Yesterday a fellow volunteer, Anne and I decided to treat ourselves for Christmas and go to the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor for afternoon tea. We knew that Raffles was a very upmarket hotel, but it was still something else to walk in past the plaque with 5 gold stars and into the luxurious lobby area. We were guided into 'The Conservatory' by some porters dressed in typical Khmer costume (imagine an oompa lumpas costume made of silk) and seated in a lovely table...

Due to the unfortunate situation of a fellow volunteer who was mistakenly given a tourist visa and not a business one and so was unable to extend it for the stay of her volunteering and hence faced deportation, we left Cambodia for a week in order for her to get a new visa on return. We decided to make the most of this rather messy situation by going somewhere nice and so we set off to Koh Chang, a tropical Thai island on Sunday morning and are returning to Siem ...

Today 11 of us volunteers loaded into the back of a pick-up truck and went to Phnom Kulen National Park to see the waterfalls. It was about a 2 hour drive, mostly on good road except for the last few miles which were particularly bumpy, enhanced by the fact that we were sitting on the side of the trunk and constantly felt like we were going to fall off. However we did eventually get there, numb bums and all, and walked to the side of the river where we lay in ham...

So far all I've talked about are my travelling adventures so I thought it was about time I actually said something about my work!I have been working at HERO school along with another volunteer, Vera, for 7 weeks now, and it's been a bit of a bumpy ride. Out of all the new volunteers in October, Vera and I were kind of given the short straw and placed in a new organistation that has never had volunteers before. As a result our project was not well organised for ou...

Last weekend was one of the biggest events in the Cambodian calendar - the Water Festival, which was held in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to mark the end of the rainy season. This entails boat races on the river and a kind of carnival atmosphere with stalls and activities lining the streets and selling, as is typical in Cambodia, anything from clothes and ice-cream to washing up liquid and fried bananas. It basically consists of lots and lots of boats racing as ...