Ok so I havent blogged in a while… sorry to all of you have been keeping up to date with my adventures!! Internet in my current location is a little bit dodgy!
I have been staying in Sihanouk Ville for the past couple of days and it is beautiful here. This is the beach town in Cambodia, and when I realised that I didn’t have any more interviews until Monday 2nd July, I felt that it was worth my while having a little break and seeing some of the more touristy spots.
I wasn’t quite sure when I arrived from Siem Reap after a 13 hour bus ride and was greeted in my hostel by the announcements of happy hour all day and large screen televisions showing the football!! Needless to say I didn’t stay there long…
Monsoon season has started here and that means torrential downpour at least once a day, maybe continuous for an hour or so, which is always fun when you’re in your bikini on the beach. It is definitely welcome for the land and the local people though. I just hope that the rain holds off enough next week so that I can actually go out and film in the landmine fields, as my canon 550d is definitely NOT waterproof and I would hate to compromise the footage that I most want to get due to the rain!!
I went off on a boat tour of the islands 2 days ago with one of the girls who I met in Siem Reap and have followed down here. We went snorkeling in the coral, trekking through the jungle and ate freshly caught barracuda on the bbq, mmm.
Despite all of this, I still feel, at times, very homesick and really want to get on with my filming again now so that I can have something productive during the day to take my mind off of home. For someone that has never even flown by myself before, this whole adventure is a huge thing for me, and still quite overwhelming when I stop to think about it.
The horrific news of Tash’s sexual assault in Cairo (one of my fellow coursemates) came a couple of days ago and really shook me. Thankfully she is home and safe now, but sometimes you can’t help but feel a bit lost after something like that and I have been thinking a lot about her safety and indeed my own since the news. I do feel very safe in Cambodia, and all of the people are lovely, but it is an absolute necessity never to take my guard down or forget that I am totally by myself when I am out here. If you want to read about Tash, then read her blog, it is very well written, very emotive and graphic, but well worth a look to understand the current situation out in Egypt.
Emma Louise Fry 