Friday 10 February 2012

Cambodia - Siem Reap

Forgive me if what follows of my recollections of Cambodia are a bit disjointed but it is now 2 months since we crossed the border between Aranyaprathet in Thailand and Poipet in Cambodia and alot has happened inbetween.


The bus/buses from the island of Koh Chang to Siem Reap were pretty unremarkable apart from the drivers serious love for the BeGees, which meant the first leg to the border was spent listening to what felt like the little Manc Chipmunks ENTIRE backcatalouge. I'd drift off for a fleeting moment on the backseats, only to be rudely awoken by some helium addled soft disco blaring from the vans tiny speakers. After this test was over the only other thing we had to negotiate was actually getting over the border. Simple you'd think, but after getting dropped at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, sleep deprived and confused, with only a caged monkey and  menu to look at it all seemed less simple. No explanation was forthcoming, so we just made what little conversation we could with a Finnish guy called Aki from our bus (you may remember him from the Angkor post) until someone came over with our food and a demand for 1,200 baht for our Visas. This later turned out to be bordering on extortionate but at the time everyone was too baffled to argue. Not so the case when we were met at the Cambodian side of the border by our "Guide" John, who quickly explained we had to pay another fee for our medical card or yellow fever declaration or some other similar cooked up story. None of this sounded right so we looked at each other and back at him with faces flitting between confusion, disbelief and anger until the silence got too much for poor John and he buckled, making what has to be the least convincing phone call to the representative on the Thai side of the border. Honestly, I don't even think he touched a button before pressing the phone to his ear for the official conversation. We were all half waiting for it to ring and him just run away ashamed.

But enough talk about the joy of crossing borders, lets move on to Siem Reap, which was the first destination on our travels we didn't want to leave. It's not that the town itself is riveting but more the fact we felt comfortable taking it in at a leisurely pace and that the people were just so accommodating. Its not even particularly beautiful, although the legacy of the French, who acted not as Imperial powers in the Indo China region but "protectorates" was apparent, and had left the town with a distinctly European feel. Colonial buildings lined each side of the riverbank and it offered a strangely familiar feel after the more alien surroundings of Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.

However, the main reason we stayed for 9 days instead of the 3 or 4 we had planned for (enough to see the Temples of Angkor and the rest of the City) was not the European Architecture but because we ended up volunteering at a local free school for kids from the city. We had stumbled across Jimmy's Village school  after visiting an artisans workshop, where we saw traditional stone carvers, painters and metal workers do their thing. 

 

After watching the class for a while we spoke to Jimmy and arranged to come back the next day to teach the kids a song and maybe take a lesson. Upon arriving at the school, which is taken from his mothers front yard, we lingered nervously, waiting for our time alongside and American man called Rick who had been helping at the school for a while. Now, i'm not normally one to jump to conclusions or throw accusations on someones character about but Nat had been telling me to be vigilant for sex tourists as there is alot of child prostitution in Cambodia and there was something about Rick's awkward nature and eager touching of the kids that didn't sit right with me at all. Furthermore, I feel that if you think its acceptable to wear socks and sandals in public you have pretty much profiled yourself anyway.


Thankfully, the longer I spent at the school, my opinion changed, and I do think that Rick was just a socially awkward, middle aged American who was just trying to help out in his own way after becoming disillusioned with life as an accountant in the Mid-West. 


Our time at the school was spent taking classes, singing songs and installing a set of speakers we had bought for them to listen to music. Natalie thought the size of them was a little excessive and that the place should be renamed Jimmy's Village Soundsystem but I thought that if they wanted to play Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber on a loop, they might as well do it LOUD. When I tried to play them some of my bands music there was a bit more bemusement than elation but they still got involved as you can see below.


As the second part of the cultural exchange I tried to learn a Cambodian pop song but that proved to be pretty difficult but I think me making a fool out of myself went down pretty well anyway.




We had a great time with Jimmy at the school and he was a pretty inspirational person, who at 24 juggled his University studies with teaching at 2 free schools for what donations he could gather.


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