Day 5: 4 Jan 2012 – A typical day

In this blog entry we will describe the structure of a typical day.

Many days start with us being woken up by monotonic oriental chanting emitted from a nearby pagoda at around 5am-6am. There’s no way of escaping from the sound, since it seems to permeate every street in Battambang.

Then we get up and get ready in the hotel, and then cycle to work past a statue of Vishnu at a size worthy of a god, ridiculously overloaded bicycles and scooters and cars, various animals, an occasional wedding procession and the odd monk. Traffic rules seem to be that you give way to a vehicle that’s bigger than you. So try not to be the smallest thing on the road (i.e. a bike!).

At PPS we then go to the office and work from about 9 until about 12, when we stop to have lunch in the PPS restaurant. The chef serves us delicious food and is able to cope with Wendy’s bizarre Western vegetarianism. We are usually joined by a handful of French people whom we’re getting to know fairly well.

Lunch breaks in Cambodia frequently last for 2 hours. This gives people the chance to eat and have a rest before going back to work. In the Cambodian heat a siesta is very tempting.

The evening may involve seeing one of the shows at PPS, but is quite likely to involve us going back to the restaurant at PPS before going to the hotel for the night.