Interviewing......

 Over the last month or so I have been taking part in lots of interviewing processes - the first set was was new roles in BSDA - 12 vacancies became available and I along with Vandong - ED and other members of the management team interviewed around 70 candidates....

 Then for the last week or so I have been interviewing families out in the field for scholarship interviews - we have to assess that the families and the children who have applied for the scholarships fit with BSDA's criteria.

Motobike trip through the plantations to find Phnum Teaet Pros & Phnum Teaet Srei

A couple of weekends ago Ali, Xenia and I went out for the day on the motobikes - we went in search of Phnum Teaet Pros and Phnum Teaet Srei which all the locals didn't know about so we set out with a map this time and went on a little adventure. We started easily going up to Wat Hanchey and had a drink over looking the Mekong.

We then turned in land into all the plantations to try and find the back way to our destination.

Ali & Xenia on the road..

So many different plantations and field of crops - lots of what I think was Aloe Vera - gave a beautiful pinky/purpley colour to the landscape.

Out in the countryside this is the kind of house many of the farmers live in - no electric and sometimes no water - if they are lucky they might have a well.

Even in the middle of no-where you can't escape the road works!!

Of course Queenie came along for the ride and went off exploring into one of the Banana plantations.

The Pink ladies on one of breaks - or should I say map checking stops where we tried to figure out if we were on the right dust track!

The three Amigos

Every where you go you will find little places of worship - this one was in a shed on the top of a hill in the middle of the plantations with no-one in sight for miles...

Guess what this is......yep we discovered a cashew plantations - Jambu fruit with one nut on every fruit - hence why those little packets of salted cashew nuts are so expensive in pubs...

Cashew tree plantation

Me and my trusty bike

Ali and her poorly bike......

Yep poor Ali got a puncture in the middle of no-where in the rubber plantations. Luckily a lovely couple of workers who lived and worked in the rubber plantation took pity on us, but not before we had to push the bike for about half an hour in the mid day heat!

Rubber Plantation with all the bowls hanging off the trees to catch the rubber dripping out of the cuts on the trees.

Ali's bike getting a bit of TLC

When we finally got going again we found our destination - only to see a few of these signs everywhere......

So we parked the bikes up and checked with the local Monks in the pagoda and they said it would be find to continue and walk up the hills...

Queenie found a new palace on top of one of the hills

Along with a new mode of transport....

One of the temples was really over-grown and you could see one of the pathways completely covered apart from a few of these statues sticking out - I love this old wise man.

Great views across the plains - patch worked with all the different plantations and crops growing.

Slices of banana drying to make banana chips.

Really liked this temple at the top of one of the hills - had such a calm feeling about it and also just lots of engravings instead of lots of brightly painted pictures which made a nice change.

Very hot, but happy, after climbing all 500 steps in the heat and humidity...

The trio of lasses at the top - a good day out had by all I think.

On the way back we stopped for a drink and watch the world go by for a while. People selling banana plant flowers - which you can eat and also watching how many baskets one man can fit on his moto!!