The Sights and Sounds of December in Phnom Penh

I want to tell you a few stories from my observations in PP – and yes I can call it that now as I am an official resident in a lovely apartment! I even cooked my first meal with Cambodian produce and bought myself a dragon fruit!

Outdoor photography exhibition on the riverfront

I have now had three skate-boarding lessons with some of the girls at the NGO Skateistan’s skate park. I was a little bit bruised and very sweaty after as it is so humid in the compound – one of the instructors we find very mysterious as he wears a face mask the entire time but is great at skate-boarding! He also teaches them Thai-kwon-do afterwards which is very impressive!

Thai-kwon-do at the skate-park

Weddings here are held on the street, so quite randomly, a large pink tent will be erected, filling the whole width of the street and blocking all the traffic. The festivities go on for a few days. One was set up near my hostel – I could see it from my window. Food stalls were set up at the end of the street to feed the guests and it looked like fun. However, it wasn’t so fun waking up to the chanting and prayers at 5am in the morning – thankfully that only went on for one day!

Another day when I left my hostel, there were young boys running around the entrance; one banging a drum whilst the others ran around with a dragon costume.

Teaching the staff English has become one of my favourite things to do. It is very entertaining as they are all so sweet and happy to learn. I have them a test to see what level they were at, and I got a lot of; ‘teacher, teacher, it’s too hard, too hard!’ They basically just discussed the test aloud and asked me questions, but they all tried hard so it was fine.

One evening, we went to Dreamland, the permanent amusement park in Phnom Penh. It was actually quite a big place and there were plenty of rides. We picked the ‘extreme’ ticket, so you pay on entry and go on all the extreme rides as many times as you like. Although we were sad this meant we had to go on only the stomach-churning rides, we somehow were allowed onto the carousel! As there wasn’t many people around, they let you stay on the rides for quite a while, which did leave your stomach turning after 10 minutes on the pirate-ship. My favourite was Apollo where you were locked in a cage and sent flying the whole way round – they kept you upside down for a fair while so you got a serious head-rush! It was all pretty safe – apart from the slightly unsafe dodgems where Ella scraped her knee. We heard a story later on where a girl was jolted out of one and was electrocuted as she hit the floor – she survived but it’s pretty shocking!

Apollo - I rode on it twice!

On the way back to work from the UN Women call for funds meeting, I rode on the back of my boss’ motorbike – I feel like we bonded a little bit as we flew around the streets.

With work we had the annual board meeting with all the staff and board members; it was quite interesting apart from the fact most of it was held in Khmer (Cambodian language) which left us sort of staring into space. They reviewed all the projects and spoke about the main achievements and difficulties. I gave a short speech on what the volunteers have done and what we are planning to do, which everyone seemed pleased with. The debate over the terms used in the strategy dragged on a bit and became very confusing between Khmer and English, but hopefully we will sort that out! We had a nice buffet lunch after in the courtyard.

Today I went to look for birthday cards and saw that some wedding invitation cards were spelt ‘invetation’ – just one example of the spelling errors all around the place.

Another amusing sign

We went out for a meal for a leaving party the other night, it was the most expensive meal I’ve had yet and happened to be the first one that made me sick… I think I will stick to the street food!

At riverside, I saw a motorbike with a basket straddled across the back with pigs and piglets inside, I tried not to think about the fact they were probably off to the slaughter house.

There was a slight Christmassy spirit around with Christmas trees in some shops and hotels and Christmas outfits and decorations on sale. It doesn’t have the same feel as the UK though and Ella has been doing an official countdown in the office and we play some Christmas tunes – but I feel like I could almost miss it by accident! Luckily I am taking the week off to go down to the coast for Christmas and New Year… I will post about that when I’m back!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Here is our work Christmas card – can you spot me?