Business or Pleasure

N, our Cambodian friend, runs a Khmer class every Saturday and Sunday for free.  Twinkly and more than a little naughty, she is always up for some fun. The class is supposed to finish at four but usually runs on until getting on for five, at which point it blends seamlessly into general chat and only ends when everyone goes home, or more often, when N has made plans to go out for the evening with one or other of her pupils. More than once we have turned up to a class to find N and one of the other regulars discussing the various twists and turns of the night before, which ended at some point in the early hours of the same morning.

"N just goes out all the time!" says M, "until really late. I don't know how she does it."

I like to think we're not dull. But we're not really clubbers. Not nowadays anyway. It's not slippers and cocoa - more like beer and conversation. But we're not out psst midnight on the Siem Reap 'pub street'. And N, though her youthful Cambodian skin and sense of energy belies it, is, I think, older than we are.

N just likes to make friends. Today we roll along to Khmer to find N discussing film making with an Australian visitor. We segeway, gradually into the lesson and then continue it well past four when a lovely couple arrive a little late and instantly charm us all with their smiling warmth and enthusiasm. M and I had already planned to go and see a photography show followed by a slide show in honour of the current photography festival underway in Siem Reap. Very easily, we end up going as a whole party, the new couple, us and of course, N.

N breezes around both show and slideshow, which are at separate venues, waving and greeting seemingly everyone and switching easily between English and Khmer to do so.

We find we can chat and laugh very easily with the new couple, and when the girl passes me her number so we can look them up in Melbourne, I take it and know that I will actually call it.

"It is fun," says N happily, as she gives us a lift home afterwards, "going out with you and them."

It is, she is right. We have a great time and the photography is amazing and awe inspiring. So much, in fact, that I can't quite find anything to write about it. It literally leaves me speechless. Which is really quite something.

But more importantly, N has fun. Because you see, she wasn't supposed to be here this weekend.

N works freelance as an eco tour guide, hence our visit to the floating village with her. She also teaches Khmer for the more long term, paying pupils and lends her extensive local knowledge of flora, fauna and humanity to various film and documentary makers where needed. Money, she has told us, is an evil thing which it's best to have less of, as long as you can feed yourself and pay the odd bill. She doesn't charge much for her services and always uses local workers for transport or food on her trips, without taking commission. Money is very important when you are very poor, she knows, and so she works hard to ensure it goes, directly, into the pockets which need it. 

Mostly, she just enjoys having fun.

But this weekend we were meant to be going, with a large group of other travellers, on a weekend away to a temple near the Thai border. At the last minute N texted us to say it looked as though it might have to be cancelled.

After some confusing texting N had asked to simply meet up with us so she dropped round to our hotel to explain on Friday. It was literally the day before we would have been going. We were drinking beer in the garden, having just finished eating and when N arrived it was clear she was quite upset. We seated her next to us, retrieved more beer from our fridge and settled her in for the evening.

On the face of it, all that had happened was that a large portion of the twelve strong group, who I presume all knew each other, had strung N along until the last minute, then told her they had booked the same trip with a cheaper tour company.

What was upsetting N was not the last minute cancellation, rendering the trip prohibitively expensive for the remaining three people, or the loss of her guide fee (twenty dollars per day, split between twelve).  She was a little put out that they didn't come to her to explain honestly that they were worried about price, enabling her to think about possible savings for them. She had wasted a days work making the necessary arrangements with third party local providers - and then had to let them down at the last minute.

But what was upsetting N was none of these things. Instead she was simply disappointed.

"I was really looking forward to it," she said, "a trip like that, staying over and having diner together in the evening in a big group. It's really fun."

You see N was not simply providing a service. She was making exciting plans with pals. It was this ("I liked them. I thought they were my friends") that had upset her, that had even moved her to tears ("and then I cried in front of my neighbour"). N had no plans for the weekend now. It stretched empty in front of her, devoid of the activities she had been so looking forward to (plans for this have been underway for at least two weeks). As far as she was concerned, her friends let her down.

"I don't know," she said with a vengeful tone which I knew she would never go through with, "if they will be welcome at Khmer class again."

I felt very much for N, because for me it is obvious that she thinks of her clients as friends and her tours as facilitators for meeting them (though I would not play down the pride she takes in providing ethical, high quality eco tours or the very high standard that results from it). But in that moment I imagined what the situation must have looked like from their perspective.

"We booked this tour with a tour guide," they might have said, "but then we found another one that was less expensive so we went with that. And the first tour guide kept nagging us, like, every day to ask are you coming, are you coming - and then when we said no she was really offended and was really funny with us when we saw her. Typical Cambodia. They just see tourists as walking wallets."

Because those travellers didn't know that they were going on a trip with friends. They thought they were booking a service. So they found what they thought was the best deal. Its perfectly reasonable. It's the money that muddies the waters.

I heard once of a nursery that was tired of parents turning up late to collect their children. They were worried about the effect on the child so they introduced a penalty fee for late collection as a deterrent. What happened was that the parents were more often late and less apologetic. They cheerfully paid their penalty fee, and left happily, waving goodbye to the disgruntled teacher, blithely over their shoulder. As far as they were concerned they were simply paying for an additional service. They could expect the teachers to provide it now because they had purchased it. Previously the teacher was just doing them a favour.

It is often the most expensive hotels, the most classy establishments, the most pricey restaurants that see the most demanding or obnoxious behaviour from their clients.

You can buy, it seems, the right to be rude. If you pay enough, you can obtain absolution in advance for the right to abandon common courtesy and throw as much weight around as you care to - provided you throw around an equal amount of cash.

I am not accusing the other tourists of being obnoxious - only of misunderstanding. I think they just didn't realise and I think they would feel awful if they'd understood. And they were within their rights, at least in as much as it was a business transaction, to change their mind.

The trouble is the mixing of business with pleasure. And poor N fell foul of that on this occasion.  But I wouldn't change N's approach for the world. Should she charge for her Khmer lessons? Start the clock so she can charge every time someone asks her a question about Cambodia? Should she stay in and keep her friendship group close to her chest - stick to Cambodians and avoid flaky travellers?

No. She has fun. So does everyone who parties with her.

She goes home tonight with a smile. So do we. We have a day tour booked with her tomorrow. Money will change hands but the arrangement is made the way you plan a meet up with your drinking buddies. When she came out with us tonight she did us a favour. When she let us buy her a beer, same applies. When we climbed into the back of her motorcycle and she drove out of her way to see us home, she was our friend, not our tour guide.

And when we go out with her tomorrow, and we pay her for her expertise - she remains so.

What is Not Transitory About Travelling

We have been very lucky, so far on this trip, in that we have managed to meet people that we will take home with us.

O and I regularly swap messages on the Air BnB site we originally met through. We have emailed P while we have been in Cambodia. A, next door to us, is a prime example of the people you meet, and know, almost instantly, you will not actually part from.

We spend the evening with  A and her friend who is visiting from Chaing Mai.  We all run in and out of the two flats, pulling together our respective pots, and hobs, to create, in A’s kitchen, a veritable chefs haven. A makes magic with a few simple ingredients, and I sit and talk to her. Then we all share the food until, eventually, we slope off to bed. Our respective beds. Obviously.

From our first chat with A there was something about her that made me relax. This is an ingredient that I am unable to place – but I’ve met other people who I liked, but did not immediately feel comfortable with, and some who I have been outright scared of, through no specific fault of theirs.

I told A the truth straight away. I am not in the habit of  lying, but with A there was no instinct in me that held back. I admitted to weaknesses, failings, insecurities and silliness with the same ease with which I discussed writing, travelling, love and the various small victories with which life is peppered.

When we discuss the fact that we will soon leave Cambodia A is genuinely saddened.  I too, even after spending just a few days in Battambong, found myself looking forward to returning to the flat which is our home,  to playing with the cat and to meeting up with A. She has become part of our family here. She and the cat are the vital components of what we consider to be ’home’.

More tellingly, when A and I discuss how much we dislike goodbyes, and agree to part on Wednesday evening with a nonchalant, “see you” as though everything was normal,   there is a feeling in us both that this might not be so unrepresentative of the facts. It seems very likely that this will not be goodbye, because, certainly as  far as I am concerned, A is a friend – a proper one – a close one – and we have the kind of deep connection I had not actually envisaged I would make while we travelled. I know that I will stay in touch with A, through facebook and emails, and if there is the slightest chance she may come to live in the UK (which is possible), I know I will make the effort to see her.

This is special for many reasons. Firstly, as I have said before, I don’t have this with everyone, secondly because there is a human instinct when meeting people you know you will need to part from, which tells you to draw back, and hinders much of a connection, and thirdly because frankly, I have all the close friends I need. This sounds ridiculous. But there is a point in your life when you realise you have such a good, strong network of friends with whom you will trust anything, you really don’t want for any more. In fact, given the necessity to work and to do laundry, you might not have time to give as much as you’d like to the ones you do have. And geography and the price of train tickets may impeded things further. You don’t look for more friends because you want to reach in, take hold of the time you have spare and wrap it up and gift it to those people you love.,

But A is different.

Which, frankly, is something to just accept and to celebrate.

But  can’t help wondering why. What is it about some people that lights a fire in you, and others, which, however warmly you view them, never manage that spark?

Perhaps it is similarlity. Over a giggly meal, A and I discover that our childhood crushes, which were not on conventional heroes, (and in fact were not even human – let that boggle your mind…), were the same. Neither of us ever expected to find a single other person who didn’t think that was crazy. Neither of us admit it to many other people.

Perhaps it is the approachable, open quality of A herself. She’s the first to admit her own failings, honestly and without apology, and she’s willing to admit to being different. There’s nothing to fear in terms of loss of face. I like to aim at being open myself, and try not to work too hard at being impressive – but sometimes, you meet another person and, try as you might, the guard comes up. I can avoid outright pretence, but can’t do much about the fact that I’m not exactly willing to open my mouth and spill out my uncensored thoughts. My suspicion is that it works both ways, that there is some unspoken signal early on in the encounter which tells you both you can relax. This is then reinforced by an open attitude on the part of one of you, quickly cementing the original instinct which tells you to relax.  You have an instinctive trust.

Or maybe it is chemical. I have read before that the distinction between the man you pass by and the one for whom you feel a romantic attraction essentially boils down to a god combination of pheromones. I don’t see close female friendships as being so different. I have friendships with girls which easily rival the depth and force of my relationship with M. I have had one friendship which became so much a platonic equivalent of a romance, at a time when we were both single, that we ended up having to part because it was simply too intense. We split up the same way you might part ways from a man with whom you’d had an amazing, but now over, relationship.  

It could be a simple case of sycophancy. A has some attitudes and opinions that I really admire. She expresses some things which I covert for myself but know that I am not yet mature enough to embrace. She has lived an interesting life and she has faced hardship with courage. She is quirky, not always predictable, and unique. I hold her in high esteem. I'd like to be liked by her.

Whatever it is. It’s interesting to speculate. But it really doesn’t matter.

A is a bit tall to fit into my rucksack (though I may try with the cat). But nevertheless, I think I am going to carry her with me.

Escalators And Offices - It's A Jungle Out There

We get up early to cycle to the temples in order to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. This sounds lovely but I have not quite anticipated how terrified I am going to be. Essentially, for much of the journey, which begins at 3.30 am, we are cycling on rattling bicycles with no light except for a dim glow produced by my dynamo light on the front wheel. M has no such light, though he does have brakes which is useful. My dymano was I think added in leiu of such luxuries as working brakes.

It’s not the brakes which scare me though. It’s the fact that we are cycling in the pitch black without any other lighting, down quiet paths. Either side of us the jungle is black and whispering. The jungle noises, which I love to listen to, become sinister and suggestive. I know that the jungle contains monkeys and parakeets. I suddenly wonder what else might be living there. I keep my light focused on M’s front wheel to try to light his way around the potholes. I try not to notice the howls of wild dogs, so familiar here, and normally so unthreatening (the dogs are much more scared of us than we are of them – they don’t hunt us – they bark in terror and flinch away, and the majority of the ‘wild’ dogs are in fact domestic, they just happen to do a bit of roaming), but the howl of a dog in the dark, accompanied by the rustle of jungle leaves, and the occasional screech of hunter or hunted, is a very different thing to the howl of a dog outside while you are tucked up inside your air conditioning. Sweat pools on my forehead in the early morning humidity. Something snuffles and grunts in the dark near my feet. It seems to me that we are cyling through the set of a horror film, in which we take the part of the dispensable minor characters who get killed at the beginning. I check for a full moon, but the depth of the darkness belies it.

When we finally find the turning to Phnom Bakheng, the temple on the hill we will climb for our view, which we identify more by the sudden flash of torchlight as the guard outside it checks his watch, it is with some relief that I dismount. We need to wait until 5.30am before we are allowed into the temple, so we wait, perched on a piece of wood in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the jungle.

“You were so scared!” says M, not without sympathy.

“I’m not now,” I say, “now I like it. I just didn’t like the ride through it.”

It’s true. We are now sat in the jungle in the darkness. We don’t have our torch on (it was too difficult to cycle and carry it so it sat in our rucksacks through the darkness of the ride here), and whilst the guard is there, he has wondered off somewhere and seems only to bother with a torch for brief periods, when he sees a couple of hapless tourists, for example. It’s just as dark. But I don’t mind. It’s different sitting still and contemplating the jungle. But it makes no rational difference.

Either way, it’s beautiful. And though we do climb the hill, catching a glimpse, on the way, of a beautiful little blue green snake, winding his way gracefully across the path at our feet, and we do indeed watch the sunrise – for me it is this wait at the foot of the hill, which is the most memorable. We can hear monkeys swinging and calling, birds screeching, the larger lizards making their distinctive ‘ek ow’ call, and smaller creatures snuffling and rustling about in the leaves. The stars, unimpeded by competing electric light, are very bright here, and the sky a beautiful velvety black around them. We watch the sky lighten and listen to the jungle creatures as they go about the morning business of swapping wakefulness for sleep, and sleep for the daily activity. Those that have spent the light hunting or playing, retire to their holes, nests and hideouts, passing on their way, the newly stirring day creatures, stretching and limbering up for a day’s preening, flying or scavenging. I rather envy the night guard’s peaceful job and understand his choice to keep his torch off. The night jungle seems companiable now, the stars seem to afford more light, and I no longer entertain fantasies of bears or tigers.

“Although I’m not sure it was the bears,” I say to M, “I might quite like to see a bear. Though not to be attacked by one. I was more worried about humans.”

It would be a dark and desperate sort of human who stalked the jungle at night, waiting for the once in a while appearance of a tourist stupid or diligent enough to be temple hunting this early. We have seen no one on our ride and though we are eventually joined by one other couple, we remain the only four people apparently alive on Angkor Wat temple complex – at least until nine.

Later, as we descend the hill again, after a peaceful sunrise, though a little cloud strewn, M tells me he is proud of me. I rather enjoy this, so of course I make him explain.

“You are scared of things that a lot of people are scared of,” he says, “and when you are scared – you really are.”

It’s true. I am scared of a lot of things, and when I am scared, I genuinely expect to die. Usually, if you entered my head in one of these moments, you would find it was most preoccupied with what my mum would say, when she heard that I had been eaten by a wild tiger in the jungle, or hit by a crazy Cambodian driver whilst cycling on a crazy Cambodian road. It’s not a casual fearfulness – it’s all consuming. And the best way I know to get around it is to be very honest. I tell M that I think I might die, that I am worried there is a bear, that I think some impossibly implausible disaster might happen. I tell him in as jovial a fashion as possible, and he plays his own part and laughs it off. This is rather easier for him if I’ve managed to retain a sense of humour. Some fears are reasonable – the roads for example, are genuinely dangerous. Others are not. Back home I am afraid of escalators. The chances of injury on an escalator in London, particularly given my white knuckled grip on the handrail, are minimal.  I am not, on the other hand at all afraid of snakes or spiders. If it’s poisonous I won’t touch it - but I’d love to see one. And I think they are beautiful – the bigger and brighter the better. There is no logic or discernible pattern to my fearfulness.

So why is this a thing to be proud of?

“Because you still do it”, says M. “You’re terrified, but you never ask to turn back – you don’t refuse to go in the first place. You do it anyway.”

He is right, I smugly tell myself, basking a little in this newfound admiration. I don’t turn back or refuse to do things, because generally they are worth doing. It is worth being in the jungle at dawn, worth cycling carefully down a scary road if it’s the only way to reach something wonderful. It is worth climbing up steep steeps braving fits of vertigo, for the sake of the view when I get to the top. It’s not really worth getting on an escalator in London unless there’s no choice about it. I guess that’s why I avoid the tube and walk. Though I tell people it’s for health reasons.

I’m no Brad. But being scared of it doesn’t mean I won’t do it. I think about how many unsung heroes and heroines I have encountered in my time. People who are shy, but force themselves out to meet people, people who are afraid of public speaking, but do it to further a cause they believe in, people who find work enormously stressful – panicked always that they will do something wrong – but who nevertheless do it, who throw themselves into it and face that fear every single day. Nobody tells them how brave they are for doing that. I think of my Mother, who taught herself to brave the sight of bloody mouth operations so she could be useful as a dental nurse in the more hospital based clinics, of my sister, who braved a similar fear of blood and needles as part of becoming a Mother, of a friend of mine who was afraid of the hassle and sacrifice involved in having children, but who made it her project, and worked hard to make herself the ultimate mother – finding along the way that the dreaded motherhood was in fact quite rewarding. I think of countless people who are quietly courageous on a daily basis. Who tells them they are proud of them? I hope there is someone.

You are not facing tigers each day when you work in an office. But it can be one of the most frightening places. You must meet people, trust people, produce things which may be judged harshly or rejected, finish things to tight timescales, undertake projects which stretch you, tackle the age old ‘imposter syndrome’ in which you are convinced that people think you are better than you really are – and that sooner or later they are going to find out. You have to deal with people without knowing if they have an agenda, have to work alongside people who may be playing by different rules to you, or playing another game altogether. You may be asked to play games you don’t agree with. You may have to refuse them, and face the consequences. The very crux of your profession may, at some level, scare you. The very fervour with which you approach it, may cause you to lose sleep over it. In my work as Company Secretary I have met countless others at various levels, who all admit to a sense of fearfulness and a certain tension before entering a Board Meeting. In M’s work, within the Computer Science Spectrum, he has met countless people who are nervous in company, and more comfortable closeted behind a computer screen, but who are nevertheless asked to do their share in promotional activities, networking and sales pitching. I know people who feel nervous ordering food in a restaurant, going to the bar or turning up to a party on their own. Most people I know, if ordering takeaway food for a party, will argue a little about who makes the phone-call. No one wants to do it. I don’t know what the fear is – but it’s always a relief when someone else takes control.

When we finish travelling, we will return to a culture in which the fears we are asked to face are, objectively speaking, relatively inconsequential. We have the luxury of facing fear such as public speaking, as opposed to earthquakes or the slow starvation of our children. But any fear, no matter the consequences, is still a fear. Sweaty palms are not always dried by rationalising the relative consequences. So if you’re scared of it, and you still do it, you are no less courageous.

And if you work with someone who seems timid, or who frets over the smallest details – take a moment to consider how brave they are. They’re here. And they’re doing it. That’s impressive.

Red Tents and Big Tops

"So you are going travelling for a year with your new husband," says someone who is clearly eager to buck the 'how wonderful for you both, congratulations!' trend before we leave. "Just the two of you? Good luck...."

The last two words were uttered with a tone and wry smile that rather made me suspect that this person was not betting money on our continued romance factor.

Of course, true to form, we told ourselves, indignantly, that this sort of generalisation involving couples being driven to homicidal rage faced with the horrors of spending a lot of time together in an unfamiliar setting - simply did not apply to us. That was for all those other couples. You know, the less committed ones.

Homicidal tendenciesvwe have not encountered, nor anything approaching a serious deal breaker. We have not found we loved each other less or started to make lists of irritating habits we hadn't previously seen in each other.

What we have found, as per previous blog entries, is rather less than admirable qualities in ourselves. Cue the self improvement drive, which, once you get over the shock of your own imperfections, is actually quite fun. There's something very satisfying about a bit of self improvement. It turns your shame into smugness and, after all, everybody needs a project.

Being gifted with a lovely husband who is the appropriate combination of honest and tactful - self improvement doesn't have to be done by myself. I tell M what I don't like about me - and together we make a plan.

Today's challenge is the age old lunar problem in which even the most saintly of wives might transform into a slavering werewolf every twenty eight days. 

I am rather tired of coming to myself when the fatal week is over, and remembering what I hope are uncharacteristic fits of irritability or hysteria in the same way you might gradually remember your unwise activities through the haze of hangover following the twelve shots of vodka you consumed the previous night. M is rather tired of it too. He loves all the versions of me, he tells me, but some more than others...

Over a beer or two - we conclude that the root of this sort of issue is in the level of exposure. Where pmt is a physical symptom, age old and pretty much here to stay, the thing that you change has to be the one thing you can control - the consequences. If I feel over emotional or irritable, this isn't a problem until I have occasion to express it. Once it's expressed, it's a bigger problem involving more people and, once the physical effects have worn off, I can't simply walk away. I've made more of a mess and therefore there are things to clear up.

Not only that but we realise that whilst something as predictable as a bodily cycle is an obvious issue, there are also occasions in which M himself might have similar urges to become unnecessarily prickly - and similar consequences if he indulges.

This conversation having happened a week or so previously, we are ready with our chosen strategy when we wake up this morning and find I am as irritable as the calendar might predict of me, and M doesn't feel well. 

We implement operation 'Red Tent'. This is a concept that comes I think from tribal influences - when the women of the tribe would, at that crucial time, take themselves away from the other members and hide, until they returned to whatever they identified as 'sanity'. A 'Red Tent' day, self prescribed to both of us, involves a few simple rules - being left alone, doing, eating or drinking whatever we liked and not reconnecting until we could feel ourselves approaching a sense of normality. 

I read a book all day and eat taro chips. M writes a few blog entries, looks at recipes online and refrains from commenting on the taro chips. 

At some points M sits in the garden while I allow myself the luxury of the bed and the air conditioning. Other times we sit together. But we obey to the letter the key precept of the Red Tent - that we can be in each others space, but we don't invade it. 

Essentially it's a very indulgent day in which neither of us have to expend energy fighting anything. As a result we are, though a little lethargic, in gentle and pleasant tempers throughout the day until, eventually, we emerge in the evening to eat dinner and go once again to the circus. As planned.

By the time we are strolling, happily along to the circus we are very pleased with ourselves, very peaceable and very together. We have spent the day in each other's space but not each other's company and it has been a real pleasure to 'meet up again' at the end of it.

The circus is predictably amazing. It's a different story to the one we saw previously and a more moving one, based on the director of the foundation's own experiences as a child haunted by nightmares following the Khmer Rouge, nursed back to health through art therapy and going on to establish the Phare Circus foundation. (See 'Not Just Clowning Around'). I  am moved to tears and to laughter, and most of all, to awe. The story is very clear and told very beautifully. I lose my ability to distinguish reality completely. When a performer representing the young girl's nightmares performs amazing feats of balance and mesmerising contortion in his threatening white mask and red scarf, I find myself cross with the cheering audience. "Stop clapping the Khmer Rouge" I say to M, only half jokingly. He smiles and takes my hand.

Afterwards, I get talking to one of the staff at the foundation. He tells me that all the children begin by studying a range of arts, including painting, music and circus skills, then go on to choose a specialism. It is often, he says, the children with the most traumatic backgrounds who go into the circus arts. They need the physical expression, the sweat and the pain that goes with it. It's an outlet. I think how very beautiful it is that therapy can also be dignity. That the foundation goes beyond charity. It's a job. It's amazing. Like the moment in the show, in which the young girl contorts herself in her sleep, using her feet to aim and fire an arrow to burst the bloody white balloon which symbolises her suffering - it is a battle fought and won, not by some benefactor, but solely by the young performers themselves.

We make our way home. As we fall into bed, mind buzzing with circus tents and red tents, I think back over the day.

The 'Red Tent' looked a little different for each of us, but was highly effective. It would have to be tweaked if, for example, the need arose on a day we were expected in work or had other commitments, but it's possible that simply one hour in the tent could fire us through until we had leisure to return, if we needed to.

As I happen to be writing this a few days after the event I can report that, at least in this occasion, the happy effects continued and there has been no further need for Red Tent time despite my calendar telling me otherwise. M, incidentally, returned to full health and stayed there.

We will have to give it time - but so far it seems to me that the tribes had it right. And as for the difficulty of spending so much time in each other's pockets - well that applies mentally more than physically.

So don't worry about travelling with your partner. Just allow yourself a little time in the tent. Red or Circus. Or both.

You can find out more about the Phare Circus Foundation, make a donation or check for any tours near you at http://www.phareps.org

Stranger than Fiction

We made a pact early in our trip that we would buy something small from each country that we felt represented the spirit of that place for us, and scatter these mementoes around our flat when we got home. We also agreed that we would buy one gift in each country, to be assigned afterwards to family members, but there was one condition. The gift had to have a story.

Since then, it has become clear that the item is itself is far less important than the story behind it - and that we are not collecting things, but stories.

When we turn up to what is the best cookery class we have had so far, teaching us not just Khmer dishes, but chef skills, (the best way to chop vegetables, for example), we are actually a little resigned to not finding a gift with a story in Cambodia. Whilst Cambodia itself is fascinating, finding something unique is not easy in the tourist areas, and in the more local areas, things are for practical use only - or are edible. Also, while there are a variety of good causes, most of them are an experience rather than a gift and the few Fair Trade stalls we have seen just haven't contained anything which took our fancy. Only that morning I have commented to M that we may need to buy a gift in Cambodia, without a story. 

Until I glance at a small display cabinet in the corner of the restaurant where we are supposed to be concentrating on pounding lemongrass. 

"I like those," I say to the Chef, indicating them, while M pounds and sweats away diligently next to me. "Are they for sale?"

'They' are small half coconut shells which have been painted and varnished so that they make attractive, shallow little bowls and some colourful and chunky jewellery. We have seen some similar ideas but nothing quite like these. They have a charming irregularity and they catch my eye note than anything I have seen on the markets. I have an idea that I might buy one as our Cambodia gift. Given that I can't find one with a story...

"Oh, you like them?" says the chef excitedly, piling some more turmeric into my bowl and recalling me back to my pounding, "They are made by a lady who is HIV positive. She lives at the Pagoda. She makes them by hand and I sell them for her."

It turns out the lady has been making these bowls, jewellery and painted eggs for some time, but the chef has only sold four in four months. But he's only been open four months - and given the quality of his food and cooking class, he'll be inundated with customers as time goes on - and maybe the lady will sell more than one item per month.

We buy two. And we make sure, when we give the chef a well deserved glowing review on TripAdvisor, that we mention the unassuming cabinet in the corner...

We research the organisation who work with nuns and monks to establish a community for HIV positive women and teach them his to make painted eggs and other crafts. The organisation us called Face to Face Aids and has a website at www.facetofaceaids.com. It gives them some money but most importantly it goes some way to turning their status as stigmatised individuals into a status as respected and admired skilled craftswomen. Dignity, respect and hope. All for five dollars per item. A bargain at the price.

And lo. We have our story.

It's not the only one, however. We have been privileged enough to talk to countless people, each of whom have amazing stories of their own.

We meet a chef who, having graduated from school, had no more money to continue his studies or follow his ambition to be a chef. His family had run out of funds to support him after secondary school. 'I knew', he says, 'that I would have to do it on my own.' 

He moved away from his home town to seek work chopping vegetables for two years, saving money painstakingly, until he had enough to put him through the coveted one year course at a well respected chef school.

When he graduated from chef school he moved again and worked in a kitchen with another head chef. He worked so tirelessly he ended up collapsed on the kitchen floor where the chef found him and took him to hospital.

'In my two days in hospital', he says, 'I just lay there and thought. And I knew that I couldn't keep on doing this.' He missed his family and his home - and his health was suffering.

Days later he packed and undertook the long journey back yo his home twin, to be reunited with his family.

What he found was dismaying. Hus father, a healthy man when he had left, was now blind. His earning power diminished, the family had very little money.

With an education behind him, and a lot of courage and determination, the chef was able to finally pay his parents back for their support in his early years. He bought a property in town and opened it as a restaurant. He brought his parents to live with him above it, and with his mother as sous chef and his father now able to feel his way around enough to help with the washing up and cleaning, he established a family run business. 

Now he runs a successful new restaurant with cooking classes and a burgeoning reputation as a brilliant chef.

We meet a lady who grew up in a house a little smaller than the average one person flat in Britain. She shared it with twelve other family and extended family members. Her father made space by constructing levels within the flat, creating mezzanine type spaces out of necessity, imagination - and wood.

We hear the tragic love story of one young girl who fell hopelessly in love with a boy who had been her best friend since childhood. He loved her back but, being an ambitious, modern young girl with a career of her own she fell shirt of the cultural expectations of her, should she become his wife. Unable to escape the strictures of familial and generational requirements of women, she pulled away from him and they reluctantly parted until, in a series of cruel twists of fate she is now alone and he married. She has never met another man like him.

Life is stranger and sadder than fiction. And infinitely more beautiful. 

People say there is a novel in everybody. 

Perhaps there is a novel in each of us purely because we have lived one.

Waking Up To Reality

Once upon a time there was a dragon who lived in a lake. By the side of the lake the Buddha sat and meditated. Every day the dragon watched the Buddha, and they became friends. One day the dragon pleaded with the Buddha to let him become a monk. He wanted this more than anything in the world. Impressed with his eagerness and his desire to learn, the Buddha agreed to change the dragon into a man for a time, so that the dragon could train with the other monks.

Years passed and the dragon was the most diligent of monks. He almost forgot he was really a dragon. Because he had taken the form of a man, the other monks and the other people who lived or worked at the Pagoda where he was training, either forgot or never knew that once this monk had been a dragon.

One day, however, the Buddha woke up to a commotion. One of the workers had entered the monk’s bedroom to see a huge dragon on the bed. Nodding sadly, the Buddha went to the room. There on the bed was the dragon, weeping at the sight of himself and begging the Buddha to turn him back again. But the Buddha explained to the dragon that he could only work this miracle for a while. It was simply time for the dragon to become a dragon again.

Sadly, the dragon accepted his fate, to return to his original form, but he asked the Buddha that the other monks remember him. To this day Buddhist monks wear their orange robes with a twisted piece of fabric up and over the shoulder, like a snake – or a dragon, in honour of the dragon and his commitment to his faith.

This story is told to us by Y, on a day in which we essentially travel around Battambang, peeping into other people’s lives.

The family who make rice paper get up every day at four am and work until two pm. They soak the rice first, then crush it in a machine. They mix the crushed rice with clean water and steam it until it reaches a paste like consistency. Crouching between two barbecue style hobs, each with a pot on top of it over which is stretched a thin piece of fabric, with a small gap to allow the steam to escape, they spread the mixture thinly in a circle over the fabric, put the lid on and allow to steam. When the mixture has been steamed to a circle of rice paper mixture, they scoop it up and hang it over a sort of turntable made of four pieces of pipe. The other person then takes these circles of rice paper carefully off the pipe, spread them out on large bamboo frames, to leave in the sun to dry. It’s long hours, hot work and very repetitive. By the end of the working day they have made, literally, thousands of rice paper circles which they can sell. There is much competition from hundred of other, similar family industries and from exportors like Vietnam, who use machinery ensuring more uniform circles, and, (arguably), better quality goods. If it rains, the produce is smaller, because they have to scratch around for alternative places to dry the rice paper, and the humidity makes this a slower process.

“Do they make enough money?” I ask Y.

“No.” says Y, “”They struggle. But they have to do something.”

The family who makes dried banana slices work long hours each day. Surrounded by hundreds of bunches of bananas, the wife squats, picking up one banana at a time and slicing it by hand very thinly, before laying the slices on bamboo boards to dry. When the slices are dry they are packaged. Each packet sells for about 25 cents. Out of the proceeds they must buy more bananas. The final produce is difficult to sell. Mostly they are sold to children in schools.

They struggle. In case you were wondering. But they have to do something. The lady slicing the bananas beams at us, as she tries, simultaneously to comfort her crying baby. She sings to herself a little as she works. However tough their lives might be, we have seen nobody looking as grim as you might expect.

The family who work together to make rice noodles get up at five a.m. and work until three p.m. They make a similar rice paste and dry it in large sacks put out in the sun. Once it is hard and dry they soften it slightly with fresh water, and then force it through the holes of a mould using a large wooden beam as a lever. The two young men who work it repeatedly refill the mould and then push the lever down by sitting on it. The noodles which are forced through the holes in the mould fall into a waiting pot of water, boiling over an open flame. At the risk of becoming repetitive – it’s hard, hot work.

Once a reasonable batch of noodles are cooked this way, the men fish them out of the boiling water and rinse them with fresh water, before handing the bowl of noodles in water to the mother and older daughter who squat on a bamboo table, pulling handfuls of noodles out, folding them attractively and expertly into banana leaf lined baskets for sale, and watching what look like Cambodia soap operas on the TV which hangs from the ceiling on fraying string. This serves as office and home together.  I don’t ask about money this time.

The fish paste, used by Cambodians in many Khmer dishes, is made by a selection of families at the fish market. Y warns us, before we arrive, about the smell.

“We will go and you can see.” He says, “and if you don’t like, we don’t stay”

He is not purely sparing us the details as vegetarians. I gather some tourists have taken one sniff of the fermenting fish in huge barrels, their guts on the floor, and urged him to drive as far away as possible. This rather goads me into a determination to be the tourists that don’t. Besides, when the tuk tuk pulls up at the market and I reel slightly from the heady aromas of dead and fermenting fish, I see two children, maybe six or seven years old, squatting together over a chopping board in the corner, expertly slicing and gutting fish. And if they can do it, I can. Though frankly I think it would have been less gut wrenching if they’d been playing with the fish than working with them. I stare at their hands, quick and concise and practiced, and I try to imagine handing a British seven year old a cleaver. I try to imagine asking them to gut sacks full of fish with it. I try to imagine them doing it with such speed and efficiency.

“Can they not afford school?”  I ask Y, still transfixed by the children.

“Oh yes – they have to go to school and primary school is free for learning. They just have to pay for materials.  But they work between seven and eleven and two and five. This is their break.”

This is their break. I am sobered. Once again, as I stare at the wooden vats full of salted fish, being churned and mixed by the expert hands of the seller, I don’t ask whether the families make enough money. I am getting a little too used to the answer.

“It is better now,” says Y, still talking about the children’s education, “there are many NGO’s to help give free schooling.”

“Will they have a different job when they grow up?” I ask, “if they have education?”

“Not really,” says Y, “they will follow their parents.”

It occurs to me that I am being vastly patronising – when in fact what I am faced with is children capable not only of learning in school, but of undertaking a skilled job in the meantime. There is nothing wrong with following your parent’s job. But I suppose it does depend what your parents do to get money.

We pass a lady on a wobbling bike, piled high with sacks of something.

“She is on her own”, says Y, sadly, “and so she collects bottles and rubbish. She can get a small bit of money from giving them to the recycling centre. It does not give her much. But she has no choice.”

Later we hand our empty plastic bottles to a disabled man in a wheelchair who is collecting them. We feel magnanimous. Then we feel patronising. This is a country full of people who may be struggling, but have dignity. They feel, as Y keeps saying to us, that they must do something. It’s a work ethic far greater than what we know of back home. But it’s also a necessary one. There is no social security system in Cambodia. If you don’t have any money you don’t have any money. Nobody else will hand it to you. And if you cannot work or your harvest suffers, you lose out. It’s a rather harsh example of the survival of the fittest. But when I look at the people we have seen today working – I rather suspect them to be much fitter than us.

We ride on the bamboo train. If it sounds like a fairground ride that’s because it is like one. Originally, this railway served as a link between Phnom Penh and Battambang, transporting goods. More recently the advent of motorcycles and road transport has ceased this usage of the railway, and it remains purely as a tourist attraction. We climb onto what is essentially a sort of bamboo ‘raft’ on wheels and sit on the floor of it on cushions. Our driver uses a piece of string to start the chugging engine, and we are off, clattering down the tracks like the steam engines of old. Every time the ‘train’ crosses the link between one set of rails and another, there is a resounding clang and a jolt. It reminds me of the ‘Runaway Train’ ride at the various theme parks of my youth. As we click clack along the tracks, through green rice paddies, jungle foliage and underneath huge spider’s webs in which sit huge, portentous looking arachnids, I ask M is this is the sort of experience he imagined when we were planning this trip.

“Kind of” he says, “though I don’t think I could have imagined this.”

Every so often we encounter another train travelling the other way along the single set of tracks. Both carriages stop and there is a small altercation between drivers at which point one or other of the train disgorges its passengers onto the side of the tracks and then both drivers lift the bamboo raft from its wheels and place it, and the wheels by the side of the tracks to allow the triumphant train to continue it’s journey. Then the whole raft is put back together, and the journey recommenced.

“You should tip the driver” says the young girl in charge of one of the market stalls at the end of the tracks, where we drink from a coconut and try to settle our lurching stomachs in preparation for the return. “The fare you pay goes only to the owner. Not to the driver.”

“I hope that’s not true,” says M over the sound of the engine as we chug our way back. I agree. It’s likely that the girl is simply doing a friend a favour, but unfortunately equally likely that the drivers are not in fact paid a fair wage. And that the owner is western and/or very rich, widening the already chasmic gap between rich and poor in Cambodia, with every clack of the tracks. We tip him just in case. It’s either food for his family or it’s money for a beer. Either way we don’t begrudge it.

Later, we find ourselves sitting, spellbound on the side of the dusty road, staring up at a large cave in the side of a mountain. The air is filled with the sound of bats. This is the famous ‘bat cave’, in which, according to popular legend, more bats live than there are Cambodians in Cambodia. At first, we can only perceive a faint circular motion in the mouth of the cave, as though the bats are warming up. Then suddenly, as if by some pre arranged signal, they soar up and out of the cave, silhouetted against the purpling sky and arcing, elegantly, over our heads in formation. There are thousands of them. It takes some fifteen minutes of constantly emerging bats before the line begins to taper out. It is absolutely and literally breath taking. (“Don’t open your mouth when you look up” warns somebody. We don’t ask why.)

I am filled, as I watch, with a sense of how utterly privileged we are to be witnessing this. Of how very lucky we have been to have the breaks in life we did, to be born into an affluent, western society. To be able to drop everything and travel for a year. And I am reminded, suddenly, of the story of the dragon, awarded his wish but for all too short a time period.

I wonder if we will wake up, one day, to discover ourselves poor farmers in Cambodia. To find we must make rice paper all day for pennies.  That the comfortable lives we have been leading were never intended to last forever. It’s time to go back.

I imagine a world in which the reigning Godhead awards each person a period of time to be poor. And a time to be wealthy. But deliberately, fails to tell them this. Each person lives out his life assuming it to be for ever. I imagine that the Godhead have promised to cease this cycle and grant immortality to every human, as soon as humanity has learned to balance its resources so that everyone is equal. A huge cosmic game that humanity doesn’t know it is playing.

I wonder how long it would take before we won it.

Wouldn't You?

“Tuk, Tuk, Lady?”

“Sir, you want tuk tuk?”

“Good price for you”

“Sir?”

“Lady?”

“Tuk Tuk?”

The crowd of tuk tuk drivers at the doorway of the bus is packed so tightly that it’s actually hard to find a place to put our feet as we step, blinking, off the final step of the bus in which we have spent the last 4 hours sleeping. The noise level is huge, each driver speaking over the other, and very fast, like auctioneers trying to make a sale. To move we have to push our way through the throng, which is difficult to do given our British dislike of getting our elbows out.

“No, thank you – we have something, no thank you, no thank you…” we say like broken records, weariness and the general sense of being under siege colouring our words with an increasing sense of impatience. We have to say no thank you continually to each driver. Getting through the crowd is like fighting our way through particularly aggressive paparazzi, though of course none  of this is intended to be aggressive.

Even so, it is intimidating, and it is with some relief that we lock eyes with our pre booked driver, (who I shall call Y), who we have found via TripAdvisor and who has glowing reviews. We have booked him for a days tour of Battambang tomorrow. The combination of the clamouring crowd and Y’s personality, which gives us an instant sense of trust, means that we bound across the car park, where he waits, quietly, shake his hand and greet him like an old friend. Behind us, in the dust created by our departing tuk tuk, the tuk tuk drivers renew their assualt on the next passenger.

The word ‘assault’ is telling, but unfair. There is no malice in the never ending cries of “Tuk Tuk?” as you walk down the street, and no bad feeling when you politely decline. However, to tourist ears it can be, at the best, tiring, to continually say “No, thank you” all day, every day, and at the worst, frightening.

“I don’t like the way I get shouted at” said A, early on when we first met her. I know what she means. All that is actually happening is that we are being offered a service. But essentially, what it boils down to is that as you walk down the street, men are continually shouting at you. As you step off a bus, a crowd of men clamour around you, inches from your face. It is intimidating. Culturally, it’s unwelcome.

For many other people, it’s simply a joke. T’shirts, sold with a kind of sad irony, by Cambodian market sellers, bear the slogan ‘No Tuk Tuk Today, Maybe Tommorrow’. It makes us smile, but how much of a joke is it, really? And when we laugh or complain about it, how reasonable is that? How much are we actually suffering?

“How do people make a living?” we ask Y, noting that there are so many Tukk Tuk drivers and so many tourists turning them down. They earn maybe two or three dollars a ride, but persuading someone to take even one ride a day is far from guaranteed. Y shrugs, “They don’t. We don’t. But we have to do something.” It’s a refrain I will hear from Y a lot in the next couple of days, as we talk about many typical Cambodian industries. It’s not enough to live on. But it’s something.

Many men become Tuk Tuk drivers because they are unemployed. Y himself used to earn some money as a photographer, taking shots of tourists in prime locations. Now the tourists have their own cameras, or have cameras on their phones. It’s just not needed any more.

Whilst mechanisation still hasn’t taken over very much of Cambodian agricultural practices, the use of even simple machines to aid farm work is increasing, causing farm hands to lose their jobs.

Y understands that the insistent approach makes tourists shrink back, and rarely makes a sale. He has built his own reputation based on Trip Advisors reviews websites and his naturally gentle approach. He pays attention to things which upset tourists – hidden charges, for example, or feeling pressurised to do or buy a certain thing. He is very careful to give all the information, charge a fair price which doesn’t change once agreed upon, and always takes the first no as a definitive answer. But essentially the reason so many of the drivers are so apparently aggressive in their sales pitch, is because they are desperate for work. There is so much competition, and so little guarantee that there will be work tomorrow, or a wage today.

“They want to make a sale, so they shout and push”, says Y, adding gently, “wouldn’t you?”

Some Tuk Tuk drivers manage to circumvent the problem partially, by making an arrangement with a particular hotel. They become the hotel’s preferred drover, and whilst there is still no guarantee of work each day, at least any tourists requiring a Tuk Tuk will be directed towards them rather than the myriad of other possible drivers. They are not necessarily better drivers. Often they are related in some way to somebody on the hotel’s staff. We have found ourselves, several times in conversation with somebody in an official capacity, the staff who check our Temple passes at the entrance to Angkor, for example, who will ask if we want to go somewhere the next day, and recommend their brother, or their father, or their husband, as Tuk Tuk driver. Y perceives this as somehow cheating. But he admits, all the same, that given the chance, he would do it. That anyone would, in the same situation.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Y works hard for his sales, impressing each customer so that they will review him well, and bring him further work. But there are days when, even if he has made an arrangement, tourists pull out of it because it is raining. In the hot season, they might pull out because it is too hot.

Y’s wife left him. He is not sure why but he thinks she left for a richer man. His daughter is nine. He gives money to his in-laws, who look after her. When I ask if there is a legal obligation in Cambodia for the father to give money his answer is unclear. What is very clear, however, is that it doesn’t really matter. He loves his daughter. He wants to give her all the chances possible. All the opportunities his money can buy.

I ask what his daughter would like to do when she is older. He shrugs. It depends. Secondary school is expensive. In Cambodia you have to do what your family can afford.

Y would like to move to Siem Reap, where there are more tourists. But the rent is too high.

When I ask what he would do if he wasn’t a Tuk Tuk driver, if he could do anything, he says he would like to fix air conditioning units. But it involves carrying heavy equipment and isn’t strong enough in his shoulders.

It seems, in Cambodia, for many people, dreams themselves are expensive. They have to be realistic.

Later, we discuss religion with Y. He tells us he can’t understand why people are so insistent on thanking the Buddha for everything.

“It’s the same with all Gods,” he says, the closest to bitterness his gentle voice will allow, “you are supposed to thank them. But the God did not give. I work for it. I work hard. Not God. Me. What did God do? God gives nothing.”

I think of my own faith. Of the ease with which I accept the concept that good things are God given, and with which I give thanks for them. Is it easier to believe in a gracious God when you grow up in a society in which you genuinely are handed good things out of nowhere, and without necessarily earning them? Is this a luxury not everyone can afford? Certainly I have noticed that in poorer countries the approach to saying thank you is tinged with more than a little hint of pacification. Life is hard and the God you believe in can destroy a harvest. You’d better keep him or her happy.

Of course faith here is also devout. And plenty of people in rather luckier societies don’t believe in God. They think they don’t need it. It goes both ways and involves a lot more than the criteria I have just discussed. Faith is visceral in some cases, almost an instinct. In others it is very carefully thought out and reasoned. Many people who have nothing are nevertheless grateful for the little they do have, and avoid bitterness entirely. That is their gift and it is a marvel. In the West we grow bitter for far less.

Even so, Y’s words ring in my ears, “God gave nothing.” But God gave me a lot. Why? I’m no better than Y, no more saintly. What are the rules of the Godhead? Can we ever hope to understand them?

Y’s price, for our day tour with him tomorrow, will be $25. It’s both fair and practical. By our calculations it’s good value for us and probably enough for him to pay for fuel and have some left over. Some drivers try to undercut prices, he says, and offer trips and tours for very little. It’s not fair, because it drives prices down to an unmanageable level.

“But I don’t blame them,” says Y, “wouldn’t you?”

The market stalls in Cambodia are full of sellers jostling for you to buy. As soon as you walk past their stall, or even, enter the market itself, they call out to you. They pick clothes off racks and block your way with them, keeping up a constant patter, “You buy? Good price for you. You buy for your husband. You buy for your wife.” It is a point of tragic irony for me that these same sellers are selling T’shirts with the slogan ‘No thanks, just looking’.

I’m just not sure it’s all that funny.  There are rows upon rows of market stalls. Alll of the sell the same garments, bags and handicrafts. Each seller’s only possible chance of an ‘edge’ is to be the first person you choose to buy a garment from. If they are too late – and you buy your Elephant Trousers elsewhere – well then you have elephant trousers already. You’re not going to buy them again.

And yes, maybe there are better tactics, better business sense which could potentially be employed here. M and I have discussed on several occasions the possibilities – choosing different stock, for example, something no one else is selling, giving your stall a name so that people can distinguish it from the others, even taking a leaf from Y’s book and understanding western attitudes and putting up a sign of some sort promising that tourists can ‘browse with no hassle’. But it would be aped in seconds if it worked, and you would instantly lose your edge.

The market sellers are not necessarily stupid. They understand that the full on sales pitch is off putting. They literally have the T’shirt. But somehow they have to draw your attention. They have to catch you first.

So they pull your sleeve, push in front of the other sellers, try desperately to persuade you against your immediate wishes.

Wouldn’t you?

A Truthful Fiction (and that old cigar problem)

M is doing that thing. You know the one where you want to do something but somehow don't quite get round to, well, doing it. I recognise it because I know it well.

So I play the nagging wife/amateur psychologist and drag us both out of bed and up and out so that he can go to an aikido club in Cambodia. Well that's the intention when we plan it. In reality it's him who drags me out of bed. But either way - we make it.

I wait for him in a beautiful local vegetarian restaurant, imbibing my body weight in iced coffee, and inching Neville the Novel forward bit by bit, between blogging.

We go to Battambang tomorrow - where we will stay a few days and ride the bamboo train and go to the bat cave. I am aware I am making it sound like a theme park. Frankly I think in my head it is.

Such japery will cost us, and we are also hoping to go on a sort of jungle pilgrimage to an overgrown temple near the Thai border for a couple of days next weekend - so today must be cheap.

We breakfast, once M returns, sweaty and happy, in the vegetarian restaurant. Beautiful local food at beautiful local prices.

Afterwards I cover myself in unaccustomed luxury and get my hair cut. In all honesty I had been intending not to bother. The sun is bleaching my hair to a strange but novelty streaky blonde reddish colour and I'm too curious about what colour it will eventually end up to dye it. As for a trim, well my housemates and I spent much of our university years cutting each others hair in the kitchen with nail scissors. I had planned to institute a similar approach with a rather nervous M in the role of stylist.

But the Somaly Mam Beauty Salon, for which we have previously picked up a flyer, is a training salon for rehabilitated victims of sexual slavery. It plays directly to my most recent feelings, that the answer to victim hood is to become empowered, not just to be the recipient of handouts. It costs just 6 dollars for a trim.

I trip merrily along. Only once I get home, and Google 'Somaly Mam' as research for this blog that I crawl out from under my rock and realise the huge controversy surrounding Somaly Mam herself, the foundation's namesake.

If you are as clueless as me then you might not know that the Somaly Mam foundation is a fundraiser for help for  women and girls who have been victims of sex trafficking. There are Somaly Mam shelters for such women and the training salon is a relatively recent (2013) addition to its activities. But the Sonaly Mam foundation has recently closed following an expose in May this year which appeared to disprove much of the claims made by Somaly Mam about her early life and her experiences having been a victim of sex trafficking, some claims made by girls she had rescued and, disturbingly, Somaly Man's claims about the apparent kidnap and rape of her own daughter in revenge for her activism. 

Luckily, for the women and girls who really have been victims of the forced sex industry (no one has claimed that all of the thousands if women rescued are lying or that sex trafficking is not an issue in Cambodia), the sister organisation AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire) remains active, as does the salon itself.

Two observations: one - Somaly Mam as a foundation has not been discredited and two - both Sonaly herself and the other young woman who claimed to have experienced things which seem to be untrue, were the subjects of books or documentaries. 

I'm not going to get into the kidnapped daughter story, neither am I sure of the facts of the case so I am not going to hold myself up as a source of any reliable insight into 'the truth'. I don't know whether there have also been any solid accusations of misuse of funding. But it seems that the organisation as a whole, is not a scam or a front. And that many young women have genuinely benefitted from it, hence the continued activities of its affiliate. 

Working on the assumptions that this is true, I wonder how much it matters. If Somaly Mam herself fabricated part of her story, or embellished the facts (the latter seems more what is being claimed), does that mean we should not support the organisation? I appreciate that it casts doubt on other things (if she lied about that then what else?) but taken on trust, I wonder whether a little exaggeration to create a good story to move people to help, is not simply good marketing. People respond well to a good story. Is the money raised somehow dirtied now?

Of course, without completing comprehensive investigation I can't claim with any conviction one way or the other. I'm just asking the question. Many Americans believe that Bill Clinton was the best President ever to govern America. He was forced to resign because of an unfortunate incident in which he became confused about where to insert a cigar. But did that mean he wasn't any good at running the country? Does it turn his previous political decisions retrospectively grubby? How much does the personal veracity of a spokesperson affect the validity if the cause? 

I suspect that the answer is that if you use a personality as your spring board, you are open to being discredited based in their personal behaviour. He who lives by the sword dies by it.

But Presidents aside, why do we need a story? If it's a device for understanding a problem, does it matter how precisely accurate the details are, as long as they remain largely typical of the overall topic? 

I seem to remember widespread outrage some time ago when it was found that James Fret, author of A Million Little Pieces, sold as a memoir of his experience as a recovering drug addict, had exaggerated some details and reordered events to make a better narrative. But I had a friend who, having battled to give up cigarettes for decades, managed to kick it for good as a result of this book. It gave him, he said, a language with which to understand addiction and from there, the tools to fight it. The exact voracity of the detail was immaterial. Later the same book was marketed as a 'fiction based on truth' as opposed to a memoir. Presumably it would have had the same effect. 

I am not passing judgement on Somaly Mam or her critics, but it occurs to me that the recounting of events, particularly where a special effect is desired upon the audience, depends more on emotional impact than accuracy. And how many of our own stories and memories, told casually over a pint, are themselves 'fictions based on truth'?

Anyway. All of this is entirely beside the point. The facts are as follows:

- I had a very nice hair cut complete with head massage and a friendly welcome

- The young people in the salon were hugely attentive and eager to learn. One person cut my hair but four observed so closely they nearly lost the ends of their noses to the scissors. 

- It cost only six dollars

- Human trafficking does exist. Large numbers of women are its victims.

Just go to the salon. They give a really good hair cut.

High Stakes, High Spirits

By far the highlight of today is the performance by the Phare Cambodian circus which we go to see in the evening.

The Phare circus trains young people who might otherwise not have much in the way of opportunities for their future from a young age. It provides them with a way to be independent, supporting themselves and their families. The training covers more than simply the most obvious circus arts, such as contortion, acrobatics, balancing and juggling but also music, script writing or directing and painting. Money raised by it goes towards the salaries of the performers and technical support and what is left over is re-invested into new projects. It performs seven nights a week and the performance, which involves only humans, for those of you imagining balancing elephants, is based around a story. There are three or four different stories which rotate regularly, so locals and longer term tourists could go several times to see a different show.

In fact, as an aside, I have gradually, as I get to know Cambodia, and Siem Reap in particular, and can sift through the less authentic outfits and identify the better ones - been discovering just how much hope and positive energy there is here. Organisations like Phare Circus abound (though it us unique in its nature). It is possible to go out most nights to see or do something which is set up in aid of a 'good cause'. There are countless charities. If the poverty in which some people are living hits you hard, you don't have to keep looking for long to find a myriad of rising hopes, pulling everything, gradually up. Cambodians, I read somewhere, are a proud and determined people with an indomitable spirit - and they never give up. I have to say, I'm really seeing this. I realise that over the time I have been here, what began as compassion - even pity, has developed into a deep respect.

That respect is never so much deserved as in the case of the performers in the Phare circus. I remember, not so long ago, that a 'shocking' documentary on the gymnastics training schools for very young children in China was released and did the rounds on YouTube, where I encountered it. In general, the reason it was shocking was because of the very hard, painful training being endured by such young children. There were other issues - but I was struck by several comments by viewers who had some experience of gymnastic training themselves.

"Stop labelling China as cruel," they said, "gymnastics training has to be hard and has to start early. It's the same anywhere."

In fact we were talking to A only recently, who did dance training in Switzerland.

"You stood against the wall in the splits position" she said, "and they would push you from behind to make you stretch further. It was so painful."

Circus performance of this kind, which depends largely on physical activity, requires intense physical training for years. On average, a Phare performer will have trained for eight to ten years before they are ready to perform. They are not just lucky kids, taken out of hardship to a glamorous job full of accolades and advantages. It's tough, sweaty, agonising work. It's a charitable organisation, but make no mistake, the Phare performers earn their living.

That's the serious bit over. Now what I'd like to try to do is relay for you the sheer exuberance and joy of the performance - and the fact that these clowns are actually funny.

The story for tonight involves a group of school kids who encounter two ghosts and work together to conquer their fears.  Cue an enormous amount of running about, shouting and arguing together - all done with such energy and such attention to little details, that it could be possible to watch an entire show of just this. The ghosts dance on ribbons, contort their bodies into strange and beautiful shapes, and balance together with impossibly little heed to the laws of gravity which govern everyone else. They are breaths of grace amid an energetic cacophony and the carefully arranged chaos of the group of school children. 

When the ghosts exit, the chaos grows in abundance, with much nail biting and rushing around, falling over each other, piling onto a bike, excitable retrieval of the school chairs which are, of course, suspended on the roof, and a long and hilarious interval in which all the boys take turns trying to impress one of the female musicians. This involves much performing of circus feats, interspersed with proud grinning, winking and what I can only describe as 'twerking'. It's genuinely funny, helped by the fact that the performers are close to the age of the characters they portray and seem to always be having enormous fun. As for the circus feats, we're not talking a bit of casual break dancing. The boys leap high into the air, turn somersaults and land in their co performer's arms, juggle, contort, and build human pyramids. Oddly, the girl remains largely unimpressed, while the audience are screaming and cheering. She must be very high maintenance. That's all I can say.

The energy levels and humour don't relax once during the hour long performance. But what really blows me away is that the circus stunts are truly beautiful, daring and at times, literally unbelievable. A boy balances on his hands in an upside side splits position atop a pile of eight or nine chairs balanced so precariously I actually hold my breath and wonder what will happen if he falls. Later in the show, a similar balancing position will be maintained for an impossible length of time atop five or six toilet roll shaped cylinders. All of which are rolling slightly so that he has to keep adjusting his balance constantly to maintain the position. 

The circus feats are dangerous and taxing. By the end of the show each performer, despite showing no signs of flagging, is drenched with sweat. The only indication of the effort involved in each stunt is a split second just before it happens, when the concentration on their face becomes evident, or a period in which the clownery is stepped up a notch by the other performers to enable, for example, the careful balancing of chairs for the next stunt. If you watch their faces closely, there is always an intense and deadly serious connection between partnering performers before a throw, balance or stunt. For me, it is this which really crowns it. I am laughing delightedly and squealing in awe, but I am never on any doubt as to the skill and significance of each trick - and as to what is at stake. It enhances the state of euphoria induced by the performer's energy and natural comedy, because I get a rush of adrenaline simply watching.

Afterwards the performers return to the stage and tell us a little about the organisation and what it stands for. As they do so they stretch. Even their stretches look like yoga moves worthy of Sivananda himself. They remain on stage afterwards and invite donations, pose for photos and are available to chat.

I feel completely psychophantic and am too tongue tied in front of these half my age performers who don't seen to be constrained by the usual laws of physics, to say anything. I donate.

And I secretly watch the Phare circus website to see if the story changes while we are still in Cambodia. If it does, I'll persuade M to go again.

Which shouldn't be difficult. 

Like me, he was grinning maniacally the whole way through.