souk sabai khrap

this is the first time i write in english on our blog. i do this for my friends, colleagues and students from thailand, japan, tanzania and other countries who are not able to read the dutch part of our blog. today I will introduce our plans and my work in tibet and i will talk about our trip to cambodia.

for those who do not know, my wife and i currently live in lhasa (tibet). it is much smaller, cooler, higher (3595m) and poorer than bangkok. especially i had quite a lot of high altitude symptoms like continues headaches, oxygen shortages (which causes sleepless nights) and dizziness. joyce is much stronger so she was almost symptom free and helped the poor old guy (me).

in tibet, i work as a project manager (of the tibetan orthopeadic workshops) for handicap international belgium. this function consists of training the local orthotists and prosthetists (mostly lower limb devices), patient flow, set up of quality controls, set up of orthopaedic facilities in remote areas (shigatse, chamdo and mainland china), stock management and accountancy.

all the devices are made from polypropylene partly or completely following the icrc technique. the icrc technique is developed by the international red cross and the production of prosthetics is slightly different from the techniques i used before (resin laminations). so i was offered to do a training in cambodia (the handicap international sea center of icrc techniques) to understand the fabrication procedures of the icrc components for below and above knee prosthetics.

my training started in phnom penh at the hi head quarter with general introductions into handicap international. the same day i flew to siem reap where i followed the icrc training.

i was to expect a poor cambodia although it was shocking for me to see it in reality. asphalted roads are an exception, so a moderate cambodian tropical shower turns the streets into dirty brown rivers. it is better to walk bare foot through this sewage if you want to keep your shoes wearable after this gloomy adventure. of course, you have the risk to die or become seriously ill from the polluted water.

cambodian food was very tasty (it’s always about food with us), especially during the first days of our stay but it is less spicy than thai food. after about five days, i had a food poisoning. the symptoms started on wednesday night around 1 am. it is really bad if you have to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes while you can not stay on your feet. i went to a doctor in the morning and decided to stay in bed during daytime on thursday. the food poisoning firstly made sure i was not hungry at all and after that, my love for cambodian food had disappeared abruptly... viva thai cuisine and again, joyce is the stronger one (still enjoying her khmer curries).

fortunately we were also in siem reap during the weekend so we had the opportunity to visit the temples of angkor. angkor wat is a very large area with beautiful ruins of khmer temples. the archeological site is incredibly large and the ruins are architectural master pieces. the angkor wat is the main attraction. it has a very large garden with a canal around it. another wonderful sight was the jungle temple, a wat completely overgrown by the encroaching jungle. i must say, after one day of visiting the wats of the bayon in the cambodian tropical heat that it all just started to look like piles of old rocks. sun burned and nearly dehydrated we left angkor for our last days in siem reap.