Cambodian countryside

I started my new job with a very timely trip- the annual Daughters' staff retreat. It was brilliant timing for me to be able to get to know the staff team and who does what.
It was the first time i had been outside Phnom Penh, so I was looking forward to the journey, and it didn't disappoint.
Most of Cambodia is covered in Pea green rice fields

The people you may be able to see are planting rice in the flooded fields. It is rice planting season now.

Along the journey I also saw lots and lots of ponds covered in water-lilies, very pretty.

Not the best picture of lilies- but they were everywhere along the side of the road

We passed through small villages where the houses were mainly still in the traditional style: wooden and on stilts. Most houses had a cow or 2 underneath, a hammock, the odd chicken, some a motorbike. 

Typical Cambodian house from a village in the provinces. 

The place we stayed at was near Kampot in the south of Cambodia, near the coast. We traveled for 3 hours on main roads, and then for 1/2 hour on a red dirt track (very bumpy) until we arrived at the beautiful retreat centre. 

We stayed by a river, so here I am... by the river

Our accommodation- cute or what :-) 

The Khmer staff were in charge of catering. We went to the market in Kampot and they bought food which we cooked on a BBQ. I struggled with the food... Im not massively keen on rice, which we ate 3 times a day. I don't eat chicken's heads or chickens feet, and rice with pork, or noodle soup for breakfast is not really my thing. I think I will have to get used to some interesting dishes :

I found that the retreat place sold wine and almost crisps (salted broad beans), and had a stash of french magazines so I made up for all that rice and food with eyes like this. . .

Phew! Wine-O-Clock for me. A moment of (almost) normality on a lovely balcony

We went to the beach, at a place called Kep. The French (Cambodia used to be a French colony) had got there 1st and put a massive statue of a naked woman on the sea front.

Very Un-Cambodian. Very French. 

There was also a massive crab statue. Here are some of my new colleagues, with me and the Crab.

At Kep beach 

What a great way to start a new job.

My 1st week in Phnom Penh

I have been in Cambodia a whole week!!! (And survived to tell you about it!!)
My initial thoughts are:
It is hot and wet!!
It smells funny!
The roads are insane!!

My hair is getting curlier each day- it mainly it looks like I have stuck my hand in an electric socket:

Curly Cambodia hair!

Monica's humidity hair

I do seem to keep getting electric shocks from the dodgy electrics, so maybe this has something to do with it? We have high humidity-it is rainy season= dramatic monsoon rain fall, and thunder storms. I look increasingly like Monica from Friends when she goes to Hawaii!!!

I have mainly spent the week trying to over come jet-lag (i think I have finally conquered it!), quite a few nights were spent lying awake in the dark for hours-not so much fun! But the past 2 days have been better :-)

I have achieved various things to help me start to set up my life here...

The 1st day I got a mobile phone, sounds like a simple thing to do? But here in Cambodia I found I had to buy a hand set from a scruffy shop, a sim card from a shiny new bright yellow 'Hello' phone shop, where it took about 4 people and a photocopy of my passport :-/ to buy a sim card, and then some phone credit from a little stall at the side of the road. This all felt like quite an achievement-and a culture shock on day 1!! 

The 2nd day I kind of repeated the process in order to get a dongle for internet connection. Im up and running on my 'unlimited' month of internet, which the girl in the shop told me once Id bought it, "isnt actually unlimited, it's just called unlimited"!!?? Ok! It seems to work so far.

I also managed to get a helmet: 

So I have been taking Moto-dops (a moped taxi). Every street corner in Phnom Penh has a group of men who say "you wan moto lady", if you do, you hop on the back of their moped, try and explain where you would like to go, and then cling on (praying the whole way that you don't die) while they weave in and out of 100's of other moto's, tuc-tuc's, cars, trucks, dogs, bikes, people etc. and usually end up where you expected. Only one time this week I had to get off the moto, as the driver was driving like a mad man in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go. 

And a P.O. Box (again this was a right palarva!!) but I have now rented my own post box :-) If anyone would like to send me post-especially british fashion mags and chocolate ;-), but all post would be much appreciated, let me know and Ill send you my address. 

I started work yesterday. I have a design room, where I will be based, and where the girls will come for their design and pattern cutting lessons.

The view from the design room

The new design room, the fan is very important!!

Here I am designing some men's accessories 

My desk (anyone who has worked with me knows it wont be this tidy for long!!)

Tomorrow I am going on a retreat with the staff team at Daughters. We are going to Kep and Kampot, on the Cambodian coast. Ive not been out of Phnom Penh before, so am looking forward to seeing the countryside as we travel, and enjoying the sea...pictures to show you soon I hope!!