Our trip to Phnom Phen

Today Angus, Evelyn and I went on a small adventure to Phnom Phen (the capital) to get water tested for the safe haven and a canal that local communities are drinking from that appears to be heavily polluted.

It was an interesting experience trying to collect samples, where at points there was a three man chain holding Angus and me as we hovered over the surface of the polluted water with the local community members thoroughly confused as to what we were doing at 7.30am outside their house.

As soon as we collected the samples we got a taxi straight to Phnom Phen. To say it was the most dangerous trip of my life would not be exaggerating. I think Chomno, the director of CHO, must have told the taxi driver it is vital that we get to Phnom Phen as soon as possible so he took it upon himself to get us there as soon as possible. Now the traffic system in Cambodia is hairy at the best of times, but when you have driver, who instead of slowing down through little villages he maintains his 85mph speed and just holds his hand on the horn to ensure safety you know your in trouble. The journey took us right across the country from west to east. It was evident that the further east we went the more developed the country was becoming. There were still remnants of the past though, some of which we witnessed first hand. When the driver stopped for lunch we were approached by a frail old woman who asked us for food. She had a wooden leg and no teeth and had clearly lived through the Khmer Rouge rule. It was horrible to see that the country still cannot support many of its sick, elderly or disabled. She was all three of those.

After a hair raising 5 hours we sped into Phnom Phen. It couldnt have been any different to Poipet. It is large (1.4 Million people) and bustling. We came in along the river front where large brick works and metal works suck up the water from the river to make their products. The traffics was crazy but it seemed to have a methodical chaos about it that allowed the traffic to keep flowing. We went straight through the city to the RDIC office which is 10km south east.

The RDIC stands for the Resource Development International for Cambodia. They are a fantastic NGO that focus on Water Quality testing from all over Cambodia and they manufacture and distribute ceramic filters to many NGO's and vendors around the country. They also promote hygiene education through travelling videos and publications.

We met with Rob, who is from EWB Australia, but has been working for RDIC for 10 months. He took us to the lab to get our samples analysed (this will take about a week) then he showed us around their site. This included getting to see their special spherical rainwater storage tanks and their cermic filters factory.

After having a long chat with him, over a refreshing freshly squeezed sugar cane drink, about how the RDIC operate we caught a tuk-tuk back into the city to stay at a hostel. There was a swimming pool with a bar next door where we ate a huge meal and then very unwisely went for a large soak after a long and exhausting day.

Tomorrow we hunt for NGO's to find how they operate their project structures. This will really help us build a strong structure that we can implement with CHO. Bring on tomorrow...

Jack