Our man in Australia, Will Pashley, just returned from a trip to Thailand and Cambodia and from speaking to him it sounds like he had an amazing time and rightfully so! From my travels in Southeast Asia, these are two spectacular countries and I feel in love with them just as my counterpart Will did. Read about Will’s time in Cambodia and his passion for scoters!

Phnom Penh is a fascinating and challenging place, the city of the scooter and hugely photogenic. I spent my short stay wishing I was just a half decent photographer as the crazy sights on every corner flashed by.

It is a desperately poor country but one that is changing; I reckon the irony is that the more it changes the less interesting it will become. But on the other hand, the more it changes, the more likely it is that some of the awful poverty might be a thing of the past. I’m glad I visited when I did, this place has a soul.

During my trip I was humbled by the smiles on the faces of handicapped children, horrified by the truth of the Khmer Rouge genocide, blown away by the commitment of the volunteers and disappointed that I saw so little of the country.

But most of all I got hooked on riding around the city on the back of a scooter, the best adrenalin rush you can imagine.

Pretty much everyone rides around on a scooter and the roads are a total free for all. There are no lanes on the roads, the mass of scooters resemble a swarm of bees where four people on a moped is nothing to comment on and very few people wear a helmet (Ed. Although we recommend all volunteers wear one, safety first!).

I know it’s reckless but it was a real treat to have the wind in my hair and to grin like an idiot at every rider we so nearly crashed into. They always grin back. There is no road rage, commuting is just a daredevil game in which everyone is welcome. The more the merrier.

But it’s a game that I cannot fathom the rules to. Take the example of the crossroads. Four, or more swarms of scooters accelerate from different directions at the intersection where a red light is merely an opening for negotiation

I think that from a helicopter, the crossroads of Phnom Penh would look like a carefully choreographed ballet. At ground level it is pandemonium but good natured and a shared white knuckle experience.

Cambodia is a bit like that, despite a terrifying recent history, third world poverty and social issues which desperately need addressing, it is an optimistic and very friendly place which deserves a lot of luck and a big leg up.

Projects Abroad volunteers do some remarkable work in what is a remarkable city. I am so glad I visited the place when I did and saw what I saw. Personally I would love to go back and reckon that as a volunteer destination, it is hard to beat.

We at Projects Abroad would like to wish all of our hard working staff members and current and future volunteers in China a happy and prosperous Chinese New year!

We welcome the Year of the Pig, which will complete one cycle of the Chinese zodiac which started on Feb. 19, 1996 with the Year of the Rat.

This year is also very auspicious as it is also regarded as the Year of the Golden Pig, or jin zhu, which only occurs once every 60 years. Consequently since it is such an auspicious year China is bracing for a baby boom with parents hoping their children will be blessed with good fortune and wealth. It should be a very busy time for our Medical volunteers working in any Ob-Gyn department this year!

Did you do anything special to celebrate the New Year?

Rob, a Programme Advisor at our Headquarters in the UK, is probably one of the funniest staff members here at Projects Abroad, who is known for his wit and knack for perplexing our German office. I asked him to write a little something about his time in Mongolia last summer and in return we have our first Top 5 list. Enjoy!

Mongolia

I spent July and August of last year working as part of the Projects Abroad Mongolia Staff team. It was a time I will never forget; indeed I constantly make references to it, because, I suppose, I think it will make me sound interesting. In reality it actually just makes people think I’m weird, but I console myself with the fact that this is because Mongolia has a very mysterious, some might even say strange reputation to the majority of people in the Western world.

So, to celebrate this, here are my top 5 oddest things about my Mongolia trip:

5. The Mongolian Climate
As David Attenborough repeatedly told anyone who watched BBC’s Planet Earth, Mongolia has a very dry climate because all its moisture gets sucked up by the Himalayas. The lack of moisture means that the sun’s rays do not heat up the surrounding air, leading to the most bizarre summer days when you can be blisteringly hot standing in the direct sunlight, but the moment you move into the shade you are reaching for your Kashmir sweater. In winter, however, this works to your favour for, although Siberian winds are pushing the mercury down to -30 degrees Celsius, it feels more like a tropical -10 degrees.

Terelj National Park, Mongolia

4. Mongolian meals
Because of this cold climate, it is rather tricky to grow vegetables out on the Steppe, and your average Mongolian has cleverly negotiated this hurdle by, well, not really eating vegetables. Instead Mongolian cuisine revolves around meat, and lots of it. Vegetarians should not be put off by this – we now have many host families who can cater for the vegetarian diet. However this wasn’t the case with my own (lovely) host family who served me up an impressive first meal of carrots and a lump of fat. They were clearly very proud that they were serving up a vegetable to the Western guy, and I was clearly so impressed with their cooking that I got an extra lump of fat!

Rob with his host family

3. Mongolian wrestling
The three day Naadam Festival falls in July, and the whole country goes crazy for the national sports of horse-racing, archery, ankle-bone shooting and Mongolian wrestling. Mongolian Wrestling is a great deal like Sumo Wrestling except there is more arm-waving and less buttock-slapping. For the next month myself and all other male volunteers were challenged by pretty much every Mongolian we met to a bout of wrestling. And could any of us beat a single one of them?! I personally witnessed several crushing defeats, including Krishna and Sophie Jane who were both floored by toddlers on our trip to Khustai National Park. Actually I DID eventually learn enough from my battles to beat one Mongolian, but I think she was quite drunk by that point in the evening.

Rob wrestling a yak
2. Mongolian dancing
You would expect a culture that has developed anything as hauntingly beautiful as Mongolian Throat-Singing to have some pretty wicked dances up their sleeves, and you’d be right. But in a country with a population of 3 million people, imagine my surprise when I learnt that the country’s best dancer was none other than our Projects Abroad Mongolia Director Oko Tugtuuny. Oko coyly admitted this to me himself, nearly 3 whole minutes after I had first arrived in the country. And by golly he wasn’t kidding, as everybody who witnessed his frenetic fusion of Michael Jackson and David Brent (ed. For our American readers this is Ricky Gervais’ character in the original “Office”) dance-styles will agree.

1. Mongolian volunteers
But by far the oddest part of my Mongolia experience was our very own Teaching & Projects Abroad volunteers! I had the privilege of being the first face that many of them saw as they came through the gate at Chingiss Khan International Airport at 6 o’clock in the morning and I had some of the strangest conversations in the taxi back to Ulaanbaatar. Most of these you could put down to jetlag but there were two in particular which will forever stand out in my mind. The first was a volunteer who was incredibly surprised because they had thought when they got on the plane that they were heading to Mongolia in Africa. The second was a volunteer who was seemingly very confused by any shiny surfaces that we passed. When I asked her what was going on she said that she was shocked to see her reflection because she’d been told that Mongolians hadn’t invented mirrors yet!

It is time now for the final installment in our different/strangely fascinating food from foreign countries. We round out this series with tales of culinary adventures in Latin America.

Before I go on, I must say that I had the some of the best Mexican food of life on my recent visit to Guadalajara, Mexico (which I promise to blog about very soon!). While a lot of people think of Mexican food as the kind of stuff they serve at Taco Bell, authentic Mexican is actually so varied and simply delicious! I was able to try so many types of soft-tortilla tacos, quesadillas, seafood and home cooking. I don’t know if I can pick a favorite but I think I could eat anything if you put mole (a spicy-sweet sauce made up of chocolate, chilies and other ingredients) on it.

But I digress! After the jump, read about the interesting kinds of food people have had while on the road in Latin America plus the fried rodent above will be explained.

Also share your own food stories by adding a comment!

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Firstly, both Tom and I here in the North America office have both had cow tongue tacos in Mexico, which is definitely a delicacy. With a little salsa on it, it was muy bueno.

Laurens, the Head of our Dutch recruitment office, had snake in Brazil.

But the best story comes again from Ian in the UK office. I will let him take it away:

“A volunteer I met said she was having a great time in Peru until it got to her birthday. I asked what the problem was and she said how that when she returned to her host family, they had organised a surprise birthday party with all her friends. There was lots of singing and toasting. She sat down to dinner and burst into tears seeing a guinea pig looking up at her from her plate. The family looked a bit bemused and wondered what they had done wrong until one of her friends explained that she had a pet guinea pig that ran around her garden back home.”

Talk about a surprise!