The Fifth Day - 4/12/08

In the morning I woke up early in order to send the group that was leaving a day earlier off - Hadi, Cheam, Deb, Wang, JLow and Jeremy. I ended up tagging on the minibus to Reaksmey with Cielo because she wanted to go pick up her laundry from there. We ended up walking to the baguette place, which was quite a walk. On the way we encountered something very rare... A TRAFFIC LIGHT! It was the only one I had seen in Siem Reap in days.

The baguette shop was quite interesting. It looked like a version of a Malaysian kopitiam. It's walls were lined with many photographs of the shop owner and his family, including a few of them with the Merlion. The shop owner was quite interesting too in that he spoke Mandarin (which reminds me, it was really surreal using Mandarin in Cambodia - multiple times to talk to others during bargaining with the shopowners, once to order food here and sometimes to talk to Neath). The baguette was filled with some sort of minced pork and slices of ham. It was pretty good.

After breakfast Cielo and I took a tuktuk back to the Reaksmey vincinity where she got lost trying to find where she dumped off her laundry. I was left in the tuktuk to wait for her, and the tuktuk driver and his friends/other tuktuk drivers were laughing at the sight of her running back and forth frantically as she tried to find the laundry place. I ended up finding it for her later. Then we went back to the hotel.

At the hotel I met with Stephanie and we both went off to the Old Market together in a tuktuk. We both wanted to do some shopping since we were leaving the next day. I have discovered I am a terrible bargainer because I am soft hearted. When the woman does "my profit very little, give me $1 pleaseeee" I start to feel bad and think about how fortunate I am comapred to them. That is where I fail. Steph on the other hand is an excellent bargainer. I ended up relying on her expertise most of the time. After old market, we took a tuktuk to Central Market where we ended up shopping a bit more before being plesantly surprised by the appearence of the guys who Paul had apparently guilt tripped into appearing.

Lunch was at some random place off Pub Street, where I had Khemer curry. It was there that I first ordered a draught of Angkor beer (which I got confused with Anchor, and another imaginary one called Angchor that I attribute to bad pronounciation) which was probably the beer I like the best since it was quite sweet. Yeang, Jit and Paul also ordered a draught. At 50 cents, it was even cheaper than water -____- This got amusing later because Yeang turned bright red and fell asleep when we went to have dessert at the Blue Pumpkin.

Again I don't really remember anything very significant about this day at the orphanage, except that it might have been marker day. Marker day was the day the kids came running out with their faces completely painted with markers. The most memorable thing about it was that one of the kids had gotten hold of a black marker and had blacked out both his eyes.

Other happenings at the orphange during this time include some minor construction work going on in the orphanage, with the kids were running around and playing in the area. I was carrying someone on my back (either Neath or Channa) and chasing Cheam around when I tripped over the transparent fishing line the construction workers had lay out to demarcate the area and fell on my knees. Amazingly the kid on my back did not fall off, nor make a peep, so I got up and started chasing after Cheam again.

It was this day when I was carrying Neath around again for the xxxth time that I realised that it was going to be my last day in Cambodia. I started to feel really sad, and wonder about how her life would be years from now, after I was long gone, and if she would remember me (answer is no to the last one, since scientific research shows you don't remember till 4+). That night as we walked out of the orphanage, Neath came running to the wall for the first time to say goodbye. She struggled with the older larger kids who were crowding the area and climbed up on the walls. As I leaned over to hug her, I didn't want to let go. It wasn't the last day, but I felt the saltwater already forming in my eyes as it came to my conscious attention that my time with her could not last forever.

We then left to go to Reaksmey for a short rest before heading out to this terrible terrible place along Pub Street with a prison theme. The food was full of bugs and other rubbish. It was utterly disgusting. We ate quickly and headed to walk around the Old Market which was mostly closed and then walked to Central Market. From Central Market we ended up at Night Market, which was honestly better than I expected from hearsay. The only problem with the Night Market was that the flooring was rough gravel/stones. This made already tired legs and knees more tired due to the extra need to balance. For a good part of this foray, I ended up sitting down with Paul, Yeang and Arjun to rest and wait for the others to finish shopping. There I also touched Paul's scar on his leg, and it seemd a lot larger yet less swollen than mine. I guess it's the 1 year difference or something.

From there we ended up walking to this gay bar along Pub Street. It was incredibly dodgy. Stephanie and I were the only girls there. As we walked in, I felt tens of eyes staring through my very being, the pressure of their stares screaming "what is she doing here?!" When we sat down in a small alcove, I saw all their heads turns to stare (thankfully) this time at the guys. Ohohoho. We were also seated next to the bathrooms, which I found amusing because it seemed to be a unisex one, except it looked like a generic large male bathroom for multiple men. It did cross my mind for a few moments to go there and see what happened, but in the end I didn't dare.

The drinks there were also mixed quite strongly. This is bad because the drink I had was tasteless, so I drank it quickly, dismissing it as being badly mixed. This tastelessness however was probably due to the alcohol content being so strong that it cancelled out the juice content. The result of this was that the alcohol went to my head for a while, something which I did not enjoy. When we wanted to leave the pub, we had to go off and search for a missing Jit and Paul. It later transpired that they were being entertained by card tricks that the bartender was performing.

As dinner was so unsatisfactory, we returned back to Reaksmey for an instant noodle party. This was partly to finish the bowls of instant noodle we had brought and bought for the trip. Yeang and Jit went down first with the bowls to ask the minimart people for hot water, a request they very nicely accomodated. After a while Yeang came running back to get us to go down because they had too few hands for too many bowls. While waiting for the others to have hot water added to their noodles, I started eating a few bites in the minimart. This made me recall back the days in MGS where I used to camp out and eat instant noodles in Mobil, probably around Sec 1 and Sec 2. Now this odd event was taking place again around 12 midnight in Cambodia. I felt a bit awed by the contrast and similarities.

After the instant noodle party finished back in Yeang and Paul's room, Jit and Arjun again sent us back in a tuktuk. Back at the hotel I started packing and rearranging my things, in preparation for the next day's departure.

The Sixth Day - 5/12/08

I woke up early. This was because I thought I heard Stephanie's phone alarm go off and was hungry. When I picked up her phone to check the time, I thought we were late because the time was 7:16am. After waking her up, I realised it was really 6:16am local time -________- This was after I had washed up and changed. I ended up lying down on the bed and falling asleep again. I finally woke up about 1 hour later, which prompted rushing on Steph's part to get changed.

We ended up rushing through the remaining packing, breakfast and checking out (which they mysteriously did not charge us for a glass I had broken earlier in the trip) because we thought we'd be late to see the kids. When we got to Reaksmey to dump our bags, we thought the guys had already gone to the orphanage since it was about 8:16am local time, so we ended up lugging them upstairs to the 3rd floor (staircases and all) only to be met by them a few minutes later when they were coming back from breakfast.

At the orphanage, Neath was ignoring me for some reason. She was pretending that the other volunteers and I didn't exist. I was a bit upset about it, but I realised it might be some defense mechanism of sort to buffet the effects of our departure. However when I started playing with another kid (her friend), she came running over and pulling at me again, so I ended up carrying her around again.

After playing with her for a while, I noticed Kheum crying again. I picked her up and was trying to console her by patting her when I walked over the grilles of a drain and fell through. The mysterious thing about it was that I had walked on it multiple times before, but it never gave way. Nevertheless I got a nasty dirty shock. However the first thing on my mind was again the safety of Kheum. To my immense relief I had not dropped her and her pretty white frock remained relatively spotless. As people came running to help me out, I started patting her more as she got increasingly distressed and started to wail from her scare. One of the caregivers soon came to take her away from me and one of the older children led me to a pipe to wash up.

As I sat drying on the table, watching the others play with the kids, random other kids came to tug at me. I initially resisted them, since I was now barefoot, but eventually relented and carried them around. I must say that being barefoot like most of the children was an experience it itself, having to walk on their sharp stones from the gravel that lined the place was painful, yet the kids had gotten used to walking on it. The accident also had another implication, that of this girl running up and pointing at the grille, and asking some words in Cambodian. Whenever I replied yes (since I assumed she was asking if I fell through the grille), she and those around would start giggling uncontrollably. OH WELL, LOL.

Around 10am, Yeang started saying that we had to go. At this moment I was playing with some kid, and the idea brought tears to my eyes. I started crying a bit after putting the child down. I even had to remove my glasses. As I was trying to stop the tears, Channa came running by and demanded to be picked up. I played with her by tossing her around a bit before putting her down. One of the other girls who I had played scissors paper stone earlier with in the day (and who I think said xoxo gossip to me) came by and asked me to come back. This really touched me and made me tear more. Thai came by too and hugged me. When I asked if he wanted to me to come back, and said yes. Then I did a terrible thing. I promised him I'd come back.

I hate the idea of making promises that I can't keep/am unable to 100% guarantee. Yet at that point of time, I was poweless to stop myself. I did want to go back and writing this now a few days later, the feeling has not abated. I do have the next 9 months free to myself, but it would be odd to go to the orphanage by myself (just like it will be really odd when the guys go to NS). It would take another mass trip like this one to enable such a visit (so dare I propose another one when the guys ROD from NS?) I knew all of this, and yet I had made that promise.

Walking out from the orphange was another ordeal in itself. I had stopped crying by then, but when we were at the walls of the orphanage with the kids climbing about trying to say bye, I started crying again. Scissors Paper Stone girl started crying too when she saw me crying and I went over to hug her. I hugged a few of them again too as I left, including Channa and Thai. Neath as usual, was no where to be seen. It took about another 10 minutes before we started to walk away from the wall. Walking away was so terrible a feeling that Yeang and Jit who had a later flight in the evening didn't want to return for Goodbye Number 2.

Back at Reaksmey there was some last minute rushing before we got on the bus which would take us to the airport. While checking in Steph and I met John Loh/w's? (apparently he was a Y7 councillor, but I had no idea he existed - luckily Steph knew) parents who were behind us. The conversation first started when they asked me about a bag I was carrying that I had bought from a NGO in the Night Market. They also asked if Stephanie was from MGS, because she sounded like an MGS girl. LOL.

I ended up having to borrow $3 from Paul (which I still owe him) in order to pay for the airport tax, which I was unaware existed. I assumed they had added it to the cost of the ticket, but apparently not. Oh well. We ended up doing some random survey about tourism in Cambodia while we waited to board the plane, which was really long. It reminded me about how much I had spent on the trip (eeek).

Back in Singapore as we were waiting for the luggage to come out, I saw Paul's family. A vague wave of surrealism washed over me as I realised I recognised his sister who was my junior in guides. She was again another one of those people I never expected to see again in my life. This feeling was contrasted with the most relucant knowledge that I would probably hardly see the people who I had travelled with on the trip anymore as school was now over and they had NS. It again pained me a bit to think about losing another set of people who I had now become friends with.

All in all, I must declare that this was the most insane and intense trip I have ever been on (let's see if the upcoming .9 trip can top this!). From hearing CieloJin voices while on happy pizza, having my hotel room turned into a happy pizza and happy pizza ingredient den, watching ladyboys gyrate on poles, kids cramming themselves onto swings and repeatedly singing EIEIO (which I had to lead on the 4th day), kids swarm others as they clamoured for sweets and snacks, an instant noodle party in the middle of a brightly lit minimart at midnight and visiting a gay bar, it has been one of the msot surreal and awesome trips of this rather short life of mine. I would love to go back and experience it all again (hint hint).