Water blessing, progress with truck & party at JVS!

Apologies, this blog post will cover yesterday and today! Time escapes us quite often over here. Jimmy calls it "Cambodian time".... hahaha which usually he says when he is running late, lol. 
Yesterday morning we all went as a group to get a full water blessing from a local monk - it was Marika's last day in Siem Reap before flying out so we thought it was a good time for the experience!!! This monk lives right next to a beautiful ancient temple, which you can only enter to explore with a ticket. It is part of the Apsara Authority - which is the Cambodian management authority which is responsible for protecting the Archeological Park of Angkor.

A few of us headed to the beautiful local "Peace Cafe" for lunch afterwards.... a gorgeous and tranquil cafe not far from our AirBnb.... it's a vegetarian restaurant, combined with an upstairs yoga studio and a fairtrade giftshop! Definetly right down our alley. We enjoyed a delicious meal before the heavens opened and the tropical rain began!!!!!

This morning, Jimmy, Adrian & I took Oun Sam Lung (the new mobile school truck) to the Motor Inspection Centre to get a roadworthy certificate before paying for new registration and getting some number plates!!! The roadworthy process was quite interesting and much different to Australia! But, Oun Sam Lung did well! She passed with (almost) flying colours.... they just found a small oil leak which they were happy if we got it fixed in the near future. So, we got the certificate (see Jimmy below!) and headed straight to the local mechanic workshop for a quote on the oil leak repair. Unfortunately we will have to postpone the registration until Monday because when we went there after the road worthy, they had a power out and the computer systems were down. Oh well! #Cambodia 

The oil leak quote turned into an oil leak fix (after a few efficient hours!!)! Adrian was relieved to hear it wasn't coming from something like the head gasket which would have been expensive. The staff were very accomodating and efficient and even provided a receipt in English for us - winning :) We then went to visit the workshop where our customised chaible drawer is getting made, and they are making fabulous progress. We will be leaving the truck at the workshop tomorrow for the drawer to be fitted inside!!!

Jimmy spent a couple of hours with Danae's mum Robyn this afternoon who is a teacher in Perth, and brought with her an incredible amount of valuable teaching resources for Jimmy, in particular for an ESL curriculum. They went through some lesson books as well as vocabulary games and laminated resources. Jimmy found it all very helpful!!!!

At Jimmy's Village School this evening, the children surprised Adrian with a wonderful celebration and even a birthday cake (Adrian's birthday is this Sunday!). There was singing, dancing, food, laughing, and even some visits from some of the older past students of JVS. It was an amazing night and enjoyed by all!!! The night ended with us all sharing a meal, home cooked by Jimmy's mother - she cooked up an incredible spread of traditional dishes such as tek na thung, tofu and chive flower, ommlette, soup and traditional khmer porridge. It was throughly enjoyed by all!!! And our friend Brus also joined us, he had taken Anna, Marty & Javi to experience Angkor Wat today :)

Tomorrow we have quite a big and exciting day planned!!! But you'll have to wait for the next blog to find out more.

Have a great weekend everyone!

​Christine XXX