Trude's Travel Tales

Another well-overdue update!  Well we’ve been here in Stung Treng for more than six weeks already – we now rent a room in a house which is pretty much halfway between the school and the town, so it’s handy.  At $40 a month you can’t really beat it!  The family is nice, the boy speaks a little English and they’ve invited us in for dinner a few times….which always ends up in lots of beer drinking with the dad!

School has been out the past two weeks – April 14-16^th was Khmer New Year, and quite often before and around that time many of the students and their families will go and visit other family, or go back to their home towns, etc.  We had 3 days of celebrations last week for Khmer New Year, lots of games and Khmer dancing (which I am terrible at!)…and now it’s back to school on the 20^th – which is just as well, because there is not much to do around here when school is out!  It’s still incredibly hot at the moment, most days around 40 degrees – but the rainy season should start around mid May which cools everything off a bit.  We had our first big rain the other night – it was really heavy and so loud…..along with a heap of lightening and some thunder made it one awesome storm!  Then in the middle of the night last night was more torrential rain, and right at this minute the sky has turned a dark blue/grey and the thunder has started….so perhaps the rainy season has come early this year!!!

I’ve been really enjoying myself here, except it hasn’t all been fun and games – a couple of weeks ago a 10 year old boy from my morning class was killed in a motorbike accident, which was devastating for all of us.  Him, his brother, sister and father were riding home one night after visiting their grandma (not at all unusual to have 4 people squeeze onto a bike, and of course no helmets) when a car ran into them and sent them flying.  Sey Ha died on impact and his brother, father and sister ended up in the hospital but were discharged a few days later.  It was an awful shock to hear the news, and even now sometimes I still can’t believe it happened.

On a lighter note, I’m leaving tomorrow to come home to Australia for a visit for 2 weeks, to meet Kel’s twin boys!  VERY exciting, except for the travel involved – 8-9 hour bus ride from Stung Treng to Phnom Penh, night in Phnom Penh, fly the next morning from Phnom Penh to Singapore where I have an 10 hour stopover, then Singapore-Darwin-Melbourne-Hobart.  Two and a half days of travelling.   Sigh.  It makes me exhausted just thinking about it.  But it’ll be worth it once I get home......which will make it 5 months since I left.  But then I’ll be leaving again and going back to Cambodia – no idea for how long really, a couple more months at least if everything continues to work out. 

And I finally uploaded some photos – here are the links: