After coming home today (well not quite, I got dumped at my grandma's place) I mucked about a bit before going to sleep. It was quite a weird dream. I dreamt that I was doing something and had multiple fainting spells. Then somehow I was transported to outside the Raffles Swissotel ballroom where I saw a few classmates. Then more and more school people started coming and I went around asking 'what's happening? What's happening?' but no one gave me a coherent reply. Then it dawned on me it was some official gathering. I looked down and saw that the strap on the shoes I was wearing were broken, and quickly ran down to buy new ones with Cheryl.

Then I found myself outside the ballroom again, and everyone was dressed up nicely (like prom). I was talking to someone, then I saw Charles L. from school walk past, and I went to talk to him. The conversation went like this:

Me: "I fainted right?" (so therefore the events that appeared to be occuring were only in my mind)
Charles: "Yes"
Me: "Am I going to die?"
Charles: "Yes"

And then I woke up.

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The First Day - 30/11/08

I woke up feeling tired. Ended up dragging myself around the house, getting the little minute details ready. Then I was herded into the car by my parents and set loose in Terminal 1... but my flight was departing from Terminal 2! As a result I ended up taking the skytrain from T1 to T2, slinging my bag on my shoulders. At T2, I met up with the rest of the group heading to Cambodia. After checking in, we gathered again at the other end of the checking in counters. The only reason I mention this is because shortly after we gathered there, a hidden pipe burst within the fake foliage and started showering a dirty stained water in the surrounding area. It seemed like an omnious sign of what was to follow in the days ahead - absurdity being the choice theme. And almost as if the prediction was right, absurdity became the underlying theme almost everyday.

This trip was also the trip I was most ignorant about. I mean this because I literally knew nothing, and had not bothered with the details. For instance I thought I was flying on Cathay Pacific (hence ended up at the wrong terminal). Then even after checking in and boarding the plane, I had no idea where I was headed for except for the words "Destination: Cambodia" floating in my head. It got to a point that I picked up the inflight magazine and realised there were 2 destinations in Cambodia and asked Stephanie which one we were flying to. Yes. That was terrible of me. Still, I managed to arrive in Siem Reap in one piece.

The group of us staying at City River were dropped off first, and then rest of the group staying at Reaksmey were carried off on the minibus. After checking in, we wandered to a nearby restaurant and I had some odd fried egg that was rolled up. Then we went back to the hotel and deposited our stuff in our rooms. After bumming around for a bit, watching some freaky Korean quiz show (in English) for kids on general knowledge - they were like robots, Steph and I left to walk along the river side. We made a loop around and took some pictures before heading back to the hotel and then walking to the orphanage based on Steph's memory.

And thus began my unhappy first encounter with Cambodia traffic - trying to cross roads without pedestrian crossings. Somehow, we made it to the orphanage safe and sound in one piece. At the orphanage, Stephanie immediately headed to Noi Noi. Feeling out of place among the rest of the group who were playing with the children naturally, I ended up sitting around stoning on the stage with Arjun and Cheam. Eventually however, I warmed up to the children and played with a little boy and girl. Though for the life of me now I can't remember which two they were. I think it might have been petrolhead.

I also noticed something when I sat there, watching others play with the children. Their faces really lit up, and you could see the genuine happiness written on the faces of children and helpers alike. This touched me to no end. People I could never envision adopting such a role did, and my perceptions were thrown wildly into the dusty Cambodian air.

At 5pm+, they started to kick us out. Walking out from the orphanage, we headed to Reaksmey where majority of the guys were staying. On the way there however I encountered a nasty habit of the Cambodians - indiscriminate littering. Someone had thrown a small wooden skewer on the road, and for some odd reason as I walked it flew up and pierced my left foot.

Feeling a small sharp pain in my foot, I looked down. To my horror the stick was jutting out of my foot at some 30 degree angle. I instantly felt faint and wanted to scream in horror, but restrained myself. I can't really remember what happened next because I was too freaked out, but I remember leaning on Stephanie as JLow stooped down and removed the stick for me. Then he handed the stick to me. The tip of the skewer was pink with B+ blood. I broke the stick up into bits and threw it back on the ground.

As I limped to Reaksmey to wash the wound, images of tetanus flooded my mind. I felt really scared. However after applying antiseptic cream and a bandage, nothing else worse appeared to happen. So phew. Steph and I ended up in Jit and Arjun's room, so to pass the time till we met for dinner, we played bridge, which they had to teach me.

For dinner we ate at this Indian restaurant that was next to Reaksmey. I can't remember what I had (but it was't butter chicken), but the portions were huge. Aftewards we headed back to the hotel, where Stephanie and I found the most wtf movie ever. It was basically Hot Chick/Freaky Friday, but with a lesbian and a ladyboy cross dresser. Also, it was entirely in Thai. Still, we ended up watching the entire movie, laughing like crazy at a great portion of the movie. The rest of the night was rather screwed up, because we spent it (+ Wang, Deb and Hadi) waiting for someone to come back to the hotel room. After the person finally came back at 1am+ local time, we went off to sleep.

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I'll continue tomorrow. It's really late now.