Well we are now getting into the swing of our domestic lives here. We have discovered how to do our washing. For $1 per kilo you can get a very “”enthusiastically scrubbed”bag of clothing laundered. The only thing is that if you have anything white it will probably come back dirtier than it went in due to the constant dust everywhere. We have also become accustomed to taking off our shoes at the door and I have only taken another persons thongs once so far! We are slowly learning some Khmer language and yesterday we had a 2 hour lesson which we are constantly trying to practice on the local people, much to their constant amusement.

We were a bit disappointed to find a modern mini market at the corner of our street. It takes all the challenge out of going to the market for everything and negotiating the price! We have become quite friendly with a couple of the tuk tuk drivers who as well as driving us around are also enthusiastically exchanging English lessons for Khmer. They are so smart and use every opportunity to improve their English. Our room is fairly sparse but has everything that we need, including hot water which is considered a luxury here.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Tonle Sap lake and went on a river cruise out to the floating villages. Women and children row their boats out to the floating “restaurant” selling bunches of bananas for $US1. Their children are constantly at risk of falling into the water and drowning as they race to get to each newly arrived boat before anyone else. Some mothers are carrying their babies and others are well into ‘their latest pregnancy. No-one wears a life jacket. The children are constantly wet and shivering but they never give up hope that a tourist will relent and give them a dollar.

Thousands of people live on the lake in floating homes which they move around the lake depending on the weather. At the moment it is the dry season so they water is quite low. In the wet season it rises approx 11 metres as water floods in from the Mekong Delta. The houses are little more than bamboo huts and would be unimaginable during the rainy season. People earn their living by fishing or selling to the tourists. There are a number of schools on the lake and I saw one financed by UNESCO and another by the French.

In Siem Reap we have been told that it is now illegal to beg and that the police have recently rounded up all the children off the street and put them into a locked compound prior to a visit by the Thai government. This may be a rumour but I have no way of knowing. However that is definitely a lack of begging here compared to a year ago.

Irene you would definitely be out of a job here as nobody has heard of OH&S. We have seen many sights that would fill our Incident Book on a daily basis. What is very sad though is to see the children in so many risky situations. Our Child Protection system would never cope. Not that people deliberately neglect their children, it is just the environment and circumstances that they are forced to exist in. Overall the Cambodian people seem very resilient.