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Siem Reap, Cambodia
13° 22' N 103° 50' E
Dec 18, 2005 08:36
Distance 0km

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Other entries in Siem Reap

Land mines and giving blood

Text written in: English

We managed to get up at a reasonable hour for once and dined on a beautiful thai omlette sernie for breakfast.  For some reason, everwhere here serves omlettes in baguettes, and they are surprisingly good.

We caught a tuk-tuk to the land mine museum through the hotel only to later realise they pay the tuk-tuk driver much less than we gave them, the cheeky bastards.  The land mine museum turned out to basically be a little house in the middle of nowhere, but it was quite good.  The place was covered in different used landmines and information on why and how they were used, what effect they had on the country and a number of childrens stories on how they had lost limbs and family to land mines.  Cambodia is the most land mined country in the world thanks the the USA during the Vietnam war, and it is still a major problem throughout the country, with new ones being found all the time (normally when people step on them).  The museum was free, but since most of the money goes to helping people who have been affected by them we all bought a few souvenirs from the shop there anyway.

From there we headed to the Kantha Botha childrens hospital to give blood.  On the way in we saw loads and loads of kids with their parents waiting outside the lobby for treatment, many of which need blood transfusions, so it felt like we were doing a good thing.  Ackroyd and Al went first and Al nearly fainted because he is a great wimp, which made me a little nervous for some reason, even though Im not even scared of needles.  It was appropriate that when it was my turn, the song Help by the Beatles came on!  The lads said that when it was my turn the blood literally flew out of me in no time (I dont blame it - its about 50% alcohol at the moment) and then they told me that my blood was A+ (so any friends of mine the same - you know where to come) and both Al and Ack were O+ (the most common one!!!).  They gave us each a can of coke after we had given blood to put more sugar in our bodies for some reason, only for me to ask for diet coke or water, which led to much piss taking from the doctors and the boys.  On leaving the hospital they gave us each a goody bag with t-shirts, stickers and cookies which was a Brucie bonus and by midday we were on our way back into town for lunch.

We went to a bar in town for lunch and had a jacket tattie, wrote a few postcards and got pestered for an hour by the same bitch of a little girl to buy books, even though we already have about ten between us.  I then had the pleasure of meeting the boys Italian friend Lorenzo that they knew from Laos, and he is a bit of a nutter to say the least and apparently every time he has a few drinks he goes off on a mad search to find any drugs he can get his hands on.

From there we went back to the hotel to watch Liverpool get beaten by Sao Paulo in the football - yey - and went downstairs for some chicken, rice and garlic bread for dinner.  Al and Ack wanted to go out to watch the football with Lorenza, but as we were leaving the next day, I opted to stay in and pack while watching the footy in the room.  As it turns out, both games were awesome and I wish I had gone to the pub to watch them, but I am pretty happy I didnt get tangled up in the inevitabvle piss up that followed it!
I finally got to bed at 1am and there was no sign of the boys anywhere, but then they diodnt have to leave at 7am the next day!