Sarah out of Phnom Penh

In December, I went to Kratie (pronounce Krah Chay) in the East of the country to attend a policy dissemination workshop (aka Watching Paint Dry - Slowly) by the Special Education Office (and yes they are quite Special). The Policy on Education for Children with Disabilities was adopted last March, after a lot of input from my predecessor at DAC, but there is a long journey between adoption, dissemination to the provinces and implementation in the district schools. The issues around this process comprise one of the areas of work Sokhim and I will be concentrating on over the next year or so.

Apparently, it was not so many years ago that Kratie could not be reached except by plane, and one can quite see why as soon as the bus or taxi has to leave the inter-provincial high road. The thick red dust covers everything at this time of year, and there is no road surface, so there is an interesting experience of alternately driving over boulders and dropping into pot holes. Kratie is famous for 2 things - the most beautiful sunsets over the Mekong (here are just 2 of my quite large collection), and for the Irrawaddy freshwater dolphins that live in the Mekong.

The dolphins are under the same ecological pressures as any other species, and their numbers are declining; this place in the Mekong is now their only habitat. I didn't get to see the dolphins after work as you have to go by moto for about an hour to where the dolphins are, by which time it would have been dark coming back - something I would avoid at all costs as I am not yet tired of my life. Not that it stopped Sokhim, who was thrilled to be able to see them. As you can imagine, most Khmer people do not get the chance to travel about for leisure, so they always make the most of any work trip to see a bit of the countryside if there is something interesting. Perry and I will go up for a weekend sometime and take our time as he has not been there yet.

Kratie is a sleepy little river town which I found rather charming, which is not something you can say about most Cambodian towns. Rather unfairly, it also seems to have a reputation among Cambodians for being very dirty, but is is mostly the innumerable small blue plastic bags which are used by everyone for everything and then discarded where they fall. It is the same everywhere, there are no public waste bins, although in some provinces and towns, people do make some effort; it probably depends on the local commune council. There is no municipal waste collection service outside of Phnom Penh (there maybe in Siem Reap as that has tourists for Angkor Wat), so rubbish is either left in piles and/or burned. Don't ask me why, but school grounds often seem to be particularly favoured for this purpose! Here are some of the kids on clean up duty. By the way the big smart pink building is I don't know what - the small, peeling yellow building is the Primary School.

I stayed with our friend Susan (tall wacky Kiwi), who is a midwife, in her lovely, comfortable, and cool, traditional wooden house. As we've said before, Cambodian traditional furniture is, for some unfathomable reason, vast and immovably heavy. This is me, completely stuck in the chair, having foolishly settled down for a read, oh how Susie laughed!

In January, I had a very interesting and enjoyable stay in Battambong (though for reasons that will become clear it will henceforth be known to me as Bottombang). This province lies to the West and has a border with Thailand. It was heavily occupied by the Khmer Rouge, until 1995 in fact, and the population suffered years of nightly rockets going over from the pro Vietnamese forces against the Khmer Rouge. It is quite badly deforested, and again, at this time of year, the red dust is thick as soon as you leave the main town. My visit was dual purpose.

Firstly I was going on a sort of fact finding visit about work in the provincial & district offices in Battambang with other VSO education colleagues from the Policy Level Group. All the provincial volunteers have monthly team meetings, and we had been having something similar in PP, between those of us in placements were we have a direct input to government policy, i.e. the Inspectorate, the Special Education Office, DAC, NEP, the Pedagogical Research Department (basically curriculum reform), Teacher Training, School Health. However, we felt we were wasting our time just telling each other what we were doing, and we have changed our activities to quarterly visits to provinces where VSO work, to see the challenges and successes in real life, and also to communicate directly with some of the grass roots personnel.

We had a really valuable time, being taken to schools supported by our colleagues and meeting provincial ministry staff. We were alternately inspired by achievements, horrified by challenges, and annoyed/depressed, though not at all surprised, by the lack of knowledge and understanding about policies and strategies that we all talk about all the time at central level but which take so long to drip down to where they matter. The dire lack of funding and incentives are a whole other issue of course (see the VT report!)

This is a lower secondary school where the School Director (pictured) does try to follow advice from Jean, our colleague at the PoE (Provincial Office of Education). However, the school is not one of the lucky few supported financially by an NGO, and he does not have the leadership skills to motivate his staff. Frankly you would need quite a lot of motivation. That building you see is one of 3, and in the worst condition. The staff very sensibly refuse to use it when it rains or is windy, as it literally sways around. Try sticking displays of work on those walls, or making the room subject specific...

This is a building sponsored by a British couple at a school where the children all looked well fed and healthy, there was a good lively and interested atmosphere and the staff seemed motivated and supported by their director - which is crucial. As you can see, the building is well kept, but was there a ramp? No. I asked the director why it had been built with no ramp. 'Because there are no children with disabilities at the school' ...Ah - anyone spot the vicious circle in that argument?

This is another building at the school, not quite so nicely maintained as you see.

This young lad with spectacularly muddy legs gazes in at what should really be his classmates. You see a lot of this, kids with no uniform, and probably many other poverty related reasons for not being at school, on the other side of the window. As there is no glass in the way, they probably pick up a smattering of this and that.

Jean, Chris, John and Onno, our VSO colleagues there, and their lovely Khmer Volunteer Assistants, also thought we might like to see some of the ways local people make their livings, so as we traveling between sites, we stopped at a couple of 'cottage' industries. Any guesses as to what this is?

This was a family business making the thin pancakes for spring rolls. A very interesting process, but these photos are taking literally hours to upload, so I can't show you all of it. Basically, a rice flour & water mixture is spread on a griddle, the pancakes are spread out flat to dry on a bamboo rack, and then, as in the second picture, they are propped up to dry. When you want to wrap them round a filling, you soften them with water again. The fire is fed with the rice husks, so it is quite a neat way of using everything.

This child should be at school of course, but his job is to take the dry pancakes off the frames for packaging.

Ah yes, prohok...

This delightful product, along with the precious rice, lies deep in the soul of every Cambodian. In that of anyone in fact, of any nationality native to the Lower Mekong Basin, where the river provides a glut of fish in the rainy season. This is used very sensibly as stored food for when everyone is working long days in the fields in the dry season. Shame it's made of fish though; pounded, fermented, drained, mixed with coarse salt, and stored in jars, to be dished up with anything else handy, or dipped into with green mangoes or other equally unripe, indigestible and mouth puckering fruit and vegetable delicacies. It looks exactly like the sediment from the bottom of a muddy ditch and smells worse. We find it edible in small doses but don't think we are going to bother trying to acquire the taste.

This batch has just been pounded...


This lovely picture below is of Wat Ek Phnom, an 11th century temple to the north of town


'Room for improvement for someone appreciating a challenge in an idyllic woodland setting. The live in caretaker may be seen as a charming quirk'...Judy studies the estate agent's blurb.

The second purpose for the visit was for Adam and I to meet up with Jean and Chris in order to finalise the delightful Education Sector Training. This 2 day event, which I volunteered to help organise in a mad moment of self-induced pressure, knowing that James my predecessor, had done it for the last 2 years, happens once a year and involves all the education volunteers (40) and their assistants (30). The provincial vols have assistants to help them where no one speaks English (everywhere but PP) although this is to be changed to an ad hoc basis next year, when translation is 'particularly needed', and everyone will have to get pretty fluent in Khmer - frankly I don't envy them at all.

I won't bore myself or you with any details but suffice it to say that I volunteered from PP, Jean & Chris volunteered but are 6-7 hours away in Battambang, and I roped Adam in because he is a jolly good chap with plenty of energy and good humour, he and Becky are friends of ours (even though she works at the World Bank which we love to hate), and mostly because I am the Captain of our bi-weekly quiz team and he is a lowly cabin boy who has to do what I say. Ha Ha Ha! As we were going to be in BB until Saturday morning anyway, and it is a 6 hour bus journey away, Adam & I decided to stay on and finalise all the plans with Jean & Chris, and to also do some sight seeing before and after our planning meetings.

This is Adam just after we arrived on motos at the world famous (well in Battambang anyway) Bamboo Railway. Our friend Caroline used to live in BB and I innocently asked her if there was a timetable or where you bought tickets, oh how she laughed. There are rails. Having seen what it entails, I think Adam was making what he might have feared was a fond farewell call to Becky.

This is a group of 'passengers' disappearing into the red dust haze before us. At this point Adam said 'Those rails look a bit wibbly wobbly don't they'. We then had a brief exchange during which I made it quite clear that we would no longer be using words like wibbly wobbly, but instead focusing on reassuring phrases such as 'sturdy construction' and 'perfectly safe'. Note there are a lot of people on that 'train'.

This was our trusty driver. We felt we could tell, by his awesomely cheesy grin, that he had done this many times before. Please note the rock on the platform, which is balanced on 2 sets of wheels. At this point I asked Adam what he thought the rock was for. I felt that my suggestion of an emergency brake was slightly more optimistic, if possibly less realistic, than his one which was that it was for smashing us into unconsciousness before stealing all our possessions. We actually grew to respect Mr. Cheese as being a man of quiet authority and iron determination. We sat down on the platform; just the 2 of us...

We decided that possession of the rock tokened some sort of unspoken supremacy, as more often than not, when we met another 'train' coming the other way - this is what they had to do for us, see below: the platform is lifted off the wheels, then they are taken off the rails. On this occasion we performed the manouevre for them and their big bags of hay. It was at this point that I actually began to wonder how the platform was attached to the axles.

However, I chose not to voice that concern until we were hurtling (and I do not use that word lightly) along at what seemed like 60m/hr. I turned to Adam who was gripping on to the rail with a certain determination and with an even more set look to his manly jaw than normal. I waited until my bottom had made contact with the bamboo platform yet again (Bottombang) and for a split second thought it might be safe to speak without putting my teeth through my lip, so put the question burning in my mind.

'It isn't actually fixed on Sarah, it's held down by our weight.' Oh...right...just the 2 of us then.'

We arrived at our final destination, a brick works, again run by a family and very interesting to see the process from beginning to end. This is not sand between the kilns but rice husks, which is also used as the fuel inside and it must act as very good insulation.

I tried not to think of the horrendous fire hazard of the whole place. I have become the Health & Safety Queen since being here, which is a bit of a lost cause!

Aha! I have identified our new VSO off road vehicle.

'And here's one I made earlier'. Anyone familiar with Playdough machines will recognise this device. It looked really ancient and, incredibly, appeared to be the only one there. Gave a whole new twist to that Khmer proverb we have all come to learn and dread...

'Muoy muoy', step by step - but literally, 'one one'.


We returned on the train for another death defying experience and got off with a certain sense of reckless joy at having survived.

Below is the view from the top of Phnom Sampeu, a hill some 15 k outside Battambang town. It has a violent history, although is very peaceful now, with several pagodas along the steep climb to the summit. The top one was used as a prison and interrogation centre by the Khmer Rouge. You can see the thickly forested Thai border in the background, and the horrible deforestation on the Cambodian side. I'm sure that is why everything is covered with red dust like gritty talc.

We hired a tuk tuk to drive us there in time to have a climb to the top, look at the view, and then see what we had really come for, the sight of millions of small bats streaming out at dusk (5.45) from a large limestone cave in the side of the hill; the Bat Cave as I not unreasonably termed it. The trouble was, that the title brought back happy memories of a misspent childhood watching Batman (the original telly series of course), and a secret envy of my little brother's batmobile toy. Adam had to remind me several times throughout the day that we were not going to meet the Superhero, or his sidekick, and that there probably wouldn't be a dumb waiter in the cave and a trusty manservant called Alfred. I'm not sure I totally gave up on the idea until I had to though.

The journey there was phenomenal. We stopped on the outskirts of Bottombang to get fuel, and for our driver, Yan, to ask in a rather casual way if we too wanted to buy face masks for the dust. In PP we have got used to seeing lots of people wearing these to guard against the fumes, completely uselessly, most often the same people who drive their motos with one hand while talking on their mobiles and clutching a baby or 2. We spurned his offer in a likewise casual way. We got there completely caked in light red dust, Adam bearing a startling resemblance to Boris Becker, with thick ginger eyelashes, and me with hair that you could literally sculpt into any shape - most entertaining. We also spent at least half of the journey airborne as we lurched from one pot hole to the next and then felt our spines reconfigure on landing.

Yan triumphantly delivered us in a small village at the base of the hill, conveniently outside the house of a chap who was very keen to offer us a variety of services. We had been briefed by our friends, and already knew that we could find the path up the hill easily enough, and get back in time to see the bats leave. Neither of us were interested in seeing the Killing Cave, having also felt no compulsion to visit either the Killing Fields near PP, or Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum near our house. We have both however had experience of what are fondly known as the Killing Taxis on visits out to the provinces.

However we had to spend a good while going through all the options; motos, strings of small children to guide us etc, and why we should avail ourselves of them; we would get lost, be too late to see the bats, miss lots of interesting things. Strangely enough no one ever mentioned land mines which I LATER found out used to (at least I assume used to as we were not blown to smithereens) infest the whole hillside. Also, if we didn't use him, we would have to pay the Tourist Police $2 each. Ha! ...this fib was his downfall, as I knew well that we would have to pay them anyway, but would only be charged $1 with our VSO cards. We have also experienced being 'guided' by small Cambodian children, which consists of being grilled, in voices of grim concentration, 'Whatisyournamewhereyoufromhowoldyouare' for the duration of the tour. After our rather harrowing ride, we were more in the mood for a quiet stroll, a bit of a view and then a David Attenborough moment with the bats.

We declined politely and immediately came to a hut next door wherein sat a very dapper looking Tourist Police Officer. We presented our cards, paid our $1, and then followed my favourite conversation so far in Cambodia. 'You are here to see the bats?', 'Yes', 'You want to go up hill?', 'Yes', 'You want to visit Killing Cave?', 'No thank you', 'I will hire you a small boy'. There was a moment of silence where I desperately avoided catching Adam's eye while actually considering the many ways in which a small boy would be quite a useful thing to have around the place. Adam said, in a slightly regretful tone I felt, that we would not be requiring a small boy. The policeman sadly waved us in the direction of the path, washing his hands of us. Annoyingly my camera battery went flat, so I could only take one picture from the summit. I noticed a large gun placement in surprisingly good nick on a ledge with East German writing on it, a sobering reminder that the hill was still in the front line of fighting only 14 years ago.

We got ourselves down to the bat cave at 5.40, the first twitterings began and a couple of bats flitted out. At 5.45 an amazing thing began. A steady stream of bats began to emerge, in a ribbon no more than 3 foot wide and headed out over the trees.They flew in a sort of spiral effect, very like when you twirl a garden hose slightly when you spray it. Apparently there are 2 million of them, they take 3 hours to fully emerge, and then start coming back in at 3am. I was cursing my lack of camera, but how's this for luck! Our friend Caroline from PP, formerly resident in Battambong, just happened to have taken her mother to BB for the weekend while she was over from UK, and they were the only other people watching the bats with us, having arrived while we were on the hill. She took the video you can see below, and I was able to copy it from her.

Yan was understandably anxious to get going as it was getting dark. What a return journey! Firstly there was a sight I will never forget, and it would have been so easy to miss. We were already belting down the 'road' raising a cloud of dust when Adam called me to look back. Across the flat plain, like black smoke or a swarm of bees, streamed the ribbon of bats, southwards for miles and miles. And to think that happens every single dusk and dawn - I suppose you would get used to it...? For some reason, maybe because it was now dark as well as foggy with dust, the journey back was even worse than on the way there. We arrived back at the hotel with that exhilarated delight in still being alive for the second time in one day, and a certainty that the measly $12 Yan had charged us probably wouldn't even cover the cost of all the bits that had dropped off his tuk tuk.

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