Travelling Asia

5 Things to do in Rayong, Thailand

jaygotham — Sat, 2 Aug 2014 17:18:00 GMT

5 Things to do in Rayong

I’ve been ever so busy with going away on my long weekends, ComicCon, midterms and having family visit. But I don’t really have too much to say that you can’t already see on Facebook so… instead I’m going to give you the top 5 things to do/see in Rayong. It’s not a tourist city but there are a few local things to do.

Take a casual stroll through the night market, located beside the massive Tesco Lotus. The market has clothes, remote controls and lots of delicious but strange looking foods.
Have lunch or dinner on the beach. Sitting on a mat with a little table you can feel the breeze, paddle in the water and sit amongst the local Thai people and enjoy a good old soda water.
There is a sweet Vietnamese restaurant that doesn’t sell dog like I’ve heard they do when in Vietnam. My favourite dish is a called ‘Naem neung’ which is beef, rice paper and tamarind sauce.
You can’t go anywhere without seeing a temple and in Rayong the temple Wat Pa Pradu also has a beautiful reclining Buddha. If you want to do as the Thai’s do, you have to slip a donation in the box and do the candle, incense sticks and gold paper rotation.
In the old part there is a place called ‘Rayong Coffee’ on Yom Jinda Road. This hidden gem is a beautiful old wooden Thai house with a good selection of traditional Thai teas, coffees and milk flavours. This street is one of the few remaining in Rayong that still show the old style Thailand.

2 months already...

jaygotham — Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:02:00 GMT

So it’s nearly been a month since Michael left and mid-terms are creeping up on us. I have been teaching for 2months now and I really enjoy my job. The little kiddiewinks are adorable and the majority of them do their work so it’s quite stress free. I’ve made some great friends who own a bakery and have been spending most of my free time there. I’m doing fine and have been keeping busy, but yesterday a few friends and I booked our flights to Chiang Mai on the long weekend next months! I’m pretty excited :-)

Jay

Teaching in Thailand

jaygotham — Mon, 19 May 2014 14:16:00 GMT

Organisation isnt a word that exists here... and Im learning to live without it, slowly.

It's been just over 2 months since I departed CWF in Cambodia and now I'm teaching Primary school Year 3 & 4's. I'm their English Program teacher, teaching them English, Mathmatics and Science. This week didn't involve much teaching, more introductions and keeping the girls entertained with games. The school is impressive and I'm slowly adapting to the Thai version of a school dinner, which surprisingly consists of rice ad spice, which supposedly will make you look nice. Well, I best get back to the good old lesson planning. Sending home lots of love!

Peace, Jay

Hong Kong and Macau

jaygotham — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 15:47:00 GMT

Mike and I have spent just less than a month here in HK and a sweet little getaway to Macau.

HK has so much too offer, it has the city and beach; walking trails and theme parks and all types of food. We have a great time with Mike's cousin David and his friends, we've walked part of the Maclehose trail, the dragon's back and Lamma Island. Explored the towns of Yuen Long, Sheung Shui, Poi U and plenty more, we've smiled our way through Ocean Park and better more Disneyland! We were even treated to a fancy Ladies Night. Not only all of this, we have also watched all 4 seasons of The Walking Dead. Productive.

Macau was a beautiful country, filled with extravagant casinos, delicous food and happy people. We went to the Venetian resort, winning a little bit of money and walking on the second floor of the building which had a canal, all resembling Venice.

We fly back to Thailand tomorrow and head first into my new job!!!!!

Myanmar

jaygotham — Tue, 1 Apr 2014 19:14:00 GMT

So... we only had 7 days in Myanmar. They were incredible. There were so many options of what to see but we decided to stick to the top three places: Yangon, Bagan and Inle Lake. I think we made 3 excellent choices.

We'd spoke to a few people before arriving, had some suggestions and thought we'd follow one of them up. We caught the sleeper train from Yangon to Bagan on the first night. A simple train that supposedly should take 14 hours took us a few more, 19 hours to be exact. It wasn't so simple either. It was horrific and incredible at the same time. The train was bumpy, rocky and every few seconds I thought the train was going to tip of the track. When lying down there were times when I wasn't in contact with the bed but floating above it. The challenge wasn't tryin got sleep or sit still, it was trying to pee and not miss the seat whilst squatting and being thrown left to right!! I counted the toilet visit as a success as I didn't pee on myself. This is an experience not to miss, as we saw the rural Myanmar that you couldn't see on the bus or on a tour. So we arrived to Bagan, a plain for temples, little to big. We had only a day here to see everything. We hired an E-bike, Michael on the back and off we went into the sun. Stop, explore, ride, stop, explore, ride... Another 9 hours through the night got us to Inle lake, a beautiful lake with floating villages, with long necked tribal people, silver, silk and cigar factories amongst them. Also, whislt in Inle Lake we were sat having lunch in a 'hole in the whole' local restaurant and we get talking to a Monk that is not only a football fan but a Liverpool supporter stating his love for Steven Gerrard and that's where I lost Michael to a man.

Myanmar is a unique place to visit, little amount of tourists, friendly English speaking Burmese people and great food. It is easy to visit and travel around, don't be fooled by the internet and guidebooks. But for sure you'll need a lot of money, it's Expensive!

Peace, Jay

Getting out of Bangkok

jaygotham — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 18:02:00 GMT

A week out of Bangkok took us to Kaho Yai which is known for its National Park - we booked in at Bobby's Apartment and Tours. They were incredible, a massive room with an ensuite and enthusiastic tour guides that took us off the beaten track. We saw wild elephants, gibbons and birds. The park itself was breath-taking. After out day and a half tour where we trekked through the jungle, swam in a springs, visited a temple cave and watched millions of bats come from the mountain for their night feast we were exhausted. Two days were up and we were to spend the rest of the week in Kanchanaburi. A nice quiet town during the low tourism season, more parks, the impressive Erawan National Park with a 7 tier waterfall and then hiring a scooter for a couple of days for some more temple caves, waterfall washing and general enjoyment of having some freedom. We also had the best street food experiences here: rice porridge, pancakes, noodles and my new love - hot green tea with milk :-) Now a days rest in Bangkok till Michael and I fly to Myanmar tomorrow!

Bangkok

jaygotham — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 01:01:00 GMT

Well, to be so close to Cambodia and be so different really did catch me of guard. I didn't know anything about the city other than the food was good, ping pong shows existed and ladyboys. But actually the city is very western, with its sky train and massive amounts of shopping malls. Bangkok is quite a city. Other than the tourist attractions and shopping there isn't much else for a tourist to do, the people we have met have told us only 3 days here would be fine and then go out of Bangkok and see the beauty of Thailand and tomorrow that is exactly what we're going to do.

See you later Cambodia

jaygotham — Sun, 9 Mar 2014 22:58:00 GMT

My last month in Cambodia has been a hectic ride of emotions with Michael arriving, leaving CWF, travelling to Siem Reap and having a small trip to the best hospital in town. I’ve had goodbye parties, beautiful gifts, Khmer kisses from students, happy pizza, spent hours in a board game café, hours playing cards with an IV in my hand and consumed my own body weight in noodles, chocolate milk, banana cake and Khmer iced coffee (it has condensed milk in it). I’ve spent days staring at some of the most wonderful temples ever: Angkor Wat; Ta Phrom; Bayon and Banteay Srei.

Some advice about Siem Reap/Angkor Wat, doing it on the cheap.

- Travel: rent a bicycle for a day is $1, it’ll take you between 30-60 minutes to reach any of the temples. It’s good to be outside, exercising and helping the environment as well as your pocket.

- Food: take a turn from the pub/bar street and you’ll find some beautiful cheap eats with 30p draft beer. If you don’t mind spending a penny or two, eat at restaurants that train street kids and where their profit is used to help people.

In this town every cent/riel you spend you can help someone and ‘make a difference’. Ecotourism is the way forward. Now, let’s see what Thailand has to offer. It’ll take 9 hours, 10 dollars and by Tuesday evening I’ll be in the centre of Bangkok.

Peace. Jay

Photos: Phnom Penh

jaygotham — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:23:00 GMT

A little of the things that have been surrounding me for 3 months!

It's near the end of my time in Phnom Penh

jaygotham — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 17:46:00 GMT

So my time is nearly up at Conversations With Foreigners. I’ve had an incredible experience, met some exceptional individuals and grown as a teacher. The culture here is quite different to the one at home and the same can be said with my Khmer students. They are generous, respectful and enthusiastic to learn. I’ve enjoyed teaching the curriculum; it is based on their culture and lives – to empower the people to be able to talk about themselves and not the ‘generic’ western curriculum that would have no relevance to the people of Cambodia. With saying this, I have had to be creative. I would just like to share a few things that the students and I have enjoyed:

Keeping with the theme – culture. When teaching my students how to bargain in English (you can and should bargain/ask for a discount when you purchase anything in Cambodia) I recreated the situations where they would bargain. This is what led me to a break through. Place 3 seats in the middle of the room, all facing one way, one in front and two behind. Sit in the front seat and shout “Tuktuk!” The students laughed so hard before joining in and helping create a realistic learning activity.
Shocking as it is… None of my students had ever seen a GUIDEBOOK! Yes, I was shocked. We were learning about the landmarks and tourist spots of Cambodia. I collected 5 guidebooks and based my class on them. Explaining how they work with the index, the order, the recommendations etc. The lesson consisted of competitions (finding something faster than someone else) and partner work. As an overall it worked fantastically, other teachers went to use the guidebooks and they found that it worked extremely well.
Tongue twisters. “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy was he?”, “Two witches watched two watches, which witch watched which watch?” and “The big bug bit the little bug but the little bug bit the big bug back.” These are just a few examples of how the class would start or end, with a little fun and focus on pronunciation.

I’m excited at the prospect of teaching in the future in other places in South-East Asia. I hope to develop more skills and push my creative teaching boundaries. I am very grateful for what I have gained at CWF; friends, memories and experience. I’ll be sad to leave but happy about what lies ahead.

Prasat Preah Vihear

jaygotham — Tue, 4 Feb 2014 17:23:00 GMT

The Chinese New Year came and it was time to have another long weekend.

For this one, unlike the last one where I went to Siem Reap, I was invited to go to Preah Vihear Province with some of the staff from CWF. I travelled the 400km to the Northern part of Cambodia by bus with Soriya, Seanglay, Jo and Eleanor. The bus journey took us about 8 hours, it wasn’t too bad when you are kept entertained with horrendous karaoke videos and movies with Khmer voice overs.

Preah Vihear province shares its border with Thailand, which has caused a lot of unrest, annoyance and UK Embassy is advising tourists to not visit this area. Because of the UK Embassy issuing this out, during my trip my insurance was not valid. It was a risk I was willing to take. Not just that in the recent past there had been fighting between the two countries; the land in this province is one of the most heavily mined provinces in Cambodia.

The political-ness of the situation was that when Vietnam came in Cambodia in 1979, they pushed the Khmer Rouge into the North where they went into hiding. To protect themselves the Khmer Rouge set up lots of mines around the areas they were staying, so when they eventually were found and removed, the Thai people saw an opportunity to slowly creep onto Cambodia’s land and claim it as their own. So there was recent fighting over this temple area in 2008 and it was called off in 2011, however when visiting the temple area the army trenches still exist and are still ready to be used if Thailand tries to pull a fast one.

The temple area itself is quite incredible, with the same design Angkorian design which is most popular at Angkor Wat, Siem Reap. The temples are positioned on top of the Dangkrek Mountains, the views are breath-taking when you are stood at the top, looking over the cliff hanging and seeing all the Lowland of Cambodia. Most of Cambodia is flat and you can see for as far as your eyes will let you when you’re up there. The temples aren’t crowded with foreigners and there weren’t so many children beggars, the problem seemed to be that the soldiers were begging the Khmer people for money. I wasn’t at all how the UK embassy had made it out to be. I think they should lift the restriction from Preah Vihear.

The challenge itself at Prasat Preah Vihear was getting up there; it is a 30-40 minute moto ride from the closest town with a guesthouse, which is flat and perfectly fine. But you reach the bottom of the mountain, you get your entry ticket and they put you on a different moto, a stronger moto, one that can conquer the steep mountain. I had a small fear of riding a moto back then, when I wasn’t wearing a helmet, had to hold onto a stranger and trying to hold onto a bike that with one bounce or bump I could go flying off the back. I was thinking, for sure people have fallen off these things going up here. It was just intense, I mean it was much harder holding on during the journey up, that when I got up there I didn’t even think about how bad it was going to on the journey down.

All in all, I had a wonderful time with wonderful people. I would recommend if you are planning on staying in Cambodia that this is a must trip, however do struggle through the bus journey from Phnom Penh, go from Siem Reap as it’s half the distance.

Heaps of Peace – Jay

A day in the life: teaching at CWF

jaygotham — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 12:50:00 GMT

5:30AM The alarm goes off and another day has begun. I rise, get dressed, head to the hot water and grab a cup of tea and whilst I’m drinking this I have a gander at my Facebook account. This is the way my family, partner and friends contact me, and with being 7 hours ahead there is usually a little something to read when I get up. I then cycle to school in the morning cool breeze; this is the only time you are sure to not be sweating.

6:00AM By now I’ve just arrived to class, prepared the day before and ready to teach English. The morning classes are much easier than anticipated. The students have so much energy it is easy to become lively from them. In the Asia culture it is normal to be awake and studying or working this early.

7:00AM My first class has just finished and now onto my second and last class of the morning.

8:00AM It’s only 8 AM in the morning and I have already done half of my classes. Now to cycle back to the Teachers house (where 12 teachers from the school live together) and grab a bit to eat. The normal breakfast here for us are eggs, baguettes, fruit, some cakes and sometimes rice and beans in banana leaves. In the house we have two beautiful Khmer ladies that cook our food Monday through to Friday; their names are Mony and Linda.

9:00AM Breakfast is eaten, morning updates and chats with the other teachers have all ended and now to review my morning classes and prepare my evening classes. This won’t take me too long as I have a very good routine. After I have done my lesson plans I will have a gander at my personal to do list to see if there is anything I feel like doing today.

11:00AM Now it’s exercise time, I will either go for a brisk walk, cycle or do some toning exercises on the balcony. After getting all sweaty I head straight to the shower. I choose to shower in the middle of the day here as the majority of houses in Cambodia do not have hot water. I have found that the shower water in the middle of the day is not as cold as in the morning or evening.

12:00PM Lunch is served, all the teachers head to the communal area to grab food. Every day is different when it comes to lunch, it could be wontons, spring rolls, Khmer red curry; Khmer yellow curry; sweet and sour; tofu and long beans. There is a guarantee that you will most definitely have rice served with whatever food there is. Rice is a staple food in the diets of Khmer people. It is also the cheapest food.

1:00PM I have the afternoon free till classes in the evening. It depends on what’s going on but sometimes I’ll send some time on the balcony either reading or writing my blogs. Other days I will venture out and explore, 5 minutes’ walk from the house is the Russian Market which is a maze of stalls covered in fruit, veg, tourist stuff, jewellery, DVD’s etc. I’ve been here nearly two months and still not been able to master the Russian market layout, I manage to get lost every time I visit.

3:00PM Some day’s the teacher have meetings about the curriculum or the weekend sign up activities around Cambodia. There are also opportunities to do one off workshops for the students and help to market the school. All of this would be talked about during this time.

4:00PM I have cycled back to school for my last two classes of the day. They are very similar to the morning ones, the students need your energy this time as they are more tired as they have either had busy days at work, school or university.

6:00PM Back home for some more scrumptious food.

7:00PM I will now review my evening classes and prepare my morning classes. After this sometimes I hang out with the other teachers and we head out to a documentary or expedition in the city. Other times we just stay in watch a movie or play a game called ‘Cards Against Humanity’.

9:00PM I’m off to bed so I am fresh for my 5:30AM morning.

Khmer Cooking Classes

jaygotham — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:52:00 GMT

Wednesday 15^th January 2014 – Khmer Red Curry

Today was my first Khmer cooking class, the agenda for the class was to go to the market, buy the ingredients, prepare, cook and then consume. The meal that we cooked is called Khmer red curry.

At 8:30AM Mony, Linda, Julie, Laura and I headed over the street and into an alleyway which turned into an intense market, cramped left to right with stalls selling fish; eggs; fruit; veg; clothes; jewellery and much more. There wasn’t a foreigner insight and more surprisingly, no-one was staring at me. But shock horror came when I was walking through the crowds of people and the women would put their arms around you to get past or better yet just keep prodding you in the side till they got past. So on the trip to the market, we bought: coconut milk; aubergines; sweet potatoes; dried chilli; onions; long beans; turmeric; lemongrass; lime leaves and a few other things I wasn’t sure of at the time.

Returning back at the house we set up a mat on the floor and got preparing the veggies and spices. I was given the sweet task of peeling the sweet potatoes and aubergines. Linda showed me how she’d like me to peel them; she swiped the blade so gracefully over the vegetable, seeming like she was trying to not hurt it at all. She then passes the blade to me and I start hacking into the vegetable as if I have no control over what I am doing. I did get better as I peeled more, but still nowhere near as well as Linda.

I often get bored when cooking; I’m happy and focused through the preparation stage and as soon as the stuff starts going into the pots, boredom struck. I refused to leave though so sat back and watched the stirring and adding and stirring process until they put the lids on the pots to let them ‘come to the boil’. The food was soon ready to eat and for the amount of chilli I had seen them put in the pot, I thought the food would be so spicy and it wasn’t, leaving my belly full of scrumptious-ness!

Wednesday 22^nd January 2014 - Wontons

So we headed back to the market for some hussle and bussle. I recognised a few of the sellers from my previous visit a week before – there were lots of exchanged smiles. There weren’t as many questions from me this time round as I had a grasp of what was going on. Back at the house we got preparing the vegetables to go inside the wontons. As I am now an experienced peeler, I was set on the task of peeling the sweet potatoes, which was a success and then the sweet potatoes went to Linda who grated them. The onions and garlic cloves were also being sliced and diced during this time. When all the food was prepared they started to cooking process.

To start, the garlic and onions get fried a little bit and then taken off the heat to be mixed with the sweet potato and meat (for the meat eaters) – also a little pepper, salt and stock is added. Then the wonton wrapping process begins – it is as much an art as origami. You place a small amount of the mixed sweet potato, onion and garlic into the centre of the small square wonton wrapper and then start bringing the corners up, a little bit of squeezing here and pinching there and boom – wonton! Let’s be realistic, it obviously wasn’t that easy for me but again, practice and persistence got me closer to not being an absolute failure during the wrapping. When they are all wrapped and ready, off they plod into the hot oil to fry till brown. Next stop… Jay’s belly.

Chkai and Khmer Weddings

jaygotham — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 16:31:00 GMT

Chkai and Khmer Weddings

This past week has been quite eventful. There was a public holiday on Tuesday 7^th, which meant that we had to get our own food. So, Alana and I headed to the Russian market to grab some $1 noodles for lunch. After filling our bellies with goodness we went for a wander and upon departing the market we saw a tiny little kitten. There was a British lady trying to give him water and she told us that the Khmer children were playing with him. Long story short, we ended up bringing a kitten home. We’ve named him ‘Chkai’ which means dog in Khmer. Alana took Chkai to the vet and it was said that he was all dandy except right now he has a dead worm hanging out of his bottom.

On to the wedding, it started with a precession where we all walked through the entrance two by two carrying partnered gifts of fruits, which were bought by the groom and given to the bride’s parents. We placed all the fruit into the bride’s parents’ house. The fruit is given as a formal offer, and it is then counted during a song/dance. The fruit is given to the family in a belief that the fruit will get rid of any bad energy and future anger between the families.

The next part of the wedding was called the cleansing ceremony. This part is to prepare the bride and groom for their life as a married couple; their hair is symbolically cut, representing a fresh start to their new relationship together as husband and wife. The master of ceremony performs the first symbolic haircut and wishes the couple happiness, prosperity, and longevity. The bride and groom's parents, relatives, and friends then take turns to symbolically cut the bride and groom's hair and give them blessings and well-wishes. (In the old days, the bride and groom's hair were really cut during this ceremony, but in modern times it is only done symbolically.)

Moving on to the tying of the red string ritual - this is the final and most memorable stage of the wedding in which family members and friends tie the bride and groom's left and right wrists with blessing strings. The praises and well-wishes of happiness, good health, success, prosperity, and long-lasting love are acknowledged and witnessed by the loud sound of the gong and joyful cheer. The ceremony concludes with a shower of palm flowers thrown over the new couple.

Next the groom and the bride stand up and the groom holds the bride's scarf with one hand and the sword in the other. The bride holds a container with rice and both walk inside the bedroom. This part of the ritual is based on a story where the Price Thaong was married to Princess Tevty, a daughter the sea dragon king. After setting the date already, Tevtey had to bring him to her father in the dragon world, so the sea dragon’s daughter asked the prince to hold her scarf in order to dive into the dragon world. In the meanwhile, the dragon king commanded his men the kill the prince at the gate in order to test the prince’s ability. But the daughter had known this; hence, she disguised herself as the prince by changing her skirt and it was put on the prince instead so that the killer was not able to kill the prince. This ends the official wedding ceremony and they are officially married.

At this point in the ceremony it was about 3pm and we all had a nap on the floor of the house next door and then prepared for the evening party. At the party there was another ritual that the newlyweds did and it was to have their first dance around a round table of fruit. They also had their first married kisses, which is not like in Western culture where we think kissing on the lips is what people do. Here, kissing on the lips isn’t a loving or passionate thing; they kiss on the cheeks and forehead.

Heaps of Peace,

Jay

Teaching, Trees and Temple

jaygotham — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 13:28:00 GMT

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas has past and so have my first seven classes, I’ve managed waking at 5AM and I am enjoying teaching, it’s a great experience and quite funny. I have a lot of banter with my students. My first classes were about introducing myself and I had words on the white board about myself and the students had to guess what the question was. The word that all my students struggled with was ‘Finlee’, my sister’s name. They were surprised that it was a girl’s name. More about the students, they are polite, hard-working and quick to laugh at each other. I was warned that the students will say what they see and not mean to offend you in anyway. The one comment I got from a student was “(tea)Cher, you so beautiful, cher, your nose is very sharp.” My response was “Well, thank you.”

For Christmas I was given an incredible gift from my mummy and daddy, it was a trip to Angkor Archaeological Park, the massive spiritual area that stretches over 400 km2 near a town called Siem Reap. I had to travel on a bus that was similar to a plane on the inside for 7 hours each way, it had movies, food and reclining seats. The few days that I was there I cycled 60km plus around the park. I visited Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kpai . They are incredible temples and sites, words can’t justify how extraordinary it is. The brickwork is intensely detailed, when cycling to the sites it was so picturesque. My favourite site was Ta Prohm, the power of the tree’s growing on and around the fallen bricks and building, it was breath-taking. The roots and stance of the trees would make you feel weak. I just sat for a while, it was an experience I will never forget and look forward to doing again in March.

On actual Christmas Day I travelled back to the city, Phnom Penh on the bus, and then went for dinner and Skyped my family and my sweetheart, it was a very difficult day. It was different to any other Christmas I have ever had. It was the first one I have not been surrounded by a family, if it be mine or someone else’s family. It was such a lonely day, no gifts, no hugs and where Facebook was my worst friend and the reality of what Christmas really means hit me right in the face. Christmas for me is to just be surrounded by love and love is not a quality I feel in Cambodia. Not yet anyway.

Next it’s New Year and I have so much to look forward to in 2014, I’m sure I’ll be writing all about it.

Heaps of peace

Jay

Orientation is Over... Lesson planning is my life.

jaygotham — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 14:14:00 GMT

Orientation is over, it was crazy busy and we did so much in such a small amount of time. The first few days consisted of Khmer lessons every morning and I'm trying to use it as much as possible, mostly saying thank you and no (mainly to tuktuk drivers). It's a difficult language with many 'blended' sounds like b+p and d+t sounds. We also had to sit through a few presentations on child protection and culture talks. I'm up-to-date with how to live here now I think; it feels like I've been here for at least a month.

So, I've tried a few new foods: dragon fruit; rambutan and having noodle soup for breakfast. I haven't been too adventurous as I've had gastro just once so far, fingers crossed that was the last time too. I've been to a few tourist sites: Tuol Sleng Museum; Royal Palace; Silver Pagoda and some more markets, which are so repetitive I'm not going again until I need something specific as I get totally ripped off as I am a 'white' person.

These past few days I have been on a trip to Kratie and Roungeav Island to visit an NGO which the school's money supports. As the school is run by volunteer teachers the classes are quite cheap and the money it makes goes to Cambodia Rural Development Tours (CRDT) which helps families in rural villages. They help them to make more money through growing their own vegetables and keeping chickens and pigs, they also encourage a more sanitised way of living, something as basic as using bins and having toilets. During our visit we saw the projects that were going on and stayed on the island in a village called Koh Phdao which CRDT supports. Here we stayed with families as a homestay. My homestay was with the Prum Sarin family. We slept on mats on the floor with a mosquito net over us, so basic but so comfy. There was a school in the village which we visited and handed out notebooks and pens to the children, it was a very strange experience for me and I am not able to put it into words but it seemed that the children very much enjoyed it and really that's all that matters.

We did a few more things whilst around Kratie, we went onto the Mekong River and saw Irrawaddy dolphins that are extremely rare and can only be seen here. We also got to watch some traditional Khmer dancing when at the Koh Phdao community as they put a show on for us during the evening. The dance is so simple and elegant.

During this visit I have had to take Malaria tablets which are an experience in itself. They have been giving me the most weird and vivid dreams. I'll give you an example of one that I remember. I was waitressing in my dream, just walking around doing the usual, however... I was naked and at the time it seemed normal - everyone was naked. But then my boss told me to put knickers on and I tried, I really did but the knickers felt like them and I was opposite ends of magnets and I just couldn't put them on. I was so frustrated at the time. I can't remember if I got them on in the end, but it doesn't matter because it was only a dream.

I'm back in Phnom Penh, getting ready for my classes that start on Monday. I'm teaching 4 classes a day and my times are 6AM till 7AM; 7AM till 8AM; 4PM till 5PM and 5PM till 6PM. I'm liking the schedule and looking forward to the 5AM wake ups.

Heaps of Peace,

Jay

Getting to Asia

jaygotham — Thu, 5 Dec 2013 19:53:00 GMT

Last kisses with the loved one and I was off, tears running down my face, with many hours on planes to long forward too. 18 or so hours later I arrived at Phnom Penh, I had to pass through Doha (Qatar) and Ho Chi Minch (Vietnam) before landing in Phnom Penh. I hadn't remembered that when I booked my flight I had requested vegetarian (non-dairy) food so it was a nice surprise when I got my special request food. I have never had such amazing food on an airplane, I usually quite like the food anyway but this was even better, my first meal so something called rajma curry - don't know where or what it is, but it was amazing. On another meal I had a dairy free almond cake, woah- amazing again. Food isn't a problem here, with chefs and half of the house mates veggies the meals have been delicious, sweet and sour veg with rice, tofu and green beans with rice, so much fresh food as fridges are a rare thing here I'm told. Looking forward to see what else rice goes with.

But onto my orientation, so far I've meet the house mates, Aussie's, Kiwi's; American's, a Canadian, a couple of British and a young girl from Singapore. My roomie is an Aussie, she is vegan, and has been here for a week or so, so she knows her way round. This morning we've had a tour around the city in tuktuks, just driving past a few landmarks, stopping off at mall's, a bookstore and the school that we will all be working at. Then this afternoon we've had a little house rules talk and been assigned bikes - mine's B8, it's PINK with a little basket on the front, so I'm going to head out for a ride, and conquer the roads...

Heaps of peace, jay

Goodbye

jaygotham — Sun, 1 Dec 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Hey guys and welcome to my new blog. New blog means new journey. I'm heading to a place unknown to me, Asia, more specifically, Cambodia.

I will be spending my time as an intern, teaching conversational English. I will be working for Conversations With Foreigners (CWF) in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. I will be living in a house, in the city, with other interns/volunteers who are also on the programme. During orientation I will receive my schedule of 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, first classes start at 6AM and finish at 8PM. Here's hoping I get the early's and get to rise before the sun, it's a 'supposed' tradition to wake before the sun in Cambodia. Alongside the accommodation there will be two chefs, who cook for us three times a day, except on bank holidays. We also have the option of learning to cook Cambodian traditional meals, so if you're reading this then I'll happily cook for you when I see you, if you trust my cooking skills. We can have noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner...

So, I haven't left the country since July, when I had a quick trip to California for my cousin's graduation, with another cousin and we saw more cousins. This trip will be a little different, I've never been to a third world country, Asia's poorest I hear. I've had injections (£150!!!); bought malaria tablets (£100's) and got clean needles (FREE). I've said a lot of goodbyes, some people more than once - eaten a lot of 'kind of' Christmas dinners and I'm packed ready to leave. So tuesday afternoon I will head to the airport where I will pass through Quatar and Vietnam ending in my final destination Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Now to spend my last day and a half with the love of my life.

Keep watching this space, I'll be back as much as possible.

Heaps of peace, Jay