more updates...

Error Correction

In my last post, about Steng Hav, I mentioned M'Lop Tapang (who are a huge organisation doing an amazing job here in Sihanoukville) and I was mistaken in naming Thet as the centres director. I apologise for that mistake.  I have corrected the original blog post here but many of  you receive updates by email and would not read the correction.

Donations

A huge thank you to Bernadette, a long time friend from Brisbane for donating $50 a fortnight, wow, I was overwhelmed. Also a huge thank you to the continuing donations from Jenny in Nymboida and also Richard in Nymboida and a special thanks to Marlon and Sharon in Nymboida for there $200 donation and the guidance and support they have given me from their time in Cambodia and lastly, a donation long overdue from a very special friend, Steve who is looking after our property in Nymboida for us.  He dropped us off at the airport and when we went to give him $20 for fuel, he said to keep it and help the  kids in Camboida, it had slipped our minds until just the other day, so a huge thank you to Steve for not just his donation but to the amazing job he is doing at our place in Nymboida.  Donations going in and expenses going out can be seen here and the petty cash information can be seen here.

One little note that I keep repeating, please don't use the PayPal to make a donation unless you are not in Australia, as PAYPAL take a fee.  Direct deposits into the bank account if you are in Australia are "fee free", so all of the money can be used over here.  Details about that are in the very top right of the blog here.  If anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to email me and ask (email contact details at the same location as above). To the generous people back in Aus. that have set up regular donations, thank you so very much. Everything is appreciated, $5 a week is awesome, if we had a few people doing that, it would add up to something substantial very quickly.

Geography Update

The World is a big place, so a few people  might not know exactly how Cambodia fits into the World, or how where we are living, fits into Cambodia. So I thought it might make sense to include a couple of small maps to help people out.  The first shows how Cambodia fits into SE Asia, with borders to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand

SE Asia

and here we are, way down south, in the port city of Sihanoukville, on the Gulf of Thailand

Cambodia

Rural Cambodia

We recently went to have a look at Kep and Kampot, two French colonial era resort towns that are slowly recovering. We travelled down in a mini bus but on the way back we took a tuk tuk (say that fast 10 times over !) through some of the rural areas. It was absolutely wonderful to get a little off the beaten track and see some of the more rural areas.  Pictures being worth a 1000 words, here is a small sample

Watering the crops ...

... the hard way

working in the fields near Kampot

Looking across the Gulf of Thailand, from Kep National Park

More photos here for those interested
Kep
Kampot

Scarey Stuff !

There is also this online interactive atlas for anyone interested. One of the truly horrible things about this is the bombing information from the Vietnam War, along with the Landmines (mostly from the Khmer Rouge era)  and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) strewn around the place.  You can click on the map, and on the top left turn the Bombing layers on. People die regularly from this kind of thing, 40 years after it happened they are still being killed and maimed.  !  Scarey stuff indeed !