‘I miss the rollmops, delicious, just like prahok…. but I don’t really like Cornish pasties,’ my husband informs our friends back here in Phnom Penh upon our return from our two-month trip back to my homeland. Being in the UK with Makara for two months this summer was a long,…
I teach two grades – grade six and kindergarten one. Whilst the kindergarten class keep me on my toes with their brilliantly un-developed sense of acceptable behaviour, my sixth grade class sometimes leaves me feeling a little flat. It is me to blame, not them, of course. It is not…
When you find yourself pulling electrical wires from sockets of blasting speakers in a furious attempt to remove the Formula Milk promotion company that are set up just inside the front gates of the school in which you work-at least for now anyway-and you start screaming at your boss ‘are…
Hang Borin is a Khmer writer whom I had the great pleasure of meeting recently. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1987. His mother had made the perilous journey over the border alone with a young son. She arrived in Thailand and made her way as…
Right now, my email inbox is a cheery and eclectic mix of correspondence with Gay, the vicar of the tiny round church which will be our UK wedding venue, Michelle from rentapartytent.co.uk, Stu from the farm-shop who will be doing the catering for our reception party on his fruit farm’s…
Sunday 3rd February marked four years since I landed in Phnom Penh. That first morning I woke to the crash of cymbals outside and went to stand out on the balcony, feeling the waves of tropical heat rise up from the street below, where Chinese dragon dancing welcomed me to…
After a pretty hectic December I now fall happily back into my happy, humdrum routine. It’s great to feel the warm but un-aggressive ‘cool season’ sun crawl up from behind during a 6am balcony coffee before embarking on a refreshingly breezy walk to work, from Tuol Tumpoung across the 400…
My mum’s tight grip on the pole of the tuk-tuk from the Pochentong airport was to be expected. I have seen it before with many a visitor and I remember my own first journey: sniffing the whiff of heat and city life with nostrils sterilised by airport air, ears still…
When we went to collect our bibs the day before the Angkor Wat 2012 Half Marathon, I felt that it was nothing but a good omen that I was lucky number 69. I would need some luck. I couldn’t stand the thought of finishing last, vomiting on my trainers, tripping…
Throughout the whole of October my dreams were bizarre, lucid and persistently awful – the kind of dreams that cling throughout the day and result in emails to loved ones back home: ‘Mum…all good? Just checking because I had a dream last night that you put your head in a…
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