekong Bridge and the River Sekong, Stung Treng. Vutha will leave Cambodia the day after me to study in Japan. 

Before going to Stung Treng, the thought of being there for such a short time would not have displeased me but that was before I saw the river and sunset from the Sekong Bridge. Stung Treng, a place that was previously so bad that it was characterized by requiring you to travel 3 hours to Kratie for a good breakfast suddenly became a place that made me so happy that I became sad to realize that I may never be back.


Cambodia: a Kingdom of Wonder, and that was only half of it.
Gordon

Are all explorers lost and is Scotland the best?

When a friend of mine left Scotland to work in France, I was envious of him as I imagined what it would be like to live in France with red wine, croissants and cheese. I found it hard to understand why he continued to insist that Scotland was still the best country in the world. My incomprehension was not resolved by his inability to explain why. Finding it difficult to capture the right words, or even identifiable things that makes Scotland the best, he had to settle for telling me that it was the best because it just is. I was left puzzled and doubtful.

As a child, a day after arriving at our holiday destination, I would ask my parents when we could go back home. Maybe I felt that I would miss a great game of football with friends or that it was the perfect season to be playing golf. Or something else that a ten-year old’s life may revolve around. It was not that I did not like these places or struggled being away from home, I guess it was just that home was where my life was.

It seems to me that the desire to explore is at odds with the desire to be where your life is, unless your life is only what is with you at that particular moment in time. For most people, life is much more than what is in that instant as it contains the people and places that have become woven into our lives over long periods of time. When attempting to fulfill a desire to explore, it can be very difficult to take your entire life with you and I sometimes wonder whether constant explorers are those without much life behind them.

Before coming to Cambodia, an acquaintance approached me at the end of a meeting and shook my hand. He had previously spent four years in Brazil and had done other travelling. A warm, light hearted man, he looked at me seriously, carefully even, and told me “don’t get lost”.

Immediately, I knew what those words meant. They had the same meaning as the fear that was inside of me as a child when I wanted to go back home as soon as I had arrived on holiday. They had the same meaning as the fear that propelled me to go through all of my classmates names during the long summer holiday. It was not that I was scared of getting lost - I remember sometimes dreaming of being alone in a far off country, sitting drinking a beer and reading a book - more specifically, I was scared that I would be lost to others. The further you explore, the harder it is to reach those behind.

Claire has spoken about the feeling that some people have when doing VSO of feeling like they have pushed the pause button on their life. As if when they leave home, everything in their life stops but in a not-quite-real-life parallel universe, they fulfill their desire to explore and seek new experiences, only hitting the play button on their real life when they return. For me, I find that not only is life paused but my identity of who I am is also suspended a little as in this not-quite-real-life-parallel universe my identify forms with different people and events shaping it.

For me a special time in Cambodia is between 4:30pm and 6:30pm when the sun begins and finishes its descent. I sit on our roof, looking into the distance, breathing in the experience of Cambodia. There is a magical light that fills me with happiness, but I have realized that part of this happiness is because the light makes me think of those long, summer, Scottish evenings. They make me think of home. They make me think of my life there and the people in it.

A lot of things, a lot of wonders, go into making a country what it is. Unweaving this wonderscape to explain exactly why Scotland is the best place in the world is as hard as unweaving a rainbow. I write this blog in Guangzhou airport on my way back to Scotland having finished my time as a VSO volunteer, but maybe not having finished my time exploring. I want to see my friend and tell him that now I understand what he means and why it was difficult to explain. But most importantly, I want to ask him to make sure that even if I keep exploring, I am never lost. 

Gordon