Cambodia-the welcome!

After arriving Phnom Penh from Singapore and not been able to check in for a few more hours we set about exploring the local streets. We stumped across a local market selling mainly fresh produce with slabs of meat and chickens sitting out in the open in the humid Cambodian heat.
With my legs in need of some attention and a beauty salon within a tones throw of the hostel, I decided to get my legs waxed Khmer style. This involved sitting in a barber's chair, cold wax with fossilised ants in it been applied to my legs slowly pulling each individual hair, but not enough to removed it. Then the "beautician" layer a piece of butcher's paper over the wax, heating it with the hair dryer and then ripping the butcher's paper in an upward direction sans pulling the skin taught. I
It's fair to say I won't be heading back to have my bikini line done!!

Mongolia!

After doing just a lazy 7000 odd kms, reading a buttload of books and eating copious amounts of Twix and Snickers we arrived in Ulaanbaatar. We hit the ground running and went straight into a city tour, visiting a monastery and temple surrounded by pigeons (considered sacred at that temple but still not very hygienic), the national history museum which was very cool and a lookout up a hill that showed you the contrast of new vs old. Mongolia is very rich at the moment due to a mining boom so there is construction happening everywhere, from the lookout you could see new roads and massive condo style apartment blocks going up everywhere in UB. And in between these massive buildings there are still people living in gers (a traditional Mongolian dwelling, a bit like a squashed teepee, soon to be our home)

The following morning we headed out to the Terelj national park, one of the most beautiful landscapes I've seen in my life. We visited a nomads camp and was served tea and snacks by an old cow herder's wife. Mongolian 'tea' is warm milk with salt, mmmm. The snacks were handmade cheese, very hard and dry, and something that was basically shortbread dough without sugar, both were politely eaten but seconds were not necessary. Later we rode Mongolian horses (almost ponies) which went where they wanted and didnt take notice of our reinwork. We spent the night in a ger before heading back to UB.

In UB we stayed at the Lotus Guesthouse, a hostel owned by the Lotus Children's Centre. This one one of the reasons we chose to volunteer at Lotus, the guesthouse is run by past residents of the orphanage and we liked that the older kids are given the skills to enter the workplace when they turn 18.

We stayed at the guesthouse for a week, and became good friends with a few of the other travellers staying. Most nights we went out for food and drinks with Rolly and Shauna, an American Peace Corp couple who had just finished a year long stint teaching English in a rural community. Rolly played in a basketball tournament for the US embassy team against other embassies like Japan, Russia and Kuwait. We got an invite and there was free food and 3 kegs. We drained all the kegs and Rolly won, good day!

Lotus Children's Center

Volunteering in a Mongolian orphanage has been something I have wanted to do for many many years. Visiting Lotus was the whole point of this trip, and from the moment I arrived I knew I'd made a good decision. We commuted for the first week, it was nearly 2 hours each way but totally worthwhile. The smiles we were greeted with each morning were amazing.

The lotus Children's Center is run by Didi, an Aussie lady from Mulwala who has lived and looked after kids in Mongolia for over 20 years. The orphanage has approximately 60 or so kids at any one time (plus a few other centres in other towns). The kids live in different houses named by themselves (ie Glamour House, Baby House, Spongebob House) mainly divided up by age with a house mother who loves with them and keeps them clean and in line. There is also a dining hall and a primary school on the site and the older kids take the bus into the city for secondary school. 

We were met by Will and Angie who are the head volunteers. These guys are amazing, they have taken a year off to be the parental figures of all these kids. They work so hard with very little breaks and what they do is nothing short of inspirational. We also met the other volunteers Roman, Else and Simon and with all of us together we had a mixed bunch of Columbians, French, Dutch, Quebecian (not Canadian) and Aussies.