Without a clean area to prepare food and wash pots its very hard in Cambodia to stop the children from becomming ill and contracting diseases such as typhoid. The orphanage near the genocide museum looks after 18 children but has never had a proper kitchen. Thanks to generous donations spurred by the Honeycomb Trust in Nottingham and some personal contributions from family and friends we were able to change this within 5 days. Having a knack for stretching money we were also able to build an outdoor washroom where the children are now able to wash their hands and faces, brush their teeth and clean their clothes in the traditional Khmer way. Those 5 days were a flurry of activity with the children pitching in wherever they could. They were so excited.

Unhygenic conditions of the past

Alternative washing practices

Happy to wash the pots now

Thumbs up from the children

Our new washrooms

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou

The field children were delighted and completely taken aback by the donation we provided to build toilets and washrooms. The land they have managed to aquite is rented but of course tehy have to find a means of paying the rent other than begging. Each summer they tour the provinces and put on open air performances to the country folk and some money is rasied this way.

As a Thankyou for our support they put on an open air performance for 45 children from the other 2 orphanages. We never imagined it could be so spectacular. The children were extremely talented, their costumes were so colourful, diverse, imaginative, traditional and cleverly made. There was such a mixture of dance, drama, comedy and song. This was especially great entertainment for the children as they don't have TV, videos or DVD's.

It was an amazing chance for all the children to get together and get to know each other. Maybe they will have some new troop members in the future!!!

It takes years of practice the have Apsara fingers

Tiger tiger

Entranced and excited

A play about a husband who was unfaithful and died of AIDS

Happy to entertain gatecrashing neighbours

Keeping safe from the sun in our real marquay

These 20 children live in a field near the airport in Phnom Penh. We met 2 of them when they were begging in the city for money to eat. They live in an 'orphanage' but they cannot afford to even build a floor in the building yet. They have no regular external support and the building materials they have managed to get so far are from begging at the doors of local companies. The most important thing for them, apart from food, was having somewhere to go to the toilet. The Honeycomb Trust in Ruddington, Nottingham made this achieveable through a generous and life changing donation.

All kids together

In desperate need of toilets

The sleeping area

Snails for dinner

Children from Nottingham, spured on by Millie and Ben and little Tom sent toys to the Cambodian Children. Some of them have never had their own toys before and they really were over the moon.

Thankyou Nottingham for our first toys

We are so excited

I need a flat surface to race my new car

Politely eying the toys up

My new friend

The toilets and the bathroom area should be fully installed and tiled within 2 weeks and we are all looking foward to seeing it. The children are sooooo excited.

Pond Peas

On the way to an old favourite restaurant of ours, the Bali Cafe Amanda stopped off to buy some pond pea pods for everyone to try from the market sellers. I bought another little local delicacy from a street vendor that we could all share till the food arrived, a deep fried tarantula, eight hairy legs and a bulbous body covered in some funny sauce. They'll really eat anything in Asia. It is rumored that the reason the Khmers eat so many fried seasoned insects dates back to the war and a time when such finds were considered delicacies. To their credit everyone tried a bit, I couldn't believe it. The food in the restaraunt was a little more appetising. This time Amanda and I knew all the dishes on the menu in their native Bahasa Indonesia. Old favourites like Sate chicken and Rendang curry. Any more for anymore?

Deep fried tarantula

Anyone for another?

And so we were back, in the heat, bustle and tuk-tuk madness of Phnom Penh. A city where you can take any drugs you like and shoot assault rifles and bazukas at cows, where prostitutes in bars always outnumber the customers. Everything's available, in fact the only thing you can't get is a minutes peace and quiet.

Victims of S21

After arriving and dropping in on the kids we took ourselves along to the S21 torture museum to get a feel for the history of violence that Cambodia has suffered. Unlike the time Amanda and I were here alone we hired a local guide to show us round. It made such a huge difference, really bringing home the atrocities of the past. She was 13 years old when the Khmer Rouge took the City and was forced to walk for three months at one stage to Battambang passing dead bodies on the road and almost dying herself from starvation. Most of her family died during the years that followed, though after the eventual liberation she was somehow reunited with her mother.

Clothes of the dead

It didn't take long to get soul weary from the stories that came out of Toul Sleng, we had lunch in the Bodhi Tree and prepared ourselves as much as possible to see the Killing Fields of Cheung Ek. This was where the prisoners of S21 were taken to be killed and thrown into mass graves, more than 17000 of them. Again we hired a guide, who took us to individual sites for mothers and children, hanging trees, and the worst, the tree used to bash babies heads against, bullets were an expensive commodity.

Skulls of the massacred

A little sick by this time, it took us a while to communicate effectively again.