Dear readers,
We are over our halfway point and the time is counting down until our return to Australia. But that’s no reason for us to descend into complacency. There is much work yet to be done. In some ways, the work we are doing here has barely begun. Our contact list is large and growing slowly, although the initial growth in contacts has slowed down to a steady trickle. We are finding now that certain contacts are committing more time to studying with us whilst others attention has petered away or never really taken root. One is reminded of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Some people hear the word and take hold of it with both hands, making their future sure. Others do not hear or allow the cares of the world to entrap them and so their hope is obscured and they venture forward into an uncertain life with a very sure end.
The house is rather loud at the moment with Toby sitting on James’ lap as Miriam feeds him, Nirann in the corner chair and Matt sitting against the wall chatting. I’ll try to ignore the sounds that seem to be just slipping into my ears between the earphone speakers and my eardrums so I can update you on what happened last month. Once I've done that, maybe I can update you on what's happened this month. :)
We’ve got over our rather quiet period during Kmer New Year. Very few students visited us and James and Miranda took off to Siem Reap with their family. This left the house pretty quiet until our Tuktuk driver, Dike, invited us back to his house in the province for a visit. Figuring that we could do with a day of adventure and mystery, we acquiesced. I had in my mind pastoral scenes and serene village life with cows, monkeys, wise and weather-beaten faces and villagers doing simple jobs, living simple lives and generally unburdened with the stress of what passes for life in modern western society. Having a day to prepare we packed a bag for the Boo, collected our water, wallet and keys and waited out the front for Dike to arrive. It wasn’t long before a smartly dressed ‘Dike’ arrived, sporting a new motorcycle helmet, Tuktuk in tow and his wife and daughter sitting in the back seat smiling at us. It was about now that I noticed the packed luggage on the front of the Tuktuk and the suspicion began to arise in my heart that our ‘daytrip’ was going to be more like an ‘expedition’.
It became apparent after I questioned him that he had intended to bring us back to Phnom Penh 3 days later. After further discussion, we agreed that the Hewitt family could return from his village by taxi. It might be a little more expensive, but since we needed to be back at the house before the Sunday, we couldn’t stay at the province. Dike had especially brought the Tuktuk for our benefit and normally would travel on the Motorbike if it was just his family going. We agreed to go. After all, how long does it take to travel 40km anyway?
The beginning of the trip went just as expected. We took a short detour past a house where Dike’s wife changed a a few dollars into 100 riel notes. I watched with incredulity thinking ‘surely the provinces can’t be that cheap’. We scooted down the main road, passing Loy’s university and numerous guest houses and turned right down a small street. “It’s closer than I thought’ I mused as we rounded a smaller bend and took the road down a hill.
Suddenly we passed a sign and I realised that we were heading for the ferry across the Mekong River and if we took that road, there was no certainty we would be returning the same day, Taxi or no. There was no backing out at this late stage, so over we went. The crossing was spectacular. Spectacular in the sense that it was an exercise in seeing whether the Tuktuk would fit through the pedestrian gate and whether it would fit all its wheels on the boat.
Health and safety in Australia demands that when a ferry leaves shore, the ramp is pulled up and keeps the vehicles safely onboard. In Cambodia, the ramp is just another surface to pack a few more cars on and remains down. This meant that I had to scavenge a few rocks from the river’s edge to put behind the wheels and stop the Tuktuk from rolling backwards and plunging into the depths. I had the yet unknown joy of standing on the very back of the ferry looking down past the wheels of the vehicle into a brown swirling vortex. We reached the other side of the river without event, waited in the hot sun till the Tuktuk was released from its vehicular prison and we once again began our journey.
The rest of the trip resembled something out of ‘Mad Max’ minus the animal skin loincloths and Mohawks. The custom at Khmer New Year is to travel home to your province for dancing and music throwing water and talc at everyone and everything on the way. Scores of motorbikes overloaded with young representatives of the Khmer nation (most sporting incredibly bad hair) roared down the dirt road throwing up clouds of dust. There were motos to the left of us and motos to the right of us, each one a potential source of danger. Many of the riders were covered in talc, looking like a mix between a sort of reverse black and white minstrel and a ghostly mud creature. One of the motos zoomed in to take a shot at us and a missile flicked through into the empty baby carrier. “Score!” I said looking down at the unburst water bomb sitting at the bottom of the carrier. I lovingly held our only form of defence knowing that we would only have one opportunity and I’d better make it count.
Another bike filled with creature passed by and their rear gunner reached out a hand to flick some talc at us. Seeing my opportunity, I intended to make the unfortunate fellow pay for his lack of caution. And make him pay, I did! Knowing my tendency to throw ‘like a girl’ just when it most counts, I carefully eyed him up and pegged the bomb catching him square on the shoulder and spraying all three riders with water. There was a shocked pause and the riders all around us gave us a loud cry of respect and roared off into the dust. Truly it is said that ‘he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword’ and so the remainder of our trip was marred by my fears of a horrible reprisal against our defenceless chariot.
Heading down some more increasingly water damaged dirt roads we arrived on a section of byway that was so damaged that most of us thumped our heads on the metal reinforcing of the
Tuktuk as it went over the bumps. That rather painful part of the trip only lasted about half an hour and we finally reached the villages. Our ‘40 km’ trip had taken us about two and a half hours and we knew with the finality of a clanging door that we weren’t going home anytime soon. As we headed down one of the last roads to Dike’s house we came across a large tent planted smack bang in the middle of the road and a couple of likely looking fellows dancing to traditional Khmer music. Surprisingly, Dike slowed the Tuktuk down and we saw the family struggling with their bags to pull out wads of 100 riel notes. The Tuktuk became of a maelstrom of fluttering riel, dancers and bemused travellers.
Basically we were robbed by some dancing
thieves. The only difference from normal robbery was that everyone smiled through the whole experience.
End of part 1.
We are over our halfway point and the time is counting down until our return to Australia. But that’s no reason for us to descend into complacency. There is much work yet to be done. In some ways, the work we are doing here has barely begun. Our contact list is large and growing slowly, although the initial growth in contacts has slowed down to a steady trickle. We are finding now that certain contacts are committing more time to studying with us whilst others attention has petered away or never really taken root. One is reminded of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Some people hear the word and take hold of it with both hands, making their future sure. Others do not hear or allow the cares of the world to entrap them and so their hope is obscured and they venture forward into an uncertain life with a very sure end.
The house is rather loud at the moment with Toby sitting on James’ lap as Miriam feeds him, Nirann in the corner chair and Matt sitting against the wall chatting. I’ll try to ignore the sounds that seem to be just slipping into my ears between the earphone speakers and my eardrums so I can update you on what happened last month. Once I've done that, maybe I can update you on what's happened this month. :)
We’ve got over our rather quiet period during Kmer New Year. Very few students visited us and James and Miranda took off to Siem Reap with their family. This left the house pretty quiet until our Tuktuk driver, Dike, invited us back to his house in the province for a visit. Figuring that we could do with a day of adventure and mystery, we acquiesced. I had in my mind pastoral scenes and serene village life with cows, monkeys, wise and weather-beaten faces and villagers doing simple jobs, living simple lives and generally unburdened with the stress of what passes for life in modern western society. Having a day to prepare we packed a bag for the Boo, collected our water, wallet and keys and waited out the front for Dike to arrive. It wasn’t long before a smartly dressed ‘Dike’ arrived, sporting a new motorcycle helmet, Tuktuk in tow and his wife and daughter sitting in the back seat smiling at us. It was about now that I noticed the packed luggage on the front of the Tuktuk and the suspicion began to arise in my heart that our ‘daytrip’ was going to be more like an ‘expedition’.
It became apparent after I questioned him that he had intended to bring us back to Phnom Penh 3 days later. After further discussion, we agreed that the Hewitt family could return from his village by taxi. It might be a little more expensive, but since we needed to be back at the house before the Sunday, we couldn’t stay at the province. Dike had especially brought the Tuktuk for our benefit and normally would travel on the Motorbike if it was just his family going. We agreed to go. After all, how long does it take to travel 40km anyway?The beginning of the trip went just as expected. We took a short detour past a house where Dike’s wife changed a a few dollars into 100 riel notes. I watched with incredulity thinking ‘surely the provinces can’t be that cheap’. We scooted down the main road, passing Loy’s university and numerous guest houses and turned right down a small street. “It’s closer than I thought’ I mused as we rounded a smaller bend and took the road down a hill.
Suddenly we passed a sign and I realised that we were heading for the ferry across the Mekong River and if we took that road, there was no certainty we would be returning the same day, Taxi or no. There was no backing out at this late stage, so over we went. The crossing was spectacular. Spectacular in the sense that it was an exercise in seeing whether the Tuktuk would fit through the pedestrian gate and whether it would fit all its wheels on the boat.
Health and safety in Australia demands that when a ferry leaves shore, the ramp is pulled up and keeps the vehicles safely onboard. In Cambodia, the ramp is just another surface to pack a few more cars on and remains down. This meant that I had to scavenge a few rocks from the river’s edge to put behind the wheels and stop the Tuktuk from rolling backwards and plunging into the depths. I had the yet unknown joy of standing on the very back of the ferry looking down past the wheels of the vehicle into a brown swirling vortex. We reached the other side of the river without event, waited in the hot sun till the Tuktuk was released from its vehicular prison and we once again began our journey.The rest of the trip resembled something out of ‘Mad Max’ minus the animal skin loincloths and Mohawks. The custom at Khmer New Year is to travel home to your province for dancing and music throwing water and talc at everyone and everything on the way. Scores of motorbikes overloaded with young representatives of the Khmer nation (most sporting incredibly bad hair) roared down the dirt road throwing up clouds of dust. There were motos to the left of us and motos to the right of us, each one a potential source of danger. Many of the riders were covered in talc, looking like a mix between a sort of reverse black and white minstrel and a ghostly mud creature. One of the motos zoomed in to take a shot at us and a missile flicked through into the empty baby carrier. “Score!” I said looking down at the unburst water bomb sitting at the bottom of the carrier. I lovingly held our only form of defence knowing that we would only have one opportunity and I’d better make it count.
Another bike filled with creature passed by and their rear gunner reached out a hand to flick some talc at us. Seeing my opportunity, I intended to make the unfortunate fellow pay for his lack of caution. And make him pay, I did! Knowing my tendency to throw ‘like a girl’ just when it most counts, I carefully eyed him up and pegged the bomb catching him square on the shoulder and spraying all three riders with water. There was a shocked pause and the riders all around us gave us a loud cry of respect and roared off into the dust. Truly it is said that ‘he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword’ and so the remainder of our trip was marred by my fears of a horrible reprisal against our defenceless chariot.
Heading down some more increasingly water damaged dirt roads we arrived on a section of byway that was so damaged that most of us thumped our heads on the metal reinforcing of the
Tuktuk as it went over the bumps. That rather painful part of the trip only lasted about half an hour and we finally reached the villages. Our ‘40 km’ trip had taken us about two and a half hours and we knew with the finality of a clanging door that we weren’t going home anytime soon. As we headed down one of the last roads to Dike’s house we came across a large tent planted smack bang in the middle of the road and a couple of likely looking fellows dancing to traditional Khmer music. Surprisingly, Dike slowed the Tuktuk down and we saw the family struggling with their bags to pull out wads of 100 riel notes. The Tuktuk became of a maelstrom of fluttering riel, dancers and bemused travellers.Basically we were robbed by some dancing
thieves. The only difference from normal robbery was that everyone smiled through the whole experience.End of part 1.
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Love in the Lord, Loz Armes