Thursday 5th Jan saw us up early & off to New Hope School for our usual morning of chaos & mayhem hopefully helping the Cambodian children learn to speak English. New Hope is in Mondul3 one of the poorest areas of Siem Reap & to give the people an opportunity to break the poverty cycle New Hope School is educating the children not only in Khmer but also teaching them another language (in this case English) so they can then get a job in the tourism in...

Yesterday after a good night sleep, we all gathered at the communal tables outside The Golden Villiage (our accommodation). We had to go through and sign the remaining paperwork required to teach at New Hope. The paper work just had the basic common sense things you shouldn't and should do when you are in the presents of the kids. After a good 40 miunutes of going through two pages of paper work, we hopped on a tuk tuk headed for the Cambodian Cultural Centre! ...

The first day of 2012 had finally arrived. It began in the late morning as everyone was recovering from the excitement of New Years Eve. Everyone managed to drag themselves to breakfast although for some, brunch. No plans were in place till late afternoon so everyone went their own separate ways. Some went into town on bikes, others went to the hair salon and several decided to continue resting and recovering. As 2:30 approached the troops regrouped and we soon b...

Today we left Phnom Penh and began our 6 hour bus journey to Siem Reap. Along the way we stopped off three times. The first was for a much needed toilet break and a nice garlic fried tarantula which only the brave hearted endured in (including myself). The best break was for lunch which was a nice traditional meal where yet again a few very brave boys ate whole chillies. It was the first time I saw so many boys cry. The last stop was at a very old bridge which wa...

After leaving the killing fields museum we set off in our bus. The students and teachers were quite subdued and some teary. We arrived at S21, an old high school that was reconfigured into a torture prison during the reign of Pol Pot. The prison was a place where all of the educated were taken for interrogation before they were taken to the killing fields for execution. The inmates of S21 were teachers, doctors, professional people, preachers, monks and professo...