Excuse a very belated post, I've been suffering with writer's block as of late. Also, if this post is full of mumbling and a babble of illogical sentences then I apologise in advance (sorry*).

So, where did we get up to? Aaaah, Monday… Well there's not that much to report of the week in KK. As Anna and I had both decided what we were doing the night that we got the phone call from Travellers, all we did, it seemed, was wait to see when we were leaving, what was going to happen next, for all the others to make decisions, etc. etc. We couldn't really plan anything either because we had no idea when we were going to be leaving, if our plans would suddenly change, if anyone else was coming with us, and a multitude of different scenarios. Therefore our only options were to stay within KK and find some kind of amusement in the city (which, unfortunately, is mundane and boring. waaah*).

(Apologies for my rant*) I hear you cry: what did we actually do? Well, in true fashion we headed to the shopping centres, treated ourselves to a Starbucks, found a few delicious; authentic restaurants (kind of "off the beaten track" from the main town) and just tried to waste as much time as possible (how sad is that?). It was actually really frustrating; I'm in one of the most beautiful countries and I was stuck in a shabby hotel, in an extremely tedious city and unable to really explore :(. On Tuesday, Anna, Erika and I decided to go for a (ahem*) well-deserved massage. We were all thinking "a nice, relaxing treatment" would be our experience.. oh how wrong we were. The masseuses would ask us if we had "pain?" and we'd respond "yes" every time; they would continue with the same, if not increased, pressure. Now, I've had my fair few deep tissue massages and those don't even come close. With every "thumb-jab" I thought either a bone was going to break or my increasingly tender muscles were going to snap. To make matters worse, my discomfort wasn't relieved by my masseuse's incessant burping (pretty gross, eh?!* Would you believe, Malaysian culture see's burping as polite!). You'll probably think I'm exaggerating, but I will post a picture if you don't believe me… Anna was bruised ALL over her back. Needless to say, we all made a hasty retreat out, more stressed and tense than ever (tip: never have a Malaysian massage*).

On to the more exciting news. As you can probably tell from the title, I am indeed in Cambodia! Having trawled through the pages on Traveller's website, Anna and I both decided that the teaching project here is the most suited to us. Cambodia is also one of the places in the world that I have always wanted to visit (a bucket list must); being here for 4 weeks is definitely going to suffice… Who would turn down an experience like this anyway?! To begin our adventure, we jetted (more like turbulence fuelled Air Asia flight*) out of KK on Sunday morning, to wait in Kuala Lumpur for 5 hours. 5 hours in a really busy, very small airport in high 30s with no air conditioning isn't too fun. We arrived in Siem Reap at 8pm. Even the airport is beautiful. It's a series of gorgeous wooden huts and very few lights. You would probably question whether it was an airport. They have the coolest Visas here too - see photo (yay - fun thing in my passport!*). There is a huge heatwave here at the moment, as its coming to the end of the dry season (mid April rain usually starts again), when we got off the plane is was 34°C, and that's at night! We very quickly grabbed our luggage, and met our traveller's liaison Caitlyn at arrivals. We were ferried into a Tùk-Tùk with all our luggage and off we went to our rest house. Everybody here rides a motorcycle, there are Tùk-Tùks everywhere and very little rules of the road: no lines to divide right from left so people drive wherever they fancy (if I'm honest, a little bit scary*). The people here can fit their lives on their motorcycles… 5 people to one bike is a common sight. We were driving down the main road, Route 6/Airport Road, and the buzz of people, colour, life, etc. is amazing. The buildings are beautiful too, bearing in mind that it's 8pm and I can't really see that much justifies its beauty. We arrived at the Happy Guest House very quickly (it's about 5 minutes out of main town) and the accommodation is adequate. Massive issue… no air con switched on for us (say what?!*) but there is a ceiling fan.. Needless to say, very quickly Anna and I asked for the air con to be switched on. Having dumped all our bags in the room, we headed downstairs to the restaurant for a briefing/induction thing. I had a quick scan of the menu… everything is SO cheap and there's SO much fruit available (hurrah!*). Caitlyn told us that our first day at the school would be tomorrow, Monday. Everything was moving so fast but we were excited and ready for a new challenge. We would also be working on our own, and teaching from the word go (talk about pressure!). Knackered, we went to bed pretty early because we had to be up and ready at 8:30am the following morning.

Wow, what an amazing week it has been here. Our Tùk-Tùk drive into work every morning takes about 30 minutes. We get to see the most incredible parts of Siem Reap and the surrounding villages with a more than welcome breeze. The variety of life here is utterly incredible, and all the people are so happy. Driving down Route 6 during the day is a totally different experience… you can see so many unique people, buildings, etc. it's overwhelming to take it all in! As soon as we turn off route 6 to go towards the school, I feel like we were in a different world. One second, bustling city life and the next rural Cambodia with the skinny cows, brick-red dirt roads, etc. There are only 6 main roads throughout the whole of Cambodia, so travelling around takes such a long time! To get to the beach is 12 hrs from Siem Reap because you have to go through Phnom Penh and round.. it would usually take 3!

I can only describe the school as one you would imagine being on a UNICEF advert. There are poorly maintained wooden benches and desks in wooden huts with woven palm leaves as the roof; sand as flooring and very little supplies. We were thrown into the deep end.. having to teach a class on our own. I was given a class that were early-intermediates. It was really hard to pick up from where another volunteer had left them, so the first few minutes I was trying to decipher how I was going to go about the lesson. The most refreshing thing about these children is that they're not forced to go to school like us Westerners; they choose to go and learn English, and they really want to be there. They're all very eager to learn, get involved and don't get embarrassed when you say "stand up or read aloud…". In fact, they love being centre of attention.

The morning classes run from 9-11 and the afternoon from 1-3. This whole teaching malarkey is really tiring because you're thinking on your feet and using your imagination constantly. Then you add in the mid-40 degree heat and you're completely drained after the first two hours. I thought I'd be more sweaty in the Bornean Jungle, but out here its unfathomably hot so you're just dripping all the time (disgusting!*). Even the locals are complaining about the heat, so it's not just me being from the Arctic climate of England. Trying to sunbathe here is a no go: we attempted and failed on Saturday because direct sunlight at midday is unbearable :(. We have lunch and recline in the hammocks under the big tree for a couple of hours before the afternoon classes begin (ah relaxation*). My afternoon class have become more and more challenging as the week has gone on. I thought that they were really advanced and understood everything perfectly. However, frustratingly, I've realised that they've been taught far too much "out of the book" with reading and writing (which they're excellent at), but they're listening skills are lacking and almost non-existent. They merely know the sounds words, but they have absolutely no comprehension of the meaning (a bit like listening to a song and remembering the lyrics, but you don't actually know what the lyrics are about!). All the classes great you really nicely with: "Good Morning teacher" and "Thank you teacher, see you 15 minutes" etc. but they have absolutely no idea what they're saying. I feel like I have to strip the language right back to basics, but even that's hard (GAAAH*).

Being a Bhuddist Organisation that run the school, Monks are around all the time. They're such peaceful people, who are willing to practice their English; it's really insightful talking to them about Bhuddism and how they practice their faith. One question: are Monks supposed to be moderately dressed? I ask this because we had a strange experience with one of them. He went to the bathroom with his orange robe on and came out wearing only his boxers and walked around the school for a while :/ (slightly odd if you ask me).

After our first day, Caitlyn took us on a quick tour of Siem Reap's main town. It's quite small but there's a lot of things to see, places to visit, food to be tasted etc. Anna and I decided to go into the night markets on Saturday evening and try our hand at bartering. I think we make quite the haggling duo (trick is try half price*)! We found lots of fun Cambodian treats and treated ourselves to a cool refreshing coconut water (mainly because, once again, we were ridiculously hot). The one thing I would say about Siem Reap, is that you must wander down the side-alleys. It's a bit like Barcelona... you have to explore to find the best parts!

Hmm.. what else to tell you. Well the food is delicious and there's such a variety and abundance of fruit too (yipeee*). Finally got hold of some fresh milk too, and all the coconut water will probably be doing me a world of good! We're looking into doing yoga classes too, as they're really cheap and will probably make us feel exercised :)

So far there's not much else to say. I'm going to post next week too to let you know what I've been up to and how all my classes are :). Have a look at the photo albums to see what I've been doing. I'm going to update them before I post this so there'll be lots to look at. Cambodia has been a huge culture shock but it's an expectation I was more than willing to welcome. We're going to do more of the cultural things next week because we'll probably be getting more into the swing of things here and feel less knackered after school.

Once again I didn't expect this post to be this long, but again, and unfortunately for you, it is veeeeery long (whoops*). I hope you're all well. Have a very Happy Easter! (I'm so jealous of all the chocolate and things :()! I'm well and safe, so Grandad stop worrying!

Love,

Jordanna xx

P.S. If you want to read more about the project then please do: http://www.travellersworldwide.com/03-cambodia/cambodia-teach-siem-reap.htm