Taking advantage of the time we had in Thailand, plus our access to a vehicle, we took a 4 day jaunt around Northern Thailand. We stayed in Pai, Mae Hong Son, and Mae Saruin. The trip was mostly driving (about 3 hours each day) and eating (lots of delicious food). We drove about 5 hours on the last day as Jonno insisted on a side trip to the highest peak in Thailand. The poor Mighty struggled up the mountain – it was steep and treacherous and we took most of it in first gear, but we reached the top to find everything was shut and it was 14 degrees (as compared to 36 degrees at the bottom). We were COLD!!

We drove through lots of mountainous regions – as mentioned previously it is Burning Season and there were a lot of small fires burning away at the undergrowth and lots of places you could see that fires had passed through. It was hot and dry and very hazy – I can imagine that in October you would get great views, but these were sorely lacking. Despite this it was a great trip.

Like I mentioned in the last post, we loved Chiang Mai. Most of all it was just SO nice having extra time with K – a treat for me and the kids. He and Jonno were also able to continue managing the Sihanoukville build from here as well as evaluate how the build had gone in order to apply lessons learned to the Siem Reap build (whenever that happens).

We packed in quite a few things during our time there. One of the first things we did was take a trip to a Wat up a hill – Chiang Mai is packed full of temples. They’re fascinating to look at – not just the architecture but all the iconography.

One day we went and had lunch at Tiger Kingdom so we could look at the tigers without paying for the experience. The tigers quite liked young Noah – I think they were salivating at the sight of him to be honest. We then took a visit to the Queen Sirikit Botanic Gardens up the hill from Tiger Kingdom – these were beautiful. They have a walkway that takes you over the top of the jungle. I was quite enamoured with some of the stunning leaves.

We took a day trip to the Chiang Mai zoo, which is pretty huge. The kids enjoyed feeding the elephants. Ezekiel loved the hippos – and the panthers took a liking to Noah again – he must be the right size for a couple of delicious mouthfuls in their minds!

We also visited a few incredible waterfalls. I LOVED these experiences. Sitting underneath a waterfall and letting it rain heavily onto your head is an invigorating, cleansing experience!!

On our second to last day we also visited another lot of waterfalls. These ones were called the sticky waterfalls because the rocks are porous and you can scramble up and down them – which is pretty epic!!! The photos don’t look like much, but the water was super clear and it was a lot of fun.

Chiang Mai is also home to a variety of excellent markets. The Sunday Night Walking market is a huge assortment of craft, clothes, food, souvenir stalls. It has really high quality handicrafts – sometimes we even watched the crafters at work. We visited there a couple of times as it was so enjoyable.

There are also an array of amazing food markets that open at night – a wonderful atmosphere to enjoy. I highly recommend visiting Chiang Mai!!

At the start of Feb, Jonno and Ren were scheduled to move up to Siem Reap in order to get things organised for the second build we were planning to do up there. Thankfully there were issues with council consents (something we never had to deal with in Sihanoukville), the work couldn’t start, and so Ren went to stay with her family in her Kampot village while Jonno stayed in Sihanoukville to continue with the build down here.

And then Corona hit the news. And we wondered what to do, aside from stocking up on limes and masks 🙂

Jonno’s family really wanted them to return to Australia but then someone suggested we could head to Chiang Mai in Thailand and watch and wait from there. None of us have great trust in the information from China and even less so in the Cambodian government. At that stage the cruise ship was still quarantining their passengers and we thought it was a good test case to keep an eye on – what would the official death rate be and did we need to worry. Cambodia had reported one patient, a Chinese man here in Sihanoukville, with the virus and we also thought we’d wait and see what happened here.

So off to Chiang Mai we went. We were able to stay in the Bible Education Centre there that had been set up by our church. A couple from Aussie (Sam & Abi McGeorge – who have quite the sense of humour (see photo below)) were already there, plus a young man from Myanmar and another from India – so quite the full house (13 of us)!!

Chiang Mai was a delicious breath of fresh air (very figuratively speaking) after Sihanoukville. I say figuratively speaking as we were there during what they call Burning Season (the maize farmers burn off their old crops) and the air was very hazy and polluted. Aside from that, what can I say but wow, we loved it. Orderly traffic (comparatively speaking), clean streets, paved roads, friendly people, delicious, cheap street food, amazing fruit shakes, incredible waterfalls… I said again and again, “this trip is a gift from God”. It was an amazing time.

While we were there we kept an eye on the news. We watched Hun Sen (the Cambodian PM) with amazement – he visited China to show his support and even asked to visit Wuhan, even though it was on lock down! He reprimanded journalists for wearing masks in his presence, saying the virus was nothing to be concerned about. And of course, he welcomed the second cruise ship onto Cambodia’s shores, personally greeting people as they disembarked. Despite this country only having officially 5 people with the virus so far, schools have been shut down in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. There have been reports that it costs $800 to get virus testing done – who has that kind of money?

Quite simply we don’t trust reports of only 5 cases in the past month and so we are busy trying to leave the country. I’m writing this as I sit on hold (for the 3rd time) to the airline we are supposed to be travelling with – it looks like Malaysia has shut their borders so I don’t think we’ll be transiting through there as planned. I’ve only been on hold for a total of 2 hours so far – I’m sure I’ll have time to fill you in on all our Chiang Mai adventures before this is done 🙂 Until then I’ll leave you with a couple more of my favourite Corona memes.

There are always random sights to behold as we move around Sihanoukville. Here are a few of them:

This guy ascended the power pole outside our house to do some repairs wearing jandals (thongs), with a metal rod clutched between his toes, which he inserted into drilled holes in the pole in order to ascend. He clipped on his “safety harness” once he was up!

I discovered this scene around the corner from our house as I returned from the supermarket one evening. The concrete truck has managed to fall over and is slowly becoming secured in a pool of hardening concrete. As I watched they tied a rope around it’s belly and tried to haul it upright with a crane – all they managed to do was lift its bottom wheels up about 20cm. I didn’t have hours to watch the unfolding scenario so I left them to it.

The kids took it upon themselves to do a spontaneous clean up of the ditch outside our house – there is so much rubbish everywhere all the time. They collected this pile within about 20m of our place. When I say it’s filthy here I mean it!

Always some fascinating sights on the job site.

Tige woke up one morning and had clearly been bitten by something in the night! I think it may have been a spider.. it took a few days to go down.  Like I said, there’s always rubbish everywhere… and then there’s me and the kids on my trusty steed – always a random sight for the Khmer – I get a few stares and smiles as I drive around.

A bit more than a week after my own trip to Kampot, we took a family trip with Jonno and Ren and stayed in Ren’s village for a few nights. It was a lovely chance to get away as a whole family and we did a bit of sightseeing while we were there.  K and Ezekiel went out on Ren’s brother’s fishing boat for a few hours – I bowed out of that one due to sea sickness.

We took a trip up Bokor Mountain, which is a local national park. Both K and I were reminded of NZ as we drove up the winding mountain road. It was a pleasant reminder and we all really enjoyed our time.

I’d be lying if I said it’s been all sipping fresh fruit shakes on golden sanded beaches here. It’s been hard yards (for me anyway). K was working mostly 7 days a week, having bits and pieces of time off and I was getting frustrated at hardly seeing him, the kids were missing him, and I was feeling lonely and unsupported.

A couple of days before Chinese New Year, K got home and asked if I’d like to go away for the weekend as he was having some time off!! All I can say is, my husband is a hero. He knows my needs and he is so loving in helping give me time out (I’m an introvert – I need my time to recharge!).

So a couple of days later K and the kids went to his family’s village, while I got a ride to Ren’s village (Jonno is Aussie and married to Ren, who is Khmer, and they have 2 kids aged 4 and 2). Ren’s village is about 30 minutes south of Kampot, a beautiful wee riverside town. I had my moto and embraced the lone trip to Kampot and then onwards to the beautiful wee place I stayed at the first night. Booking my accommodation the night before we left meant I stayed in 2 different places, the first a wee bungalow by the river and the second a tent (clamping, so they say). I had a wonderful time recharging my batteries, and the kids enjoyed the village so much they wanted to stay longer. All in all, a wonderful long weekend.

As to why I was finding things a challenge (aside from the fact that K was working so much)… the governor of Sihanoukville promised that all the roads (which are in various states of disrepair due to too much traffic on roads not designed for the heaviness of the loads, nor the amount) would be redone within 8 months. He commissioned 7 companies to do the work. 7 companies, who clearly do not communicate with one another… So suddenly, what feels like every road in the town has been dug up or closed off. What was already a dust-fest became even worse… Traffic moves much slower and you have to take round about ways to get to places as normal routes are shut off – or one side of the road is, but everyone ignores that and tries to go that way anyway.

I’ve witnessed a number of cars stuck in ditches or marooning their car as they try to drive it where it’s not supposed to go, simply because they don’t want to obey signs telling them the road is closed. More fool them.

I have also been mourning the loss of my regular little beach go-to. I could drive the kids to the beach and we could have a few hours of fun, while I relaxed knowing that my moto was safe and so was my bag, when I was out swimming. Going to the beach now means I’m constantly trying to keep an eye on our stuff as there are a lot of opportunists around. It’s not relaxing.

We also shifted to a place that is much closer to the beach – which is a bonus. And is larger – also a bonus as the kids have more space to play. However the electricity is often off for most of the day and we’ve had the water off for 12 hours at a time a few times too. Thankfully we have a generator, which is very helpful.

For K, the build has been going well, however the workers require constant supervision. A couple of days away means a couple of days of fixing up mistakes that have been made. As an example, the second lot of stairs was prepped while we were away and when we got back they were clearly wrong. K and Jonno are working to the NZ standard, a 3mm tolerance. They asked the workers to redo the stairs again and again and again. Finally, in frustration the foreman said, “what’s the problem, they’re only 40mm out”!!!

Our time in Sihanoukville has certainly been filled with learning curves – but that’s to be expected when moving to a new country. We’re not there at the moment though as things took a little turn… I’ll reveal all soon 🙂

After Bible School finished we headed, with Mum and Dad, back down to Sihanoukville. We had booked them into some rustic beachside accommodation (that they had stayed in on a previous trip ~7 years ago), however a couple of days before we got down their we received a message letting us know they’d shut down… The Cambodian government decided it wanted to bulldoze all the remaining restaurants and accommodation on Otres Beach (cue me feeling heartbroken – this was the closest I could get to an enjoyable time in Sihanoukville). I’m going to miss this place (see photos below).

A quick search had Mum and Dad booking to stay on Koh Rong Samleoum, the island we first visited when we arrived over here. Dad was after a relaxing holiday – Mum just wanted to see her grandchildren. So a couple of days later they very kindly shouted us 5 nights on the island with them.

And it was idyllic!

We swam, walked, read, swam, paddle boarded, ate, swam, ate some more, and finally, swam. My only complaint was that K couldn’t join us – working 7 days a week doesn’t give much time to rest.

We then had a couple of days back in Sihanoukville before Mum and Dad headed to Phnom Penh to fly home. We celebrated Ezekiel’s 8th birthday a day or so early so that we could all enjoy it together. We had such a special time with them and are so grateful they came to visit!

So life happened… and my writing didn’t. So now that it’s nearly the end of February I thought I’d backtrack to the end of December and play catchup.  I’m sure you’re desperate to hear what we were up to then…

Nearing the end of December, Jonno and K took a trip up to Siem Reap to see if they could line up a builder for when the project was due to start at that stage (start of Feb – it’s been delayed, but we’ll get to that eventually). Getting to Siem Reap from Sihanoukville involves a 6-8 hour drive to Phnom Penh, followed by a 6-8 hour drive to Siem Reap – all traffic dependent. I caught a ride up to Phnom Penh as Mum and Dad were due to arrive on Christmas Day – a most delightful Christmas present. Ezekiel went with K up to Siem Reap but joined us before K went back to Sihanoukville.

We spent a couple of days hanging out with Mum and Dad, revelling in their presence, before the Cambodian Bible School started. K missed the first few days of Bible School as he was back down in Sihanoukville trying to get the builders back on track – a few days of no supervision always has “interesting” results. Let’s just say, the whole build is much safer with K and Jonno on site.

Bible School was great – Cam Beeler came over from the USA and did talks on Growing up in the Lord – the exercise of faith in service. He ran a couple of workshops based around “colours” – which, being a green dominant I found most interesting 🙂

The Colours Personality test divides people into 4 groups – Blues, who are compassionate and caring; Greens, who are conceptual and logical; Golds, who are conventional and sensible; and Oranges, who are, let’s be honest, a bit out there – the word is supposed to be Courageous, but I’m more inclined to label them spontaneous and impulsive ;P

It was really interesting to see how the group was blue dominant and we speculated on how culture could play a part in this. We also looked at how we can best use our personalities within and outside of church – and how each group had weaknesses that could be overcome with another groups strengths – showing how important it is to work together.

We took a day trip out to the farm (also known as the Christadelphian Sustainability Project). A brother from Aussie has set this up, growing bananas, dates, and mangoes, with the idea that moving forward, as the crops mature, it will bring in an income that can help to support the church and its people here in Cambodia.

We also had a cultural afternoon with a variety of different acts – some hilarious (beat boxing and “breakdancing”) as well as more cultural offerings, such as traditional Thai and Khmer dancing.  All in all it was a great week.

Life has settled into a bit of a routine here – well, a random routine. K works pretty much every day, although he had half a day off on Monday, which was lovely. Naturally, we went to the beach. I hang around at home with the kids or we head out to the beach or to a cafe here that has a playground inside. The kids (and me!!) need to get out and about and these two seem to be good options for a run around.

Without further ado I shall show you what is going on with the build so far. Here’s some photos of the build before K arrived. It was a bit of a rubbish dump for the surrounding neighbours!

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The site was levelled, a bore sunk, and set out performed. Bricks were used as the formwork for the ground beams. A layer of gravel was compacted and covered with a light slurry before reinforcing steel was placed and the foundation poured.

Then all the prep for the first floor  – the columns were hand poured using buckets – thankfully we were loaned a concrete mixer. The 1st floor is due to be poured tomorrow, which is exciting. Then we’re off to Phnom Penh – K and Jonno are going up to Siem Reap for a couple of days to get some things sorted for the build that we are doing up there – it is due to start in February. Me and the kids will stay in Phnom Penh, where I will hopefully jump through enough fiery hoops to get my driver’s license; go to a wedding; have a couple of days with Mum and Dad; go to the Bible School; and then, finally, come back home 🙂

Well we didn’t buy a fat pig, but we certainly stocked up our pantry and fridge when we took a trip to the local market today. I’ve been wanting to do this since we arrived, but with K starting work straight away and then falling sick (he has (still) got bronchitis), we just haven’t managed it.

Today two of K’s sisters came to visit and I wrangled them into taking me and the kids to the market. Instead of giving you a blow-by-blow account of the experience of walking narrow, sometimes very wet and muddy aisles, under a hot tin roof that leaves one dripping in sweat and increases the stench of certain products (dried fish anyone), I thought I’d leave today’s post as a photo essay. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so I’ll let the photos do the talking – they’re not all great photos as I was mostly walking as I photographed, but they do give you an idea of this experience. Mo got a heck of a fright when a fish that had fallen out of its bucket started wriggling its way towards us 😉 Next time it’ll be just me and the kids attempting to buy our groceries – wish me luck !

By the way, the market is more than just a food market, but our shop (and thus my photos) was centred on groceries. It also sells jewellery, material, clothes, toys, bags, souvenirs – you name it, they probably have it there 🙂