can it be a blog???

It has been a while since i wrote anything up here. I seem to have been distracted from the blogging cause.

I seem to have a jumble of things to write about... where to start?

I have finaly uploaded a pile of photos from the Outer Hebrides trip. Most beautiful place. They are on my Flickr site which is linked from the right hand side of this blogedyblog.

This last month I have been back working in MK. Initially work seemed a bit of a shock after 2 months of unemployment... but I seemed to acclimatise to it fairly well. Ended up going to Madrid for a weekend conference where I had to do a short presentation. It turned out fine, and was quite entertaining... lots of spannish wine and mini food (tapas)... also a large number of mafia types wearing dark glasses and accompanied by glamourous small ladies.
The easyjet flights were also entertaining and I surpassed myself by arrive 3hours early for the flight. Anyone who knows me will know this is highly unusual. in fact it has never happened before. Normally 3 hours before the flight I am packing. In event the flight was massively delayed, and I managed to read a whole book whilst waiting. Another 1st - a book in a day.
Anyways I got priority A boarding pass and was able to sit right at the front of the plane and pretend I was an executive business type... 'pretend' being the operative word. The fact that I was wearing a fleece and had a backpack and was flying easyjet was a bit of a giveaway.

so now it is only a few days before i leave for the land of nepalese. I was reflecting on how different it feels now, compared to when I was preparing to leave for Mongolia. Back then (over 4 years ago now), the year ahead stretched to infinity and in many ways seemed like a long black dark hole, which I couldnt imagine how (if?) i would emerge from. Time was spent frantically buying many many things (many unecessary) to feed/entertain/moisturise me through the long cold winter and long hot summer in the town described by Lonely Planet as 'dusty and souless'. Now, 4 years later I am excited about going away, and it seems in my mind that a year really isnt very long at all... I am fairly sure I can survive wherever I am and that in most capital cities you can buy most things you need and want. Therefore no need for mass panic shopping?!! Interesting.
I am also wondering how differently I will feel at the end of this next year of my life. I left Mongolia wanting to stay... and I still feel like that now, even tho time has passed I want to go back (lots). Will I feel like this about Nepal in 4 years time? or is it only possible to fall in love with one country?

All this obviously omits the lovely 'bodge, which is not really intentional... my 6 months there just seemed to slip past in a blur of sunshine, sweat, holidays and logframes... it was always temporary. Not as permenant as a year perhaps?

Probably enough musings from me. Not sure when I'll next blog. Perhaps from Kathmandu.

over and out
me x x x x

just a note

just a note from me to say i am alive, and will probably resume blogging in a (more than) ernest fashion from November onwards when I will probably be all alone and twiddling my thumbs in Kathmandu... for the moment i'm (semi) back in MK... and not really having internet access except at work (this also explains my worse-than-awful attempts at replying to almost all emails)...

the outer hebrides were more than amazing, I shall attempt a blog and upload of photos to flickr this weekend when im back in the big Winch.

possibly should run now to make a gold-dusted chocolate mouse cake with Hils... its hopefully going to be amazing...

x x x

he-brides

I am now about to embark on my final week of unemployment. I am thinking it will be hard to go back to working, but never mind. I guess I'll get used to it. I'll work in MK for about a month before toodling of to Nepaland.

Prior to rejoining the tax-paying workforce im off to the outer he-brides to spot he-brides i suppose. the outer hebrides are off the west coast of scotland... and not somewhere tropicalexotic. I have bought an exceedingly spangly camera (canon eos 400d) with which to capture the beautiful scenary in the hebrides... which is quite exciting, and i'll post pictures on flickr if they turn out nice.

tomorrow i'm following in spearsy's footsteps and going to vinopolis for wino tasting in Londres. excellent.

so until i return from the hebrides, over and out out.

Grannie racing

Hils gave me some wind up grannies pushing zimmer frames. they are hilarious. currently the wind up grannies are on tour in devon. visiting my grannie, grandpa, and their friends. photos below. next stop for the grannies will be nepal, end of october.

1. Wind up grannies
2. Groo and me racing them
3. Gramps, Pansy and Maurice smiling with the wind up Grannies

Trains, planes and automobiles

this weekend has been fun... i have enjoyed many forms of transport...

been on a train, (fairly unexciting),

been in a small 2 seater plane - where i got to play with the controls like the throttle (go fast), the flaps (changes the wing shape?), the steering wheel (i am certain it is not called a steering wheel - but basically touching it seems to change the direstion of the plane - left, right, up, down - oh so confusing), the peddles (steers the plane on the runway) and the brakes (stops the plane on the runway). Given my love (?) of flying this was fairly scarey... especially when Anthonys flying instructor who was flying the plane suggested doing a very steep bank just so i could see that the plane wouldnt fall out of the sky when that happened... its true the plane didnt fall from the sky but I still felt slightly ill. I noticed that many people in Hertfordshire have swimming pools, which is probably very nice for them. on the matter of swimming pools I also went in a Lido at the weekend, but as a lido is a pool, i dont think swimming can count as a form of transportation.

the last form of transportation was the car. I have decided that motorways are annoying and really even if trains are delayed and over priced at least you can read a book... driving on the motorway (and indeed driving generally) seems to involve a degree of concentration that doesnt allow for reading books... hmm

has anyone been to the outer hebrides? we have booked a holiday there in a couple of weeks... excellent. more flying and driving... but no trains... unless there is some form of miniture scottish railway that i can play on... i'm considering investing in a mid-range digital SLR, anyone with any advise on that too???

im sure other things have been happening... but for now they elude me...

nothing much to report

I’ve been bad at blogging… and at emailing people too. I feel like I’m busy doing lots of things, its just they’re not really very exciting to report about… unless you count the letter from the doctor which says “… your stool test is free of any parasites…” which means I didn’t actually acquire any evil or otherwise bugs in the bodge.

Yesterday Mely left for South Africa as the first stop on her 10month round the world trip. We somehow managed to pack her things into one rucksack, I discovered it’s a lot easier to be ruthless about what you do and don’t need to pack, when its not you that’s going. However I think she really did have everything she could possibly need and more… as for me, I think it looks like I will be heading to Kathmandu, Nepal, for a year at the end of October… it isn’t totally confirmed, but already thoughts of mountains and Maoists are exciting me…

This afternoon Hutchie and I are going to watch Ann of Green Gables video, courtesy of the Peck in Peru. It is all most exciting. Perhaps I shall blog about Ann of Green Gables next time… it would indeed be a thrill I am sure.

xox xox xox xox xox

Flickr

In true procrastination mode (I really should be devoting more time to sorting out the piles of junk I have collected over the nearly nearly 25 years of my life)... I have upgraded my flickr account to a pro one. Its really cheap and worth doing if, like me you are annoyed by the fact that with the free account you are only allowed 3 photo sets. The upgrade also allows me a larger upload limit per month etc... Anyways I have posted a few more photos of various bits and bobs. Possibly not that exciting, but you can have a look if you want.

mooncup???

I think perhaps this blog entry is only of direct relevance to ladies...
I have been a convert to the mooncup for nearly 4 years and in that time I think have only successfully managed to convert 2.5 people to the ways of the mooncup… most people seem to be grossed out by the thought of it, although theyre all missing out bigtime in my opinion… when flicking through the guardian today I read an article in the ethical living section: Is it OK to ... use tampons?

I then remembered all about my loverly mooncup and thought perhaps I could do a bit of online promotion for this most useful of items… The guardian article linked above mentioned a recent article in the Times extolling the virtues of the mooncup, so I found it and have decided that it is far more eloquent than I am about these matters.. I think I’ll paste it below. Not sure if that violates some sort of copywrite but im not claiming that theyre my words… it’s a bit long I suppose… but in summary, the mooncup is the safe, environmentally friendly and cheap alternative to tampons or sanitary towels… and in my opinion everyone should have one.

The Times. August 12th 2006
One small step for women
Serena Mackesy landed on an alternative to tampons and is now a happy devotee

Eighteen months ago, I was in a supermarket loo. The usual hell-hole of overflowing sanitary bins. Looking up, I saw a sticker on the back of the door. “You can stop using tampons!” it said. “Mooncup reusable menstrual cup. Safer. Greener. Cheaper”. It had a website and telephone number. I checked it out and came away £18 lighter in the wallet. The stickers come with the cup when you buy one. And there can be fewer higher recommendations than a satisfied user guerrilla-sticking your ads.
If you can cope only with references to “wings” and being able to ride/swim/dance at that time of the month, stop reading here. Because menstruation is a messy subject. And the usual methods for dealing with periods have significant drawbacks.

Tampons and towels leak, no matter what the advertisements say. The sticky strip on the underside of sanitary towels is either too sticky or not sticky enough, and you’re perpetually aware that you are wearing them. Tampons have been known to cause toxic shock syndrome, a rare and occasionally deadly Staphylococcus aureus infection. There are only 40 cases a year in the UK, two to three of which are fatal, but half of those are associated with tampon use, which gives pause for thought.

In addition, unless you hunt down organic tampons, you are putting chlorine-bleached, deodorised (Tampax advertises one of its products on the strength of its deodorant content) rayon inside your body. As tampons soak up moisture, they dry out your vagina’s natural self-cleaning mechanisms, leaving it prone to thrush and vaginosis, a smelly bacterial infection. Vaginosis is treated with antibiotics (which can also result in thrush) and if left untreated can lead to infection during and after childbirth.

Then there’s the discomfort. In the first couple of days of a period you can be changing the tampons every couple of hours; by the latter days, insertion and removal can feel like rubbing yourself with sandpaper.

Furthermore there’s the environmental impact. The average woman uses nearly 17,000 disposable pads and tampons in a lifetime. An estimated eight billion of these end up in Britain’s sewage system, causing 70 per cent of blockages in the system. And once fished out, what’s not incinerated becomes landfill. Or ends up on our beaches. Nice.

And then, there is the Mooncup. Menstrual cups, made of latex, have been around since the 1930s, but this one, made of the same medical-grade nonallergic silicone used in, among other things, replacement heart valves, initially hit the market four years ago. It is not dissimilar to a diaphragm. Roughly 5cm (2in) long, it forms a light seal with your vaginal walls and can hold up to 30ml of fluid at a time, roughly a third of the entire average menstrual flow and three times the quantity that a tampon can hold.

And it’s reusable. A Mooncup lasts for years, just like a heart valve. As long as your hands are clean, you just empty it, flush it out (or wipe it round if you haven’t any water handy) and reinsert it as often as you would a tampon. And give it the odd boiling, in the manner of sterilising baby bottles. That’s it. Yes, I know. Most people’s initial reaction is “Yuk!” But think about it. A body is only a body and though we’ve become squeamish about menstruation, not helped by the you-need-an-applicator school of tampon marketing, menstruation is not going to go away. There’s a certain skill involved in getting something as pliable and bouncy as a Mooncup to fold neatly into four and to go up inside you without it shooting across the room. But in my case it took only three goes, and if you remember the grim horror of the first onset of your periods, three goes is nothing.

Much has been written on women’s chatroom pages on the internet extolling the virtues of the Mooncup and, if you trawl hard enough, there is the odd negative story to be found, such as the odd complaint of leakage. However, this is simple to sort out: the cup has a stem at the bottom that needs to be trimmed with scissors to fit the individual user. One user — who admits that she has an unusually narrow, long, vaginal canal — found that her Mooncup formed such a tight seal that she ended up in casualty getting it removed the first time she used it. But even she recommends it. I can’t think of another product that seems to have inspired such affectionate enthusiasm in its users.

I have become a proselytiser since I got my own. As well as its being a healthy option — associate specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist at Dumfries Royal Infirmary, Heather Currie, says it is a good thing — the practical advantages of using a Mooncup are manifold. No leakages. None of those panic moments when you realise that your tampon needs changing and you have to find a loo, right now. And not only does your handbag become a tampon-free zone but you can also go travelling for months at a time without carting supplies around (and if you’ve ever looked for tampons in a third-world country, you’ll know what I mean).
And you save money. For example, if you use just one box of 30 Tampax tampons a month at £4.50, that’s £54 a year, as against £18 for several years’ use — and there’s no environmental pollution. I wish that someone had told me about the Mooncup years ago. I wouldn’t say that periods have suddenly become a pleasure, but they’re no longer the pain they once were.
The Mooncup costs £17.99 (www.mooncup.co.uk), inc p&p, 01273 673845; or from Boots (www.boots.com)

Cycling in london: Lessons learnt

Possibly because my name is Sarah Telford, I managed to make a complete mission out of cycling the 2 miles from London Waterloo to Euston. I attach a map of my route below, admittedly the detour to London Bridge was intentional.

Lessons learnt:
1. Do not cycle along the southbank at lunchtime, during the school holidays, unless a) you prefer to walk your bike or b) you wish to reduce the numbers of tourists, children and/or joggers in London.
2. Do not cycle in London without a map (preferably an A-Z)
3. Do not rely on direction from maps attached to bus stops (they seem to be very vague)
4. Do not cycle through Parliament square unless you like traffic lights, huge volumes of traffic, security cordons, being shouted at by police, tourists etc… getting lost and going in totally the wrong direction is preferable to prolonging the agony that is Parliament Square.
5. Passing through Pimilco (on the way to Euston) it would be wise to stop and seek directions from tourists on the pavement clearly studying an A-Z. The unwise decision is to take a random side road and see where it goes.
6. Sighting Battersea Power station does not mean one is close to Euston.
7. Neither does passing by Chelsea Pensioners Hospital.
8. Remember that many busses and taxis would prefer cyclists to be small squashed speed bumps rather than annoyances in the bus lane. As such be on guard, and possibly invest in a wing mirror.
9. If, on fearing for ones life or sanity, one decides to walk along the pavement with bike, do not expect pedestrian members of the public to greet you with smiles or appreciation for the excess space you are taking up… this is of particular note at traffic lights.
10. Interestingly despite Cambodians hardly ever obeying any traffic rules they are far more considerate towards cyclists than people in London town.

Rather lax

I think I have been rather lax on the old blogging front of late... I've now made it back from Ausland... it was a really lovely holiday... at somepoint i might sort out my flickr account and upload some photos in an organised manner... Jack was highly entertaining. He taught me many things, one of which being that in Pirate language 'Hairy Willy' means dried fish... he has the book to prove it... I'm sure you can imagine many incredibly mature conversations about hairy willies...
aside from that I watched Valient - a kids cartoon about carrier pidgeons in WWII - on repeat (yar, Herr General)... did lots of cycling up and down hills, found the cheese factory, found the distillery, was entertained by primary school sports day, was locked in a chicken house, went on some loverly walks, made and ate cakes and pizzas, spoke to a class of 7 year olds about Cambodia (this mainly revolved around eating flys and burning poo as a means of reducing the numbers of trees cut down)... etc...

Then home via Singapore and a Sushi with Markyboy back to Heathrow with no trouble on the airport security front. In fact Singapore airlines didn't seem to object to my 3 pieces of handluggae weighing over 20kg, which was most most fortunate.

Spent the last weekend in the Lake district with Anthony, feeling as if I was in Swallows and Amazons. Seriously that is a legendary film... must dig out the video... When we went sailing I had to restrain myself from trying to land on an island and start exploring and setting up camp... (un?)fortunately my sailing skills would not really have allowed it I rather think...
Lake district was tres nice... I forget how nice England is...

Now back in the big Winch... considering doing something constructive with my time... current thought is sort out the many boxes of junk (can I purge myself of any possessions???) I posses and perhaps redecorate (read pollyfill the holes) in my bedroom walls...

Not sure what I'm doing in October... Laos, Nepal, Timbucktu... who knoweth.... in the meantime I shall become practiced at being a lady at leisure... perhaps I should join the WI?

tumdiddlium
I will try and think of more unexciting events to write about. In the meantime overandout!

x x x x x

Mt Tambourine

I have arrived on the mountain of Tambourines and all is well.
cousin Jack is tall and goes to school and can read books and has a penknief! He is most grown up... but still entertaining!
I am trying to stop myself taking my shoes off before entering buildings, enjoying the tap water, trying not to be too distressed at the cost of everything... loving the total peace and tranquility there is in this place - no more building noises at 5 in the morning... no more crazy traffic... just the smell of trees and the noise of birds...

oh and its cold... i swear there was frost on the ground this morning... but apparently its only dew... oh I just love snuggling under 2 duvets and a blanket mmmm

more excitingly I bought the Guardian weekly today... the guardian... how i missed it... at last we are reunited in paper form, the internet just isnt quite the same.

by the way is britney spears pregnant again?

gone... singapore

well i have made it to singapore quite nicely... aside from sitting across the isle from a vomiting woman and next to a very sweet, but slightly trying (if it had been a long haul flight) man called Kok (pronounced Coke)... I think he had a learning difficaulty (not sure if that is PC way to say it) and possibly something else as he seemed to be frothing at the mouth! Anyway we had a very long conversation, which started with him asking me if i was sleeping - my eyes were closed... he told me about Toys R Us (he loved the place), Barbara Streisand (he hadnt heard her music but knew she was a singer) about how he had completed an adult education course... about living in Cambodia for 4 months where his relatives had sent him to work on the farm but as he had lived in the US all his life this was a shock... about food... about how he thought singaporiajn women looked nice.. about the lack of toothpaste on the plane... it went on and on... but he was well meaning!

so now have been enjoying singapore airport which is lovely.. free foot massage machines... subway sandwhiches, a sunflower garden (which if you got rid of the smokers) was the perfect place to laze in the sun and watch the planes take off.. lots of shops to look at... actually i think a combination of being tierd and sad at leaving the bodge and being in transit makes me feel slightly bamboozeled by al, of the gliter, and shiny products and organisedness of it all. PP was nice, but chaotic. so reverse culture shock or something... im glad i have my mp3 player...

oh yes.. the luggage... by the time i got to the airport my checked bagage was 10kg over and hand luggae was about 20kg (all 3 pieces of it).. managed to get away with the handluggage and negotiated with them to only pay 50% of the excess cost they wanted to whack me for... which was about 25 squids so not too tragic...
half the luggage is left here in left luggae now, so i should be ok to and from ausland... its just the flight to londres!

ok must run think theyre calling my flight..

xxxxxxx

going going...

so...
1 hour till the taxi comes to take me to the airport... considering its not yet 9am I have been very busy.. final packing... cycling round town to take photos.. feeding my friends kitten... eating musli and yoghurt at the traiditional pre-flight cafe - ive eaten musli at the same place before Anthony, Clari and Dad left... oh how i love routene?!

All that is left is for me to convince the check in staff that 15kg of hand luggage and 8kg over on my checked baggage allowance is perfectly ok and that i should not, under any circumstances be charged excess... ho hum

actually I packed in a rush last night and I have a feeling I may be wandering round australia half naked as hardly anything would fit in the backpack for aus apart from the vast volumes of gifts... the other heavier backpack will have to stay in Singapore left luggage as I have even less luggage allowwance for the Aus part of my flights

last day at work yesterday was really sad... oh my team are so lovely... I shall miss them muchly... now must dash and put on my sweater and jacket... hmm thats a good point I wont be running round Aus half naked as i'm wearing more clothes than I've worn in 6 months... who needs a sauna thats what I say...

over and out

tick tock

tickticktock
goes the time

it is dawning on me that i am leaving in about 36hours. I dont like to think about these things too much, or I get sad... best to stay in denial as long as possible.

This weekend has been lovely... spent Saturday on a mountain with beautiful lakes and waterfalls, having a BBQ with my team from work, and then today at the zoo with some friends. At the zoo i saw tigers and monkeys and otters and sun bears and crocodiles and other random animals... the enclosures are not really too bad, and the setting is lovely, with lots of trees. BUT you can get right next to the cages and despite signs telling you not to feed the animals it was possible to touch, stroke and feed all of the animals... in fact it was possible to buy a coconut from some kids hanging around and then they would throw the coconut into the bears cage and assuming it didnt knock the bear out you could watch it eat it... i'm not sure thats such a good thing!

so i am feeling sad about going. I thought because I was only here 6 months, and living somewhere that is more guest house than home, that I wouldnt let the Bodge get to me like Mongoland... cant be doing with pining for years over more countries... but you know I will miss so many lovely people - really I have the best team at work ever... the warm weather, the mentalist traffic, the chaos, the massages, the riding on the back of a motobike, the cheapness of everything, the yummy yummy food (I can see rice withdrawal being an issue)... the bike rides...
Tomorrow is the last day at work... which will be the sadest thing to leave i thinks... but i shall look forward to seeing the aussies... that should distract me... that and my fear of flying...
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkk 4 planes in the next 2.5 weeks sounds nasty to me

must dash... and pack possibley???

xxx

more photos

just uploaded some more photos onto flickr just random round and about the place ones... also trying to add some of my better ankor ones as i think the ones up now arent the best!

Ammusements

The following story in the news here entertained me. My friend that works at USAID verified that it was absolutely correct!

The US Embassy in Cambodia mistakenly received a shipment of 140,000 bullets instead of the delivery of artworks it had ordered to decorate its new USAID offices.
The mix up was apparently caused by Thai Airways, which mislabelled the cargo… apparently the bullets were supposed to be going to Finland (why?… perhaps for moose shooting?)… anyways the bullets weren’t actually anything to do with the US government but they got them all the same.
Of course this event generated much comedy comment about bullets as art in testimony to the great Bush etc etc

Other amusements has been todays rain… cycling home and the water nearly covered my wheels. This wasn’t a problem in itself, however whenever a bally Lexus (I think perhaps I have issues with these machines) drove past the wake made me wobble… but I did not fall off. hoorah

bally corruption

This shall be a rant about the bally corruption that occurs at all levels in this country… Last week I went to the post office and there was a bit of a debacle when they tried to overcharge me lots and I made them re-weigh the envelope with the scales on the counter so that I could see exactly how much less than they claimed, the envelope really weighed (standard practice is the scales are under the counter)… anyways today I went to the post office again and after they told me some crazy price for a couple of large envelopes I again insisted they showed me the scales. Absolutely not, the bally woman refused and just turned her back on me when I tried to push the issue (Asian non-confrontation?)… Can you imagine if this sort of thing happened at home grrr… I really wished I spoke kick ass Khmer and then I would have let rip properly… so I just grabbed my post and stormed out… and was mad for a couple of minutes… but its hard to stay mad… I’m sure like every other public sector employee they’re woefully underpaid, and ripping off people over the price of their stamps is a means of survival… perhaps I would feel better if I scratched up a couple of Lexus and Mercedes owned by high ranking government officials?

Ok perhaps not… aside from not really being criminally minded, the prospect of extending my stay here… in a Cambodian prison is not a particularly thrilling one…

Dentist 2

Sooo i decided not to go for an appointment with the unqualified dentist. after asking around i heard of a Khmer dentist that had been trainned by german missionaries so thought i would give that a go... in the interests of saving fast quantities of cash...
i toodled in to a little dentist place which was considerably less glamourous than the place i went to last weekend. no appointment needed and i was shown out the back where there was a row of dentist chairs with low screens dividing it up. I was glad it was empty... hearing the screams of the next paitient might have been disconcerting.
So i told the very sweet english speaking dentist that i thought i needed a filling. he examined my teeth and said they were amazing. no fillings needed... they looked very strong yadda yadda. Not sure which 'dentist' was correct but i figure it would be in his interest to tell me i did need fillings cos then he could charge me lots of money, so im inclined to think i dont need fillings. I opted for a scale and polish (after asertaining all equipment was sterilised)... and he did a great job. much time was lavished on my little teeth, much better than bally england where dentists exist to extract vast volumes of cash from you for doing very little... Half way through the procedure, whilst i was rinsing my mouth i mentioned my wisdom teeth had been aching. ''oh'', said the dentist man, ''let me me help you''. He then proceeded to massage my jaws intermitedly whilst polishing my teeth. Very sureal especially as i felt his face was rather too close to mine durring this procedure. Anyways i escaped unscathed and unmarried and for $8 (they gave me $2 discount for some inexplicable reason) i was happy doo da...

other events this weekend have been cycling around the countryside, which is starting to look very lush and green... spending much money in the markets, and sorting sorting sorting out my junk and getting ready to fly fly fly high in the sky to australia. where i shall watch people stop at traffic lights, drink water from a tap, drink fresh milk and most excitingly go to a cheese factory near to where my auntie lives... mmmmmm think of all that cheese... yumyumyum so 1 week and 1 dayo left in the country. Time flies when youre having fun...

much love
me xxxx

teeth

Today I decided to go to see the dentist, not because I have toothache, just because I havnt been to a dentist for 2 years and I thought it had to be cheaper here than at home. There is a very posh shiny new clean looking place near to where I swim so I thought id give it a try – no appointment necessary. The check up was free, which was surprising. They showed me in a mirror that 2 of my teeth have smallsmall holes in which it might be wise to fill. I’m not particularly surprised given the number of biscuits I have eaten in the 2 years since I last saw a dentist. So the question is do I have them filled in the bodge? Or do I wait till I come home? It will cost less than $US20 to do them both, with a composite filling. Apparently I could have mercury fillings if I wanted hahahaha… I was thinking I would go for it, but decided to just check with the ‘dentist’ that he was qualified. I felt embarrassed asking, but he laughed at me and said that oh no he wasn’t trained, he was doctor who had just been playing dentists for the last 10 years… hmmm so at this point I decided to leave and ponder the wisest move. I’m inclined to just get them filled but I don’t want to end up poisoned or with no teeth…
Ed – my cheapskate mentor what would you do? Would you get them done here to save some $$$?

A perm!!!!

This last week seems to have sped by and im steaming towards the end of my time here… pondering constantly how im going to make my luggage = 30kg. As per usual I’ve accumulated many things.

So I’m leaving here in less than 3 weeks, and I’ve now got tickets sorted to go to Aus on the way home to see my auntie and uncle and the wonderful jackjack… who is now 7 years of age which is a shocking fact really. Then I should be back in englandos on the 11th August… and I believe Nadj is collecting me from the airport in a pink limousine with pink polar bear fur seats… so we can celebrate her birthday in style. Helicopters were also mentioned.

What next is unknownunknown… but I don’t think I will be unemployed… the question is more where I shall be employed. Ho hum didlium

So yes I thought I should write about my perm. I have been ruminating over whether to have one for some time… seems like such a comedy thing to do… so I went with my friend to the salon… all very nice. Many Lexus’ parked outside = indication that people of wealth used the establishment… however we got board of waiting so went somewhere else, which was probably nicer, albeit there were no cars parked outside.
Now I am a hairdresser novice. I was trying to count how many times I have been to a hairdresser in my life and it is honestly less than 7… I thought with a perm they might just rub some stuff in your hair and leave it to dry and that would be it… but apparently not. It was a 3 hour process involving a long hairwash… a hair cut… many pink curlers wrapped in my hair (see photo), much chemicals applied and then sitting around whilst it set and then another hair rinse, and then mousing… phew… the results are also depicted in the photo. I am not totally convinced, but it still isn’t dry yet… I also think putting bally mouse in my hair every 3 days will be a pain in the ass bone… and I cant believe it will last 6-12 months… surely not?! Also I think that a bit of my hair at the front isn’t permed properly and it looks odd so I might have to venture back there tomorrow and get them to fix it… anyways it cost US$20.. which apparently is expensive… but seemed like a bargain for me given it was 3hrs of 2 peoples time… now I am under strict instructions not to wash my hair for 3 days. YUK.



Also this week I met up with Gilb who was passing through on his south east asian tour. Was very nicenice to catch up and meet some of his travelling friends… made a change from expats and Khmers…