This is not the first morning that the pigeon has woken me from a blissful sleep and prevented me from returning to my dreams.  It’s been going on for weeks and now it’s getting personal.  All efforts to deter them from perching on our roof, swating at them with the broom and banging on the ceiling, have failed miserably.  The purchase of a BB gun has recently crossed my mind, but sadly I can’t get the leverage needed to shoot the annoying buggers, from the small confines of my balcony. 

So brazen are these little critters that they have even plucked up the courage to perch themselves on the railing of our balcony and window bars.  They are now only a small step away from taking up residence in our apartment.  Fred tells me to ignore them and I would if I could, but their incesent cooing, is too much for me to bare…

An extensive internet search this morning has not produced any welcome solutions and I have come to the conclusion that I am quickly running out of options…  Nothing left to do now than to tell the landlady and hope that she gets one of her sons to climb onto the roof and install a row of spikes to stop the little demons from landing.  Only time will tell if this solves the problem and when my sleep is no longer under threat from these dirty, slumber polluting  nuisances, you’ll all be the first to know…

I didn’t intend to fill one day with so many first time experiences, but after 18 months in Phnom Penh, it only seems fitting to intensify the adventure factor at this stage in our journey.

My day began not unlike any other day.  I got up, put the coffee on, checked The Age website, switched on the BBC and progressively got myself organised to get stuck into a good days work.  As I finished pouring my first coffee for the morning I received a text from my boss with last minute lunch meeting instructions, nothing new there.  My first first wouldn’t happen for another couple of hours.

I think I have mentioned previously that I bought a bike, flat tyre included, a couple of weeks ago.  Late last week I finally got around to getting a new tube and was starting to feel guilty, much to the help of my landlady who constantly questioned why I was travelling on motos and tuk tuks, about still not having ridden it.  So I thought, today is the day to pluck up some much needed courage.

First number 1:  Navigating my cheap Chinese 6 speed through the streets of Phnom Penh.

My heart was racing before I even left the house and I began to worry that I would fall off the bike before I even got started.  My anxiety was less to do with my ability to remember how to ride a bike and more to do with the fact that although Cambodia has road rules, you would not need to watch the traffic for any more than 10 seconds to realise that absolutely none of these laws are respected, let alone appled by road users.  Traffic lights are ignored, pedestrian crossing, just painted lines on the road for show and don’t get me started on how to explain how driving on the wrong side of the road doesn’t result in more frequent and serious accidents.  Amazingly, with all of this going on, only 4 people die on Cambodian roads each day, a surprising small number amidst all the pandemonium, yet strickingly large considering the countries small population of 14 million people, most of whom cannot afford a motocycle, let alone a car.

Courage in tow, I jump on my bike and ride like the veteran, I am obviously not, weaving in and out of traffic…  I ride with a confidence that I am not convinced I have, I tell myself over and over again that I am going to make it to my destination without incident.  Motobikes, tuk tuks and cars pass me precariously too close for comfort.  I hold my line and continue to cycle.  A mere 30 minutes later I arrive at my lunch meeting, in one piece and feeling on top of the world.  As my friends would atest, I am now one step closer to learning to ride a motocycle.

Back to back meetings made the afternoon pass in a blur, before I knew it, it was 5pm and time to down tools for the day, hurry down some dinner before heading off to first time experience number 2.

First number 2:  Karaoke

There has been alot of talk over the years about going to Karaoke, but strangely enough it has never eventuated.  This time it could not be avoided.  I wasn’t convinced that I was going to enjoy myself, but I came to a surprising realisation, I am possibly a closet Karaoke fan.  Now let’s not get carried away, I am more comfortable singing along without the microphone in my hand and I was at least 3 more beers away from breaking out into a solo routine.  Plus after Fred impromptu bust out on the dance floor, there was no way I was going to follow up with a tone deaf rendition of ‘Sugar Sugar’.  The stage had been firmly claimed by Fred and his display of techno moves 101, the crowd was left wanting more.

With one more stop to make before heading home, we sadly left Karaoke at around 9pm, to go and see a friends band play at an open mike night at the Irish Pub on the Riverfront.  This is where the final two first happened almost simultaneously.

We arrived not long before our friends set started, just long enough to be introduced to the aging members of the band and still none the wiser to their signature style of music, I figured I would just have to wait and see.  The boys excused themselves to get set up and Fred ducked to the bar to order us a drink, arriving back with;

First number 3:  Bundaburg Rum and Dry Ginger Ale.

No, this is not a typo, he really ordered Bundaberg Rum and Dry Ginger Ale.  With an odd look from me, Fred proceeded to explain the madness.  While parousing the drinks menu at the bar his finger slid across the first item he saw, Bundaburg Ginger Ale.  He quickly realised he was about to place an order for soft drink and promptly changed the order to Bundaburg Rum and Ginger Ale without a second thought.  For all of you out there wondering if we inadvertantly stumbled onto the next big thing, short answer, NO… 

I wish I had asked what type of music was going to assault my ears, not that I wouldn’t have been there to support my friend, but at least I could have prepared with a set of ear plugs. 

First number 4:  Sex Pistols meets Irish folk

Now, we all love a little Sex Pistols style punk rock, but coupled with Cambodia’s love for playing music at a frequency high enough to burst the average ear drum, you could only imagine the hours of ear ringing that proceeded.  So loud were the instruments, that I couldn’t hear the vocals over the pounding of drums and strumming of guitars.  The boys played there part, performing like classic punk rock stars, long necks in hand, oblivious to the crowd and enthusiatically rocking out their 4 song set.

It didn’t take long for it to hit midnight and I was well overdue for bed…

Here’s to a day of firsts and hopefully more to come…

One and a half hours later, I have been twisted, poked and proded and I feel somewhat like I have been put through a meat grinder and I am in no way looking forward to the pain I am bound to be feeling tomorrow morning.  It is hard to imagine that a 5 foot, barely 50kg lady could inflict so much torture onto someone almost twice her size, but believe me, she did and I think she may have enjoyed it a little too much…

But it is with great pleasure that I can now announce that I am no longer suffering from my dreaded headache, yippee!!  I am not sure if I am going to be game enough to go for a second round of torture any time soon, as I can already feel the pain setting in, but for anyone out there with a persistent headache, give me a call, I know someone, that with pain, can take your pain away…  One of lifes great ironies…

The text-a-thon started late last night, when my friend, who suffered extensive flooding in last weeks down pour, let me know that the search for gumboots and good quality wet weather gear were in the process of being sourced.  Me being the type of person that loves a bit of excitement and adventure, I quickly put myself onto the clean up crew.  Only time will tell if I will need to battle the raging flood waters of Phnom Penh to aid my submerged friends in need.

Fear not for us friends, if the 5 flights of stairs leading us to our penthouse apartment have anything to do with it, we shall be safe from the impending flood waters… 

So, it’s a lazy Sunday in the Penh.  Fred is playing around on the internet and I am doing everything possible to avoid doing work, stave off boredom and avoid sending Fred around the bend with my boredom induced ranting, including having cleaned out the fridge.  For all those that own a fridge as big as a car or the proud new owners of a fridge, that have the luxury of having an unobscured view of their food, a mild feeling of disdain is headed your way.  You know who you are… 

It’s amazing what one can find shoved into the back of a refridgerator.  In my case, a grapefruit, that’s right an entire grapefruit.  I’m still not sure if finding the grapefruit was in fact the biggest surprise or the fact that we worked out that it had taken up residence in our fridge over 6 weeks prior.  I think I am most thankful for the fact that it was still in one, although somewhat shrivelled, piece and had not yet started the process of liquification.  For those that know me well, I don’t do well with rotten and liquifing foods, especially applicable for foods in the fruit and vegetable family.

A few more intersting finds later, most not getting a second glance before being thrown hastily into the bin, and the realisation that we have more Soda Water in our fridge than any other item, we now have a clean and organised fridge…

There was but one exception to the ‘if it doesn’t look quite right, bin it’ rule, a tub of sour cream with an expiration date of 20/10/53, I’m still trying to work out if this was a miss print or have we really had a tub of sour cream in our fridge for the past 57 years??

So, with the fridge now clean and ice trays filled, I am back to trying to finding something that will distract me from the ever encroaching boredom… 

Suggestions are most welcome…

Thank Buddha it’s Friday…

After a crazy week of building on fundraising ideas, producing documents and countless hours spent on the internet trying to learn how to write a sexy marketing campaign, Friday has arrived just in time and what better way to celebrate the occassion than with ribs and beers and the company of good friends.

You may be wondering why I am expressing so much excitement over the humble rib and cool crisp glass of larger?  Well, these luxuries, of worthy raving quality, are often in short supply in our adopted city of Phnom Penh.  So when Fred and I stumbled onto an Australian owned and run pub/cafe (Aussie XL) that serve up heaping portions of ribs, accompanied by a mammoth portion of potatoes prepared to your liking, chips, baked, mash and don’t forget the salad, we realised we were onto a winner… 

Our first introduction to Aussie XL was several months ago, when we paid a visit to the establishment not long after it had opened its doors, with a couple of New Zealand friends who were raving about the big salads.  Yes they were big, or should I say XL, but there was something lacking from that dining experience that I have never been able to put my finger on.  So we didn’t return until recently to watch the AFL Grandfinal (the sequel).  On that not,

GO THE MIGHTLY MAGPIES!!

Anyway, back to my story…  The previous week Fred and I had watched the AFL Grandfinal (the warm-up) at another establishment, not to be named.  We had gone their a number of times previously to watch the footy and a few games of the World Cup, but found that it lacked that, ‘juno se qua’ , plus the owner is a bit a a surly bastard.  So when the rematch was announced, Fred suggested a new venue to watch the game and Aussie XL it was…

We arrived early, picked prime seats right in front of the big screen, and ordered coffees and bacon and egg burgers to start the day.  Readers need to remember that we are 3 hours behind you and it didn’t seem fitting to start downing beers at 10am, although I know some of you may disagree.

Our food arrived and we were pleasantly surprised to find a burger heaping with bacon and 3 fried eggs, proving that everything is XL at Aussie XL, all for the bargain basement price of USD$3.50, Christmas had come early.  Needless to say that pretty much took up my food quota for the day and when Fred ordered a BBQ plate late in the 4th quarter I was surprised that he had made room in stomach for more food.  But in reality I was the one that missed out…

The BBQ plate was the size of a small child and I’m convinced that it weighted almost the same, piled high with a variety of BBQed meats and fresh salads.  The staff must have noticed my eyes light up and my heart break all at the same time when the food arrived because they quickly rushed inside to get me a bread plate and set of cutlery of my own.

Not feeling in any way inspired to tackle the whole plate, Fred made me a mini sampler plate of all the tasty treats and I promptly went straight to the ribs.  They were absolute heaven…  I should digress back a few months and update you all on when our love affair with ribs began.  In short, Czech Republic, when Fred ordered a heaping plate of ribs and I sadly suffered from one of my worst episodes of food envy in my life.  So when we reach Poland, I was determined to not let it happen again.  So, one night while walking around the back streets of Krakow, we stumbled across a small traditional polish restuarant and went inside to sample the local cuisine.  While I tucked into ribs, Fred took on a half kilo pork knuckle, both arriving with lashings of fresh horseradish and a variety of mustards.  Not surprisingly, the salad bar remained relatively untouched.  From that moment on, we have been in love (with pork ribs and knuckles) and have been on a never ending quest to find a rib in Phnom Penh that is worthy of comparison and now we have.

So readers, I’m wishing you all a festive Friday and hoping that you too will find the pork rib you are looking for…

After almost 36 hours of non-stop rain, a rare phenomenon in these parts, it has officially stopped raining, for now!  The rain saga continued with a night of opening and closing windows, numerous occupational health and safety infringements and too many soaked towels to count.  On my list of things to do today, washing…  Yeah for me!!

Last night I was fielding text messages from a friend who informed me that her lovely new villa apartment had been inundated with water up to her ankles and with no way of getting it out.  With the water continuing to rise precariously close to the electrically sockets, she asks me “If the water continues to rise and gets into the electrical sockets, will she get electrocuted?”  Now, I’m no electrician, but anyone in their right mind wouldn’t take the risk.  So she shuts down all of her power and heads upstairs to crash at her neighbours for the night.  Immediate crisis averted…

I woke this morning to yet another frantic text from the same friend with a despereate plea for help from an engineer.  My guess is that the plan to have the water pumped out of the house this morning has somehow gone terribly wrong.  She texts and says she will call in 2 minutes to get some advice from Fred, that was almost an hour ago.  A quick text to check if everything is ok? has gone unanswered, so I guess that’s an answer in itself.

Sadly this friend is not the only one that I know that has been affected by the onslaught of rain.  A colleague who lives over a lake in the southern part of the city, informed us this morning that the water level of the lake has risen so much that her house is now IN the lake. 

So, while I sip on my morning coffee and relay theses stories to you, I am in essence waiting for the call to join the clean up teams…  Stay dry people!!

I was at my bosses place yesterday and it starts to rain…  I think, this is going to be interesting trying to ride my new bicycle home, as flooding occurs very quickly here and makes getting around the streets almost impossible, plus my flat tyre was also going to pose some problems… 

So I decide to call my faithful tuk tuk friend Mr Hua.  He arrives and we load the bike into his tuk tuk, resulting in wheels poking out each side, leaving me exposed enough to feel the onslaught of the heavy rain.

By the time I arrive home and get out of the tuk tuk I am standing in almost knee deep rushing water.  My attempts to avoid getting drenched and pull the bike out of the tuk tuk, almost result in me loosing my thongs.  Bike in hand, I race across the road, by this time my efforts to avoid getting drenched are lost, to the front door of my landladies house, where I knock on the door.  She opens up, only to find a 6 foot foreign lady, looking like a drowned rat staring back at her.  I stand around listening to her telling me that it’s no good that I bought a bike with a flat tyre.  Thanks for pointing that out, as if I hadn’t noticed…

I park the bike and go to say my goodbyes when she kindly hands me an umbrella.  I try to refuse as I am already soaked through, but she is insistent, so I take the umbrella with grace and head down the street to buy some dinner from our local restuarant.  At this stage I am thankful for the umbrella, as the heavan open up once again…  I wade through the water down the street, still trying to not loose my thongs in the rushing water, the umbrella not providing me with much protection and making me a little nervous that the big metal point on the end is going to act as a becon for lightning.  Over a hundred Cambodians have died this year from lightning, granted most in the provincial rice fields, but under the circumstances I’m not thinking all that straight.

I arrive at the restuarant to laughs and giggles from the patrons and staff and order my food.  Another short wade through the flooded streets and I arrive home, only to find that we are loosing the battle with the rain on the home front.  Fred has covered most of the floors with towels to mop up the water running in from the tiny cracks around our windows.

So, I wake up this morning, it’s surprisingly and unusually cool.  A glance from the balcony, sorry did I forget to mention that we now live in a 5 story walk up, shows me that the streets are still wet from the ongoing rain.  I make a coffee and attempt to settle in to doing some work, but the heaven once again open up and I am running around the house closing windows and this time instead of trying to save my thongs, I’m trying desperately not to slip on the wet tiles and crack my skull open.  Windows closed and towels once again covering the floor, I’ve managed to avert disaster, avoid doing work for half an hour and update you on one of the many regular dramas of Phnom Penh.

Here’s hoping I keep my word and post more often…

We are very sorry that we have not written for so long, but you know how life goes…  I wish we could say that we have been up to a heap of exciting things and seeing the country, but sadly, due to how busy I have been with work, we have not been lucky enough to get out of the city since our trip to Kep.

I have alot to update everyone one so here goes, I’ve gone for dot points as it may be easier for everyone to follow, in no specific order:

• Since Kep work has been full steam ahead.  From one day to the next we are never quite sure how long I am going to be in a job.  Damn, those greedy Yanks and their involvement in the stock market.  It’s meant that humanitarian dollars all over the world have dried up and we, like many other NGOs in Cambodia are feeling the financial pinch.
• Kylie (my flat mate from University) and her boyfriend Graham came to visit.  Although, only a short trip to the capital, we managed to cram in a heap of site seeing and most importantly eating…
• We ate frog for the first time and then the second and the third.  Needless to say, we thinks it’s YUMMY!!
• Took a trip out to the province for Pchum Ben (festival of the spirits - at least that is the best way I can explain it).  It’s a very low key affair where Buddhist’s go to temple to make offerings to the monks who will bless them and pray for the spirits of their family members.  Cambodian’s believe that everyone has 7 spirits and not all of them move from this earth when they die, with some remaining earth bound for a variety of reasons.  I think praying for them helps them to reconcile what ever keeps them here and helps them to move on.  No doubt it’s alot more complicated than that, but that’s all I could get in the translation of the event.
• Continued to drive the Land Crusier around town and country, with mixed results.  I have not had an accident yet, but yesterday I thought I was going to die when a truck was coming right at me on my side of the road and had no intention of getting out of my way for anything.  Needless to say that after a 4 hour round trip I was exhausted…
• Visited the family of one of my colleagues, south of Phnom Penh in Takeo province, a really beautiful part of the country, but marred with sadness.  We traveled along a 2km stretch of dirt road and both sides of the road were dotted with elderly people and young children begging for food and money.  In all the things I have seen in the past 5 months, this was the thing that broke my heart the most…  It felt like it was from a scene in a movie, when a war is over and people are starving, with their hands held out in absolute desperation for survival.
• Saw a mashed rat on our street and I swear it was as long as my forearm, hand included - it has been turned into flat Stanley - not a pretty site, but was obviously a nice meal for one of the local dogs, as its remains didn’t stay around for too long.  Unfortunately, Fred missed out on seeing it…  I’m sure this will turn into his greatest regret about Cambodia, having not seen the squashed rat.
• We celebrated Fred’s 31st Birthday…  Not to anyone’s surprise we went out for Japanese, tasty, but expensive and sadly not up to par with our favourite Mutsie’s in Northcote.  Looking forward to a visit when we come home for Xmas…
• We celebrated my 31st Birthday…  And again we went for Japanese… What can we say… We’re so predictable some times.
• We moved house… We now live 2 streets from the office, just far enough for me to get away from work, but close enough for me to be able to conveniently walk to work each day.  Our new place is great and the spare room has fresh sheets on the bed for anyone wanting a tropical south east Asian get away…  Anyone? Anyone?

I think that’s about it…  I’m sure we have done a million other little things over the past months, like talk with our local restaurant waiters, great for practicing our Khmer language skills and very entertaining from both sides.  They love us so much now, that every time we go there we get a free mug of beer.  No complaints from us…

Hmmm, maybe I’m forgetting something… What is it?  I remember…

WE’RE ENGAGED!!!

Looking forward to ready your replies from the post and keep the “about times” to a minimum please people.

There are photos to come, but because I am technologically challenged, you will all have to wait for Fred to get his act together to post them.

Over and out until next time (hopefully in less than 2 months time)

Love to you all. xxoo

Not sure if there is anyone out still reading our blogs since we have been slackers, but today we went on a long walk to P’saa Orussey.  It was a hot day but we got up reasonable early for a Saturday (9 o’clock), not because it was hot cause both our bedroom fan and aircon were blaring through the night.  We saw it was very cold back at home at the moment (not that we care), no I actually am missing the cold Melbourne weather.  Maybe thats because alot of my last 5 years I have been away working and have missed these time.  Hot, cold, 15 seasons in one day I still miss Melbourne, we will return one day lol.

So after getting up and relaxing for a bit (Pen writing emails and me watching TV) we had left over spagetti on toast for breakie (still don’t know how to spell it).  Mmmm it was the second time I made spagbol since we left oz.  Garrett would agree there’s nothing like a good spagbol, if there was a spagbol contest, I would make the finals I reckon.  We were ready by 12 o’clock and got lathered up with sunscreen and headed off.  On our walk to the market we found a nice shop along the way, a deli/wine shop type deal, which had some nice things from back at home like crackers, pickled mini onions which Pen looooves, Australia Gold brie and Camembert… will go back one day as it is just around the corner.  Although the sun was hot, we enjoyed the walk and getting amongest our fellow PP’ians.

We found the Market without too must trouble, we have been to the Russian (P’saa Tool Tom Pong) and Central (P’saa Tomei) Markets a few times now and this was another one to add to the list.  It’s a 3 storey very big market which had dry food, fruit, veggies, meat (saw some nice glazed pigs and piglettes, Penny insists that we only need a visitor to make an excuse to come back and buy a whole beast - any takers?), chickens (alive and dead) etc etc, the other other 2 storeys had heaps of cloths, shoes, bags, jewellery and heaps of other stuff.  I don’t think it’s a common market for barrangs (foreigner) to visits, as we could have played a lengthy game of “spot the barrang”.  It was great just exploring, but we did have an alteria motive as we are invited to our first “Khmer” house warming party tomorrow, one of Penny’s staff members so we were looking for a gift.

We stopped for an ice tea at a local cafe across the road from the market, but it was quite bland so we ordered a sprite and mixed it in.  How’s that for engineering, heh, heh.  After a short break we went back to the market for another look then walked down Monivong Blvd to look for a supermarket Sam told us about during our trip to Koh Kong, not before a couple of pitstops (1) to a starbucks type coffee shop, I had the best fresh watermelon slurrpie there….. THE BEST, and Penny had a nice ice coffee with whipped cream, the fake stuff on top and (2) To one of PP’s major bus stops to get tickets for our Kep 3 night getaway (starting next Thursday whooo hooo, yes Pool, relaxing, us time can’t wait).

We found both supermarket and the Lucky’s drink shop which I had been told has the cheapest drinks in town.  We bought a litre of Beam for US$10.80 and did a nice shop for other supplies.  Pretty knackered by this stage we got a tuk tuk home for a well deserve cold shower and chill time.  Tonight for dinner I went down to the local pork n duck lady for 300 grams of each, one of our favourite dinners, just add rice and some cucumber and tomato (see no “e” Estelle and Garrett) Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Now waiting on some skype chat with two of our favourite Melbournites!!!

Since our last entry we have had a nice holiday to Koh Kong (KK) near the Thailand border.  We needed to upgrade our Visa’s from holiday to business and the cheapest way was to head to the border.  It was the annual King’s birthday break from 12/5 to 15/5 so we organised a hotel stay and coach tickets to KK.  Packing two backpacks we headed off early on Wednesday the 13/5.  The trip was 5hrs but was all sealed road, some of you may know previously Cambodia had some horrific dirt roads with heaps of humps and ditch.  We got to see some of the outskirts of the city and the the (very) beautiful landscape. 

We stayed at the newest hotel in town, which we were told had a swimming pool (yay!) and was just a short stroll from the main drag.  Once we arrived we were greeted by many tuk tuk drivers asking us if we wanted a lift.  Lucky I knew it was very close so we politely said “no thank you” and “som toh” which means excuse me or sorry in Khmer. 

The hotel was quite flash but only cost $15/night and we saw the pool, it was nice but right in the middle of the complex.  There was not room to chill by the pool, our room was on the ground level and the pool was 2 meters from our door step.  After getting settled in we took a walk to the main drag and found Fat Sam’s bar.  Sam, who lives up to his restuarants name, was a great bloke and told us what’s what around the place.  He served some great pub food too.  I (more than Pen) was again hanging out for some tasty anglo food, burger and chips, chilliconcarne, bacon and egg sandwich.  I really got my fix on this holiday.

Next we decided we were going to hire a motorbike so we could do our visa run to the border 12km away.  Sam told us that a man named Franky had bikes for hire for $4/day, cheaper than most places.  So we gave him a visit and he was a top bloke as well.  Even “taught” us how to ride the thing, seeing both of us have never ridden a motorbike before lol.  Interestingl, he told us he takes people out to a village nearby for an overnight stay, in the jungle of the Southern Cardamons.  Another guy had already booked into the motorbike tour (35km sealed road and 35km dirt road), lunch by a waterfall in the jungle, visit a remote village and sleep in hammocks in the jungle under a shack on stilts.  We both looked at each other and said yes, this is what we want to do (not really thinking about the fact that we haven’t ridden a motorbike before).

Next day - Visa Run: We thought we might as well get that business out of the road first so we can relax for the rest of the holiday.  So after a few shakey bike practice runs around the town with Penny on the back, we headed out of town for the 12km trip to the border.  Wow the border is a place to see, wish I took a few photos but we thought we may get in trouble.  The place was quite busy, people crossing in both directions, people waiting at the many different stalls you need to go to get your visa, heaps of shops, people loitering, military police, kids assisting border security, the list goes on.  We parked the bike and decided all we were going to do it walk across (100m) into Thailand and turn around and re-enter.  Two and a half hours later -  work visa’s yay lol.

The next day - Jungle Trip:  It was a 6am start so we were up early and cruised up to Franky’s place, a little better on the two wheeler still a bit shaky (Penny was more scared than me… poor girl).  And once we met up with the other guy who was coming with us, Dutch guy, - real nice guy as well, we were off.  Both he and Franky knew I was new to the two wheeler so they looked after us as best they could.  My second day on a bike and I was going on a long trip on and off road with Penny on the back :-)  There’s just something really enjoyable about riding a bike and I’ve never felt it before… still being as cautious as possible with Penny on the back.

The trip on the road was not so bad at all, it was still early and there wasn’t that many cars on the road, the jungle and hills all around us was quite a site.  Not long after we were off road and heading into the jungle on dirt road.  How awesome, it was dense jungle on either side of us and doding puddles and rocks on the dirt road.  It wasn’t long again till the road got more steep and rocky with bigger puddles.  I joked with the others that it was a real bike riding lesson, sealed road first (mostly straight and a few hills) {beginners}, next was dirt road (flat and a few puddles) {intermediate}, then finally dirt road, but very rocky, bumpy, stream crossings, hill climbs and decents {expert} - a real quick “learn how to ride coarse” with Penny still on the back.  She was awesome the whole trip her confidence grew with mine although she copped a few heavy bumps in the back and held for dear life on numerous occasions.  We were both so glad when we finally arrived at our destination.

After a short rest at a small village store and farm we headed to the waterfall.  It was another short ride then a short (but steep) trek through the jungle whilst fending off some leeches.  The waterfall was out of this world and we all had a quick dip in the nice cold water, then had a bit to eat and took a bunch of photos.  After lunch we headed into the village, so crazy, in the middle of nowwhere, basic huts, shops and small wooden shacks on stilts but villagers and farmers cruising around on motorbikes and using mobiles.  I saw 2 mobile phone towers while we were riding!  So raw, but with a few mod cons.  The village was small but the people so friendly….  Such a great experience

Just before dark we headed to our camp which was a small patch under a shack on stilts (after we pickied up some beer).  We collected some fire wood from nearby and setup the hammocks.  These where no ordinary hammocks, they were large and had a built in moskito net, positioned strategically around the camp fire they doubled as seats.  Chilling back once the fire was under control it wasn’t long till Franky’s friends, a local farmer couple and their 5 young kids came to visit.  It was great trying to communicate with them and we all had many laughs.  We took heaps of photos and Penny even taught the eldest girl how to take photos and showed her the results on the  camera playback .  We all had a ball as she snapped photo after photo.  Our new dutch friend went up to the shops to get some more munchies so none of the kids would miss out on treats.  Could the night get any better?

Well after it poured down with rain and started to get dark, mum and the kids headed home for dinner and sleep.  Their father hung out with us for a bit longer and had some more beer before tea.  Soon it was dinner time and Franky pulled out his marinated chops which we talked about throughout the trip.  And did they live up to all the hype! Now everyone was full and tired, it had been a long day…. lights out.  I scared myself to sleep with the eerie sounds of the jungle and thoughts of tigers.   Ohh yeah, we did see a few fire flies in the dead of night which were cool.

The next day we got to sleep in a little then went back to the farm/shop for some coffee before heading back to town.  It was better riding on the way back on the dirt roads, but on one particular hill climb we fell into a ditch in the middle of the road and Penny fell sideways off the bike while I just managed to keep the bike upright.  Penny was ok, and we carried on until we were going down a steepish hill on the sealed road the brake blew and I had to gear down and use the hand break to pull over.  We swapped bikes and got home safely but our bums were so sore from the long ride.

We chilled out in the pool that day and had a nap then went to socialise at Fat Sam’s.  Met a few more really nice people, one guy we met worked in the forrest for a long period of time and he was going back to PP to teach english.  We found out he lives just around the corner so we’ll catch up in the near future.

A great adventure!  I’ve tried uploading the 30 odd photos at a bubble tea restuarant (with free wifi) just around the corner from where we live, thought I could do the lot over lunch with Pen but it was soooo slow.  Don’t know if it didn’t help with the 3 or 4 other guys using the internet there that day but it was slower than dial up speed!  I had to abort.  Promise the photos will be up soon.