Feet around Cambodia Summer 2012

Hello Fwends!
I am sorry I have been away for so long. I have been working very hard, moving house, inbetween photo-editing software and generally being busy. I am back now, and for your delight I have a photo project I worked on whilst in Cambodia last summer. Last I spoke to you I was about to jet off to work on community projects and generally learn-it-up about Cambodia. I am lucky enough to be doing this as part of my teaching job, so I get to see the whole thing through the eyes of some often awkward, sometimes ambivalent and frequently hilarious teenagers.

I had the most amazing time, saw and heard and experienced life-altering things so far from the familiar. I am sure I will share some of these things with you in time, but for now...hope you are not offended by feet, if you are back away now!

on the plane:in singapore:arrival at camp beng mealea:beng mealea temple:at the tuk lek primary school:outside my hut:work shorts:work boots: trekking trousers:home of buddhism 1:home of buddhism 2:national museum:jungle resturant:angkor wat:rainy day:national museum:wat pho:s21:phnom penh:on a bus:jungle resting place:ta prohm:phnom kulen temple:phnom kulen trek:elephant pond:my sanctuary:resting weary feet:yaa's house:lush greenery of the rainy season.

I tarted these photos up using Pixlr photo editor, I love it. I hate Photobucket which always makes my laptop freeze. I won't even tell you how long this post took to put together due to awkwardness. I am glad to be back sharing things though. I had a thought a while ago that its pretty self indulgent, all this blogging lark, but looking back at all my posts makes me see it more as a visual journal. It's something lovely to look back at and treasure, and if people find things in it they like that's pretty awesome.

Thanks for reading till the end of this mighty long post...
me x

 

Cambodia - that's all for now (hic!)

This is the final post from my Cambodia trip photographs. I want to move my blog on to Christmas and things I am making for the festive season (feeling ever so slightly Christmassy!) Plus I have a really exciting Christmas blog coming up next week featuring some bloggers you may know, my first guest-post...eep!

I love food. This is a problem for me in some ways, and why I am on the Weight Watchers program (lost two stone so far - let's forget I put on 5 and a half pounds in one week in Cambodia - I blame the beer entirely!) I wish I could just be all virtuous with food and only eat the quality foods I love, but the fact is I will eat practically anything and often too much of it.
I was intrigued by Cambodian food, and wanted to get straight to the nitty gritty of it, so persuaded my group to eat street-food on our first night. We had had a lot of beer before hand, so they were up for it.

Bun Lay was very keen to encourage us to eat as many traditional dishes as possibly, it was ridiculously cheap and we filled the table with food. Best looking food went to my impressive Amok Curry - pictured above in it's coconut container.

Street food that I wasn't brave enough to try looked like this and was plentiful. Some tongues look pretty scarey enough, maybe it's better if you can't see them whole. Who knows what I will try next year?

After a long 'conversation' involving some sort of sign language, I was able to get myself a Diet Coke - amazing! I fully prepared myself to say goodbye to such things.

And ice-cream...like, really yummy ice-cream. Surprised.

Surprise again by the delicious (understatement) breakfast at My Home Inn in Siem Reap. How was I to know (the guidebooks failed to mention it - twits), that Siem Reap still hangs on to some traditions and FOODS from French Colonnial times, such as baguettes for breakfast, with butter. At My Home they served this with super-strength coffee and gorgeous veg-filled omlettes. Even now I am craving that breakfast. When I get my sketchbook scanned in I will post a really nice page based on this photo. Something called 'Morning Glory', a vegetable that tasted everything like Spring Onion was prevelant in lots of dishes. It is delicious. I can see it waving at me in that omlette....soon!

By far one of THE most delicious meals I have ever eaten was this simple veg-filled noodle soup. I have made this at home since, as it really is simple. This is my version: rice noodles, green beans, carrots, mushrooms, spring onions. A coconut milk and curry powder soup made with chicken stick, ginger and lime as well as chilli and soy sauce...mmmm!
The original was eaten at Beng Mealea Camp, cooked by the lovely ladies there.

This might have something too do with the weight gain, beer and chocolate cake in Phnom Penh.

I found these supermarket foods so intriguing. Such care taken with preparation. I wanted to eat it all!

This was the inside of the Old Market in Siem Reap. Again, I want to eat everything!

Except this.
No....even this.

Of course we had plenty of posh food too. The Blue Pumpkin is a chain of resturants and cafe's all over Cambodia. If you fancy a treat for very little dollar, this is my recommendation. Four of us ate like Khmer Kings for $15 U.S each with two bottles of wine too. Bargain is not the word. Well....maybe it is.

So goodbye for now Cambodia and my lovely new friends: Anth, Bun Lay, Kate and Sarah. See you all soon x x

Cambodia Take Three: Not-So-Tiny Temple

Or...'Its time for temples'. This was my second choice of a post title.

Cambodia has an impressive heritage, and major cultural and historical signifigance (everything I say here sounds like a cheesily written understatement). In reality it is seeping in tradition and monuments, the people themselves are part of that. They have had so much cultural identity wiped out during the wars, and Khmer Rouge leadership; Cambodians are now taking that back, rediscovering their own identity. They love to share it!
As Anth showed us around, I got a very strong sense that this is a place that won't stay untouched for very long at all. Cambodians are so sociable, open, friendly and hungry for their country to grow...its only a matter of time until the quaint and beautiful Siem Reap becomes a mega-tourist destinantion.
There already a lot of Ex-Pats setting up business there, and so much building going on. Everyone falls in love with a place like that at once, and the Temples of Angkor are a massive draw for Siem Reap.

We visited Ta Prohm, Angkor Wat, Terrace of Elephants and Bayon. It's a bit geeky but I have added a map so you can see just how massive the site is. We saw lots of construction work going on there, as time has not been a good friends to the temples, and during years of civil unrest and neglect, the jungle has reclaimed a lot of the buildings.

I was so excited to visit them...

This is the view of Angkor Wat that Bun Lay shared with us, and Anth argued was a waste of time.

:Shrines:

I loved all the shrines I came accross, some Hindu, some Buddhist; they are all so bright and glowing with warm colours and feelings. I burned incense at Angkor Wat at a Buddha shrine and had another bracelet good-luck blessing by a monk too. I felt very open to it, I am quite open to all spiritual experiences...my Mum would say I always have been.

I loved these shrines from both a spiritual and artistic point of view, as I have long been inspired by collections of objects: accidental still-life set ups. Actually this reminds me, when I was at Art School and going through my 'Eastern Spirituality' phase, I made some shrines like the one at the top. I was fascinated with the idea of devotion.

:Views Through:

Another artistic obsession for me. Anything rustic, rusted; any doorway, window, opening...I'm on it with my camera. For me this was the best part of the visit to the temples: sooo many 'views through'. I was snapping like crazy. The light was terrible so I have messed around with these images, let's say A LOT. I wanted to do the scene/ compsition justice and processing them (for me) brings out some of the emotional experience too. These and the many others I took will become Textile work in the future.

I took hundreds of photographs on this visit. As Bun Lay showed us around he told us all the tales, in his 'storyteller' way, of thie times that these walls were covered in beautiful pristine plaster, and painted or covered in silver and gold. I was captivated by the surfaces, imagining the times of the Khmer Kings and the great commanding city of Angkor which used to be the strongest nation in South East Asia.



And a final view through...to me x