I love this place! I really just can't bring myself to leave! When I first got here I thought.. "well.. there's not much to this place..." but that's half the charm! There are plenty of Western expats here who've started guesthouses/bars/cafes and I can see why. So much yummy French Colonial architecture. Superb sunsets! And zero traffic. I could lie down in the middle of the road and have no problem. Most of the traffic is bicycles and the motos drive so slow they might as well be bicycles!
I went to a graduation ceremony/dance performance for Epic Arts which is a local NGO who works with locals with disabilities and teaches them arty stuff and also gives them vocational training etc. They have a cafe in town that partially funds the school. I also went out and did a day of volunteer 'building'/observing. We first had to pull down the family's old house.. which was easy work, believe me. It was tiny and 7 people slept on an elevated platform in the house, and the family pig slept underneath them. Unfortunately the mother has gotten very sick and now one of the children too so the charity (Teang Tnaut) were building them a new house.
I'm gradually trying every cafe around town. This morning I went to a cafe called Sisters II which funds the orphanage in town. The woman who ran it had an incredibly cute 1 1/2 year old adopted son who she called Moses because he'd been left at the hospital by himself. He was SUCH a cutie. I had pumpkin spice pancakes... mmmmmm.
Tomorrow I'm going on an excursion to the Bokor Hill Palace which was a 1920s French resort built on top of Bokor Mountain. It's long since been abandoned and was used as a fortress by the Khmer Rouge when they were still around. There are plans to 're-invent' Bokor and make it a major tourist destination - they're currently building a new resort on the hill so I thought it would be best to go now and before the hoards of tourists staying there kill the atmosphere. The day after I think I will finally leave and head back to Phnom Penh for the night before I'm off to Pursat!
xx
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