More pictures on the holiday

Being the youngest in the family, you will notice that all cameras focus on Saloma most of the time. Saloma learning to walk, Saloma eating breakfast, Saloma eating mango, Saloma smiles, Saloma sleeps, even Saloma phoo is something to talk about !

Chilling Fall, Kuala Kubu Baru

Since June, my life was on hold for a while. Mark,Zee and the kids came back from Vienna for three weeks. Lani, Andrew, the kids , the maid and the girl next door was back for holiday too.

No patch work, no sewing, no calligraphy class, no social life with friends, but I am not complaining. I had five of my seven grandchildren here with me and the house was filled with laughter! Wish they can come back as often as possible.

We did many things together and the best was the trip to Chilling fall. We walked for two hours one way and cross the river five times (the rapid was strong) and we had our princess Li-Ann with us, her ladyship is truly a city girl and I was so proud of her because she did overcome her fear and completed the walk with all of us (with Andrew & Lani's help). I think Ti-Jin and I enjoyed the most. To him, this is better then any Shopping Mall or even "Toy's'rus"!
Ti-Jin really enjoyed the dive ! water was deep and rapid was very strong.

Any thing would taste good after the two hour walk !
Special spa by Li-Ann and Gaia

Say " Cheeseeeeeeee"
Ready ! Jump !
We were tired and hungry by the time we reach the nearest town.

Start of the journey
Her ladyship Li-Ann and her subject Andrew

Fun, fun and lots of fun

Please forgive me if you find the pics boring, they are for Grete and Prema. I know how the miss their nieces and nephew. More photos will be posted later on their holiday. I had Kaixuan and Kai-en with me and they left last night.

Transportation in Cambodia

These are the few types of transportation I encountered or I should said I have so far tried. If you come from Bangkok, you have to pass thru this no man land.. It is a very pitiful sight, you see beggars everywhere, children line the street, begging for food and yet it is one of the richest town in Cambodia due to the many Casino. I usually walk from the Thai side of the immigration to the Cambodia side but once it was raining and I had too many boxes, so I had to hire this cart.
You can still see this in the market, the man uses this cart to deliver goods.

Cruised around the lake with Lay Hua ee and Ah ean ee. I should operate a tour agency (unfortunately each time I bring the tourist, I not only not earning, I have to sleep, eat and entertain them )
One of the trips I took from Siemreap to Battambang. It took almost 8 hours ( ppl just stop the boat in the middle of the lake and hop in)
To market, to market to buy a fat pig...Road from Battambang to Siemreap in April... it is dusty and bumpy..just like riding a horse for 5-6 hours. This women is very smart..

This one I have not tried.. it is for the dead. :)
Tuktuk is not common and only few in Battambang.
This is the best way of going around the town if you do not want to walk. not cheap though, it is like rm 1/- for a short distance
we do encounter traffic jam too.

For those who wish to experience the colourful and interesting life... please contact me. My fee is very reasonable.

Anonymous Comments Allowed!!

For all of you fans who have always wanted to give comments but could not unless you have a blog account - I have changed the settings to now allow anonymous comments. All comments welcome !! esp to Fay who complains non-stop and finally changed this setting for me...

Hi ! everybody, I am back...... for now. I left Battambang at 7:00 am and reach KL by 10:00 pm. Jojo has gone back to philipines and I have to clean the house by myself and I can assure you that the house is huge (KKX's word, not mine) what I wanted to say is the house is cleaner because I am a better cleaner than Jojo. The problem is how long can I do it ?

Pick up Kkx and Kke yesterday from Klang and spent some quality times with them. Did some crossword puzzle with Kkx and help him with his blog. Please go to http://khoox.blogspot.com/ to view his blog.

Today Fay came from the States and she is sleeping (Kkx is helping me to blog this). She bought lots of clothes for everyone and me too.

Kkx is sitting beside me and asking why I have so much to say ? well, what can I say ? I am alone all the time with no one to talk to. He is here to correct my spelling and grammers too.

By the way, he is going to be nine in a few days time and he has got plenty of presents already ! Lucky lad.

Posted by gracecby @ 2:20 pm
The above post is by grace and kkx too

Prove of my wonderment !

CORDE Center of learning..... teachers are being trained by CORDE and they go back to their villages and start their own classes for the villagers.
We accept all kinds of donation!!
The kids are having fun while the whole village are out looking and cheering !

Wonder ??

Sometimes I wonder why I keep coming back! With the millions of insects, mosquitoes, dust, no air-cond, no washing machine, no water heater (not that we need it). Worst of all, I have been tortured with this loud music since 5 am in the morning, without stopping for breakfast, tea, lunch or dinner for the past two days! HELP ME PLEASE !!! For those Malaysian who complain about the 5 times a day’s prayers should come and live here, and all this blasting is not for prayers, it is for a funeral. Cannot imagine if this is a wedding month.

Yes, your guess is right, I am in Battambang, Cambodia now. As you know, I booked my air ticket in January but decided not to come because of the above reasons. Then Prema moved back to KL for good…. ..it lasted 5 weeks. Could not stand the life in KL and decided to come back here. What can I say ? Her personal cleaner, cook and maid had to come along to help her settle in again. (I wish the air fare to Perth is as cheap as coming here too)

Life is full of surprises and we realized the wisdom later. Just before the plane landed in Phnon Phen, Prema whispered to me that the guy who sat next to me is very interested in me, it seem he has been staring at me for a long time. Like I believe her la ,it must be my new hair style. (Oh ya, I forgot to mention, I cut my hair very, very short… like shouting to everyone, PLEASE LOOOOOK AT ME!)

To cut the long story short, the minute he got my attention, he asked if I know someone in Phnon Phen by the name of Peter who is a Bahá'í! I don’t know how he associated Prema and me as Bahá'ís but BINGO! Raymond Peter is an old friend of mine. So Stanley (I know my daughters are going to scream MOTHER! Why are you talking to strangers?!), and his wife Ai Peng stayed in the same hotel with us and we had dinner with Raymond Peter that night. And then, Ai Peng gave me a good massage… one the best I’ve ever had. It seems Stanley has been doing this business for the last 20 years but Peng just mastered the art for the last four years.

Prema has been complaining about her backache for the last two days, her health has not been good lately and the six hour bus ride aggravated it and this morning it became so bad. But no worry, an SMS came from Stanley and Peng, they arrived in Battambang at 5pm today.. that’s why I said in the beginning, lots of things happen with a reason. Of course we invited them for dinner and in return they gave both of us an hour of massage. Prema’s pain was gone immediately, not much of a different for me since I am the healthy one.

Let’s see what else happened. I brought them to the CORDE’s Centre of Learning in the village. They were impressed with the development work being done. It was an evening class and there were 6 classes going on at the same time and everybody was engrossed in their study. All the teachers are volunteers and they are trained by CORDE. If only you can see all these classes, then you can appreciate what Prema and the rest of the friends here have done and Fay, you will never force Prema to go back to Malaysia again.

I love Battambang in spite of all the above. That’s also because it’s much, much safer on the streets, the market is a walking distance, I can just sit around the coffee shop and observe passerby’s and have real fruit shakes for less than RM2.00, I feel healthier because there isn’t any junk food, no durian, no cheesecakes, no mamak…only home-cooked healthy food…by me, and me alone. And best of all, I don’t have to worry about telephone bills, electricity bills, etc, etc…in Malaysia, for now.

I am oily, I am sticky and it is getting late. Goodnight.

p/s the above blog was written at home on the 5th and it is 9th today.. By the way, I am going back on the 11th.