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, January 31, 2010

January 29th

The plan was to start work early at 8:30 a.m to fix the leaking ones. But Vanghn did not show up until after 10 so I instead worked in the garden mixing in the bio char and nutrients. It was 8:30 in the morning and I am working shirtless and after a half hour my shorts are soaked and I am lightheaded and it feels like I have already done about an hour of a Baptiste Yoga session. The heat and humidity is crazy and it is still January and we are suppose to be shooting a film in March.!!!

Bio char is a charcoal product produced by the oxygen deprived gasificaition of rice husks at the rice mill where the rice is polished ( husked). The gasification produces gases that reduce by 80% the amount of fuel needed to run the rice mill; and now the byproduct, the bio char is being used experimentally to hold water and nutrients in the garden. A biologist from the University of Edinburough is studying the garden and we shall be planting peas soon.

Had lunch at home after a shower to get the concrete and dirt off. In the afternoon met with Michael at ConCERT and gave him a copy of ADITB to view over the weekend. I will pick it up on Monday morning. His business is to act as a clearing house for 25 NGOs for tourists and volunteers to come to one place and check out all of the NGO's that he sponsors. He is a charming Brit and we shall need to have dinner and share pholosophGot a good swim in at the spa pool, 2o laps before a massage.

Friday night took a moto taxi ( in other words sat on the back of a motor skooter) to attend a wine tasting with the Old Bastards wine club. The wines were poor but the company was fun. All were westerners ( barangs) and we had fun. Chris Coats made bean and ham soup with corn bread and home by midnight as I had a horseback riding session planed with Andrea for 8 in the morning.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)