Monday 19 September 2011

A few days in Seam Reap

Hello again,

I’ve just started a break from PPS. The Finance Manager Neary is having some time off, so I’ve spent some time in Siem Reap, home to the Angkor Wat temple complex. A friend also visited me there, so we did all of the stereotypically touristy things. So I’ve now eaten a variety of reptiles (snake and alligator), spiders (big black hairy things that are very chewy and fried – I’d say the legs are like chewing on a twig with a similar taste)  and watched slightly aghast as Steve fired off a number of different types of heavy weaponry at the nearby firing range. An M60 is extremely loud.

Siem Reap has also suffered from some heavy floods whilst I was there, as these pictures will attest. Where I was staying the water was over knee deep and although it was amusing the first day wading through it, the novelty soon wore off after the best part of a week. Supposedly it’s like that once every three years, and four provinces here have been very badly affected with many people losing their homes, and in some cases their lives. It didn’t seem to bother the locals here though as the area by the river with the deepest water descended into mass water fights and crazy high diving competitions out of the trees lining the river. They were quite an acrobatic bunch.



This is the centre of Seam Reap. It was much deeper by the river and where I was staying

The temples were relatively unaffected, so I spent a couple of days out there. It’s my second visit here, the first being eight years ago, so it was interesting to see how the city has developed. There’s probably an order of magnitude more of everything, and as it’s monsoon season and therefore not busy with tourists, there’s a fair bit of hassle, especially from children selling pirate books and bracelets. No apparently isn’t an option. It’s well worth a visit though, although the monsoon certainly adds a chaos to the situation that many probably wouldn’t appreciate.


This is me at my favourite temple at the complex, The Bayon

I go back to Battambang and PPS in a couple of weeks time for a final fortnight there. The work is still great and a genuinely wish I could stay longer, and hopefully whoever follows will enjoy it as much as I have. There’s plenty of interesting developments in the pipeline for PPS and as it (hopefully) grows in size it will also become more complex with greater pressure on its accounting function to provide more detailed accounting information for the management team. There is a drive to make the entire organisation self-sustaining via income generated from its own activities, all of which adds to the complexity of the work done by the finance section. The Finance Manager certainly seems to appreciate this. 

This is my desk first thing in the morning at PPS. One of the great joys of being out here is the fresh fruit

So the next ten days will be spent in PP as it’s a nice city and also one of the drier places in Cambodia. I’ve been given list of various galleries and visual arts exhibitions to check out as well, so I’ve plenty of interest to look forward to whilst the Finance Manager is on holiday.