ACODO Orphanage Siem Reap, Cambodia

We spent 2 weeks here as volunteers assisting in various ways. The photos below show some of the ways we helped.

We were at ACODO for 1 day when we were invited to a wedding of former employees of th orphanage. We enjoyed being part of a Cambodian wedding which apparently went on for days. This photo shows Robert with the ACODO Director on his left and Roun the English teacher on his right. It was a good opportunity for us to get to know everyone in a very relaxed atmosphere.

On Day 3 we were invited to a concert put on by the Government for International Childrens Day. All Siem Reap orphanages performed a dance and this shows the ACODO children on stage. They excelled themselves as usual. The ACODO band played music for many of the performances and are highly thought of in Sien Reap. One of the boys Soxvy has the most magnificent voice. As guests and sitting at the official table we enjoyed a beautiful lunch.

After this life settled down to a normal pattern of days at ACODO. No more weddings and lunches.

One of the issues that they face is the risk of flooding during the monsoon season. We were here at the beginning of the monsoon and the rains came very early this year. The grounds were flooded but the access to the buildings was ok.




Below shows many of the dances performed by the children. There are about 13 different dances and they are always learning new ones. ACODO employs a dance and music teacher. The daily show is a way of bringing donations to pay for day to day expenses. There are 70 children and they perform about 3 times a week only. More than this would be too tiring for the young ones.


Below is one of the small children. He makes the cutest monkey.










We did get to relax at night when the children were in bed. Here we are out at a local restaurant in our orange ACODO shirts drinking draught Angkor beer, except for Cheryl who rebelled and wore plain clothes.... only joking. Neroli is the other diner and she is a long term volunteer. A fellow Aussie who is a very important part of ACODO. Not sure how ACODO would fare without her. She is loved by all, children and volunteers.

Here is a photo of the back yard. One of Cheryl's projects was to clear this area of rubbish and install rows of clothes lines for the children to hang their clothes. Her other project was to start a garden. Here is a section that we added - ginger, chillies and other kmer herbs. There is a path on each side of the clothes lines. One was left as a path and the other converted to a vegetable patch. So each alternate path became a vegetable garden. It seemed to work well.

A Robert project was to bring in dirt to fill a low area where a new building is in progress. The delivery didn't come at 9am as planned but at 1pm just as the rain came. And when it rains it rains. First the truck got bogged and the tipper would not work properly. Bad went to worse and the end result was a quagmire. The older boys and other volunteers helped Robert to shift it but it turned into a big job instead of an easy one.

Patricia became the mend it lady for the week. Here is a lovely photo of one of the children 'helping'. Now the old treddle machine was a challenge and threading needles more so. Often the children would thread the needles for me which was a great help. I even got to mend some of the dance costumes.

A random shot of Robert playing with the kids. They loved to play hopscotch and ball games. The kids were very happy which was the bit that made us happy.

2 Aussies who came to help. One was a roof fixer. He increased his knowledge of roofing techniques by becoming a roof thatcher and did a very good job. We didn't get the shot of them bringing the thatch back in the tuk tuk. It was a treat....

Here they are leaving in the tuk tuk on their last day as volunteers. Anne and Kym helped Patricia with sewing for a few days which made the job much more fun. We enjoyed their company and met up with them again in Sihanoukville at a waterfront restaurant. They were great fun.

At the end of the show all the children get on the stage and sing a song and thank everyone for coming. It's a wonderful finale to the show and then the guests can take photos and or have their photos taken with the children.

Some more random photos of the dances.

The monkey dance

Hard to capture but this was a peacock dance performed by the older children. It's one of our favourites.

The harvest dance.

Another peacock dance.

This photo shows the stage and the audience. Taken from the classroom built up higher. These high spots are so important when the serious flooding happens.

All the children attend a government school for half a day. When they return from school they come up to all staff and volunteers and bow with their hands in the prayer position and say 'I am home from school'. And we in return say 'Welcome home' or 'thank you' or what ever you wish to say - to about 30 children one after the other. It's such a wonderful experience and it happened twice a day.
We will never forget these moments.

The Acodo Orphanage web site http://www.acodo.org/

Some general information about our stay.

We have been volunteers at ACODA Orphanage since Monday 30th May. Our last day as volunteers will be Sunday 12th June. We have been helping in many ways. Assisting the teacher with english and simple maths and numbers to start off with. Robert visited 'Pub Street' each day to give out fliers to the tourists for a cultural show ACODA has. Then we had an influx of volunteers so we started looking for some other ways to help. First we extended the vegetable garden with chillie bushes, ginger and several other local kmer herbs. Robert has been rerouting water run off from the showers onto the garden. Patricia volunteered to mend clothes with an old singer treddle machine (no power). The children brought their clothes along for mending.

On the weekend Robert has ordered 2 loads of dirt to be delivered to fill in a pit.

We are enjoying the experience thoroughly. The children are so lovely. We are trying not to get too attached but you just do. It's hard not to. They range in age from 3 to 18 years old, not that many of them know when their birthday is. They come from very poor families or one parent families where their parents cannot look after them, or are orphans. Some have mild disabilities.

Education has a high priority. All the children attend an international school for half a day and then they have classes at ACODA. They employ english, general studies, dance and music teachers. Many speak very fluent english so communication all round is very easy. They have a cultural show each night at 6.30pm and the kids perform 2 or 3 nights a week. The show is very good and popular with tourists (in the tourist bible - the lonely planet guide book) Tourists are invited to attend and the donations help to fund the orphanage. A bus load of secondary students from a Singapore school volunteered for 3 days and the children enjoyed the experience so much, especially the older children who had peers to relate to. When the bus left after 3 days there were many tears from both the singapore and ACODO children. It was all very emotional. We were there to try and console the children.

Bangkok Thailand

We stayed 3 nights in Bangkok, 2 nights with the Koy's sister Kak, Eh, Cartoon and Garfield and then 1 night in Bangkok near Kao San Road, the backpackers territory.

Below are photos of Kao San Rd at night. It wasn't much use trying to have an early night as the music was too loud in our room. So we hung out with the youngsters and had a good night.

Eh took us to China town for dinner one night. We ate at a Pad Thai restaurant (the only thing they serve) which was in the grounds of a temple, then we walked through china town. The only negative is Eh got pulled over by the police for some traffic infringement (not sure what). He passed over 100 baht to the police officer which meant he didn't have to go to the Police station. Now what happens with that 100 baht I'm not sure - hmmm!!!!!! I think someone's pocket.

A young man smoking a pipe. And it wasn't drugs or so he said. It was some fruit flavoured concoction but we didn't try it out even though offered.

We caught the night train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and had to go 1st class as that was the only sleeper available. It was very spacious and comfortable. The beds were made up for us with white linen.

Such a nice way to travel.

Chiang Mai Thailand

We stayed at Chiang Mai for a week. The guesthouse we stayed at was very comfortable and we had a room with a nice view of trees and lots of bird life. Breakfast was great too. We enjoyed the airport Central Plaza, mainly for it's lovely airconditioning which was a welcome relief from the heat but also for it's food. Restaurants were plentiful and we even succumbed to a MacDonalds burger, chips and coke just once. No desire to repeat that again though.

Photo taken at a temple just near our Guesthouse.

We went to a Cultural Show with dinner provided. This shows our meal for 2. They kept refilling the bowls and there was just too much food.

We visited the Doi Suthep temple which is part of the Suthep National Park. It is perched on the mountainside of Doi Pui, Thailand's 8th highest mountain which is situated right next to the city. We took a songtaew up the picturesque winding road to the temple and passed many waterfalls on the way. A songtaew is a pickup truck with a covered back and 2 bench seats. A very economical way to travel around the city full of both tourists and locals. These photos show the 300 stairs you have to walk up to get to the temple and Robert ringing the bells for good luck. A most auspicious thing to do. We even walked around the stupa clockwise with the locals - again for good luck.

The gold chedi (temple) which the locals walk around clockwise 3 times holding flowers and incense and sometimes candles. This is called 'making merit' and is for good luck.

The old town of Chiang Mai is surrounded by 4 walls forming a square with gates on each side. A moat surrounds the wall and there is many paved areas around the walls. This section was populated with thousands of pigeons who were unperturbed by people walking through them. This photo captures a monk walking by. The city is full of temples, or should we say 'wats' are just everywhere. Our joke while in Thailand was 'what wat is that'. Pretty sad hey..

The photos below show the wall and the gate where we entered from our hotel and the corner of the wall with the moat surrounding it.

We arrived in Chiang Mai on a very important day and holiday for Buddhists. We were told of a ceremony where 14 young men were to be made monks and were told everyone was welcome to attend. Here is a photo of the service and we got to sit on the cement floor with everyone else. The amazing thing was that they provided us with a brochure in english with details of the ceremony. This was so unexpected and felt very welcoming.

We caught a VIP bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai and this time it really was VIP. It was called a Green Bus and it was similar to catching a plane. They passed out food and water. The passenger seating area was a separated compartment from the front of the bus and there were no pick ups along the way. We even had the hostess doing the announcement which unfortunately was in Thai and we didn't understand a word. We were waiting for her to get out the lifejacket and go into the emergency landing speil but no, it didn't get to that.

Chaing Rai, Thailand

Here is the gold clock tower in the centre of town. It was at a round about in the centre of a busy intersection. The whole street was lined with golden light poles along the centre of the road. Very impressive day and night.

We did a jungle trek as we thought we just should as it's what everyone else did. Luckily we only did a short one for 3 hours and that was enough. We traversed some pretty dense jungle and very narrow paths on the side of a river. We had no desire to repeat the experience but at least we did it. The couple with us were from La Reunion Island (near Mauritious). He was a doctor and she was a nurse so we were in good hands if anything happened. They were such a lovely couple also so we did enjoy our day. The later photos of the elephant ride was on the same day.

A most important photo for us to remember. One of the many Chang beers we shared.

Here's the jungle photo and then part of the walk. We visited our guides village and had tea at his hut. Interesting to see how the villagers live.

We did the traditional elephant ride here. It was a good experience as the relationship between the elephant and their mahout was good. The elephants seemed to be very happy. We went through the river for 1 km.

What Won Krung - the white temple was a highlight of our time in Chiang Rai. A very unconventional temple. The dream of one man. It was just so amazing and very hard to reproduce in a photo. It was white with mirrors inserted and was blinding on a sunny day. But oh so beautiful. It was bizarre to find paintings of Hollywoods super heroes on the internal walls. We found it hard to determine the message being given, but they were all 'good' superheroes.

This was the toilet complex. Pretty flash!!!

The Saturday night market took over the main street in Chiang Mai and we were lucky enough to be there. This shows the street lit up at night.

Vientiane to Luang Prabang

Below are some photos taken during our bus trip from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. The scenery was spectacular. The mountains, the low clouds and the mist produced some lovely shots. Most were taken through the bus window so not the best quality but still lovely.