February 15

Feb. 15. Went to TB and gave them pix of boy scout and Sras trip, that I had downloaded on my thumb drive. I need to have Steve do a picture of Nak and me and bring it to her.. Initiated Rattana to set up visit to Sras on March 9-10, as March 8 is Women’s Independence Holiday. It seems that the number of three day weekends rivals that of the USA. Nuong, my unsuccessful house broker who also touts herself as a fixer and nature tour guide, broke her lunch meeting with me and rescheduled for later in the day at 5:30 pm. So I did some errands. I needed to extend my visa as I was not able to get a business visa at the airport and ended up with a 20 day visa which expired on February 17th. Guess that means I have been in Cambodia for a month without Lauren, as I re-entered the day Lauren left for home on the 17th of January. I will be fined $5 a day upon leaving the Country if I do not extend. The strange part of it is to get an extension, other than paying the fee of $45, I needed to surrender my passport so it could be sent to Phnom Penh for processing which takes a week when the 3 day holiday for the Chinese New Year is accounted for. I am trusting this process !!! I have a copy of it so that when I travel to Battambang I can use the copy when checking into the hotel, which always wants to copy it. You go to a travel agent to do the extension, so while I was there I bought all of the tickets that Lyman and I need to return to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh after a week of filming there and the tickets for all three of us to leave on March 19th, with Lyman catching his flight home from Phnom Penh and us from Bangkok. I met Nuong for a beer and to hire her as a fixer to arrange for us to be able to film a traditional dance ( Aspara dance)., a shadow puppet performance and a trip to Phnom Kulan ( Mount Kulan) where there is a waterfall and a pagoda to arrange for a blessing by Monks to be filmed at the waterfall. We shall go the waterfall on Saturday and I need to figure out if we should try and film it now with Steve and save a day from our shooting schedule with L and L. I had dinner at home and ate a home made dish of pasta and Bolognese sauce that I had cooked earlier in the day. This is the first real dinner I had made for myself and I froze most of it for another night.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

March 5

This day we eventually head to stay in Prey Veng Province in the main town where Hengly's parents live and operate a coffee shop.
In the morning I drop Lyman and Steve off to film Hengly at home with his sisters having breakfast. Hengly has a very bright younger sister Dany who speaks great English and was on the Cambodian counterpart to the "Apprentice" in which our feature narrator Seng Theary played the role of Donald Trump.
I had to meet with an official to get permission to film in a Center that rehabilitates abused women, mostly former sex workers, as one of our main characters was trained at the center to be a beautician. She never was a prostitute but qualified because she was a " girl at risk" living in a remote village with the very little education. She now teaches English in her village and has a beauty shop.
We attended a lunch meeting which Hengly chaired with a meeting with the World Bank. The fellow was Chinese and based in Washington DC and Hengly's mastery of his program and confidence was pretty amazing to witness for a 26 year old who grew up in the village.
We left in the afternoon and crossed the Mekong on a ferry and had dinner at Hengly's parents coffee shop-home. Early to bed in the only hotel in town. $12 a night, basic and comfortable with AC. Had a TV and before going to bed caught a clip of the Pats beating the Chargers in 2007 and in the morning watched Aljazaar TV!!
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