Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
David Holmes's Travels
We met Sinn at 7am and this time he had the tour bus to take us to the village, which was a pleasant change from the Tuk-tuks. They are great fun to ride in but hot and dusty to travel any distance. So comfy seats and air-con was a welcome sight. We dropped Gill and Anna off at the school and some of the early arrivers were already there to meet them with big smiles. James and I headed to the building project. When we arrived the girls were already there and the father of the family was also helping out. Today's task was making the frames for the walls. We are making the walls this way because it is cheaper than using wooden boards, which costs around $500 more per house. However it is very time consuming doing it with palm leaves as the frames are fiddly to make out of the split bamboo poles. We worked out that each frame has about 100 joints which have to be drilled to stop the bamboo from splitting and then have a nail banged into the hole. Whilst we were doing one panel James managed to catch my leg with the drill. Sinn thought this was very funny and we have nick-named him the 'driller killer'. It was just a scratch though and Georgia had some plasters on hand to stop it getting dirty. It is a fiddly job and requires a lot of patience and precision. The father, being a builder, is very precise and watched us non-builders with a mixture of horror and amusement as we attempted to make the walls of his house. We managed to complete most of the frames today and I think they will be ready to have the palm leaf coverings added to them tomorrow. James and I are still not quite sure how that is done so we are fascinated to see what happens. We have Just 2 days to finish the walls and fit the stairs, so we are going to steal Gill and Anna from their school duties tomorrow to help out. There are other volunteers at the school so hopefully they will be OK with that. The children of the family whose house we are building we're also keen to help as you can see from the pictures, but they are very young. It was really tiring today and very very hot. We came back and had lunch by the pool and James fell asleep sitting at the poolside bar with his head on the bar. I took him back to the room to sleep and he didn't wake up until 6pm. We headed into town for some dinner and found a really nice Italian restaurant called Il Forno. James had the idea to take some paper and pencils for the kids to play with so we bought some at the market tonight to take with us tomorrow. It will be safer than them playing with roof nails.
- comments
LOXTONS We are loving your updates. Whats your best price for a rear extension?
David Holmes We can do an authentic Cambodian style extension for around £2,000 plus VAT. Not sure it would stand up to an English winter though or pass building regs.