Week 14 (& 14b): Leaving Cambodia and getting back to Singapore!

This blog is going to cover both the last week in Cambodia and the first week in Singapore since we thought it would be interesting to write about the transition.

We started this week by teaching a few "regular" (non-Xmas party) classes on Monday which was all pretty normal. On Tuesday we gave both the morning and afternoon classes at CLC end of term parties. This was basically two hours of chaotic fun with a combination of the middle and young classes. We bought and gave out snacks from the market, gave out stationary donated by the DWC volunteers, played the all-time favourites "Duck-Duck-Spider and "Whats the time Mr. Wolf?" and generally had a wild time! It was a lot of fun finishing up the "term" but I was struck by how depressed I would be in Singapore without lots of kids to brighten the day for me. The comforting thing was that all our kids seemed to grasp that we would be back in the new year. This was really important to me because I did not want them to think they would never see us again, as is the case with a lot of volunteers they meet.

I also went a little crazy with Joss's camera in the last few days, so we now have HUNDREDS of photos of the kids which will shortly appear on the blog!!

On Wednesday we packed our bags at the Red House in the morning and then went to visit the local pepper plantation with Bo and Lalin. The green pepper from this part of Cambodia is world-known for it's fantastic taste. In fact, green pepper prawns are one of our favourite dishes in Kep. In the afternoon Leron and I took the moto to the fabled Kampong Trach caves while Joss finished off the term with her Coconut Project class. The caves were absolutely fantastic! I think the natural beauty of Kampong Trach is equal to any I've seen. Unfortunately, we couldn't go into some of the caves because the monsoon season only just finished so a lot of the caves were still flooded. This, however, gives us a great reason to head back in January! In the caves that we could go into we were shown a number of natural rock formations that resemble animals or people as well as underground caves where the roots from trees come through the roof. The most interesting rock form in the cave was a group of huge stalactites that resonated when you hit them because of water eroding away the rock inside them long after they were formed. Because the size of the stalactites varied they all omitted a different sound so Leron and I had a good time banging out some tunes. I'm really looking forward to going back to the caves with Joss next year. We spent the rest of Tuesday chilling out at the Red House and relaxing with cold drinks and waffles from Kampong Trach.

Bright and early on Thursday we headed to P.P. The journey was fairly uneventful except for one very hairy moment when our bus knocked over a moto with 3 passengers and then drove over the moto! Thankfully the three passengers where thrown to the right and away from the bus and were all unscathed. In typical Cambodian style they picked up their moto, dusted themselves down and drove off as if nothing had happened. The incident certainly strengthened my resolve to NEVER drive a moto in P.P.!

The last few days in P.P. were not fantastic. Due to lack of foresight with our journey planning we ended up bumming around for a few days with not much to do! There were some nice times though, like the big party the P.P. volunteers threw in the office and catching up with Fred. The party was a lot of fun because the P.P. volunteers invited all their close Cambodian co-workers so it turned out to be a really good sendoff.

Early on Sunday morning Joss and I headed for the airport. P.P. airport is suprisingly quiet and calm. This setting after 3 months in Cambodia seems unnaturally boring! We caught our flight without any major difficulties and were shortly back home in Singapore.

The week here has been fun but rather surreal, similar to our first week in Cambodia in fact. Singapore, where everything is neat, tidy and well-organized. An air-conditioned country with more money than it knows what to do with. It's a stark contrast to Cambodia, where a huge number of people are desperately poor and keeping things tidy and well organized is near the bottom of the priority list. I am happy to be back with my family in Singapore for this short interval, but I know I will be yearning for Chamcar Bie soon!

Joss and I spent some of our first week back visiting our school to talk to the next generation of potential gap year students. This was actually very enjoyable because it was really nice to be able to share some of my experience so far. Sadly, we didn't get much one-on-one time with any students who were interested because it was the last week of term and therefore rather hectic. We also met up with all the volunteers at Mr. Morley's house one last time, which was likely to be the last time we were all together for quite a while since we are now going to disperse across the globe in totally different directions.

Many things about being back in Singapore are very strange. The sense of wealth and cleanliness. Riding around in cars instead of motos and tuk-tuks. Calling cab drivers "uncle" and saying "thankyou" or "can" instead of "okun" and "baat". All in all its a pretty strange thing being back, but im enjoying it while it's here and by the end of Xmas I will be excited to get back to CLC!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

See you all in January!

Tom Kemeny