The rural idyll

One aspect of Cambodia I have really enjoyed is that I’ve been living down in the countryside, getting out into far away provinces where even the word hello is unknown, has been great and rural lifestyle is all so self sufficient and community based, you feel like you are a million miles from anywhere and nothing could go wrong!

Of course things do go wrong like flat tyres or no petrol but overall its amazing here are some pics I took a while ago of rural Cambodia, these two guys on bikes are the towns recycling system, people on bikes with squeaker’s go around and collect empty bottles and cans, so you sell your cans to them and then they sell them on to the recycling station who in turn sells them back to the companies.

This is good part of road, all the houses along the side are small stalls also selling fruit or other food, drinks and petrol.

This is a local police station, pretty basic and half the time the police are not even there!

And this is the bad road, large potholes, slippery roads. You can also see a traditional mud house in the background, there are three types of houses here, the mud house, the wooden one and then the concrete one like mine, the type of house you have usually indicates how well off the family is.

I used to wonder sometimes why people wore long sleeves and pants and hats and scarves when driving on a moto. Then I worked out, that if you don’t wear something on your head the dust gets into your hair and next thing you know you’re pretty much wearing a mud house on your head, and as for the long sleeves and pants, everyone is so afraid that the sun will turn them darker! Its a completely new concept here, you buy cream for whitening, and you totally cover up so that you don’t turn black because that’s not pretty at all!

This photo just shows a girl probably around 8-9 years old, its hard but its not uncommon to see children with no shoes or no clothes to wear, usually they will have one good set and only wear them on occasions or to school.

This is a health centre, not well supplied usually, in fact if anyone gets sick, the first reaction is to straight away give them an IV, so you will often see people walking around with a drip in their arm or on a moto with a drip.

This photo is just showing the wooden houses, usually they are up on stilts in case it floods, the last bad flood here was in 2000, this year it didn’t rain enough, but it is a good idea having your house elevated – then your animals can live underneath!

And a farmer, the year revolves around the two seasons dry and wet, in the wet season all the planting of rice is down and then just before the dry season the rice is harvested, and then more emphasis is put into looking after livestock and animal raising.

And on the way home, one snap of Carrie my old flattie and Mr Thy the director at CCPCR a shelter for the victims of child trafficking.