Dragon Boat Racing training!! Also bruised but unboughed!!
on So Now It's Cambodia (Cambodia), 18/Oct/2009 11:43, 34 days ago
We are entered for the dragon boat race which is part of the water festival. Today (Sat.) we were taken out on open backed trucks for practise! This gave us a tour of PP and over the Japanese bridge and out into the country side. This was quite an experience -a very different lifestyle.The boat is very long-we had about 30 or so in our boat! I had a go but hadn't signed up due to my recent health problems! I am now on the reserve list. It was really hard work though not really strenuous - that's due to the very hard narrow seat and stiff shoulders gained throught the cramped angles we had to row/paddle in. Health and safety before hand consisted of - "if you fall in the water - swim!!" If you can't swim grab someone's lifejacket that has a whistle!" I'm glad to say none of us fell in!We were relieved to reach our lunchbreak with an audience of locals! However, the local army rowing team decided to challenge us to a race. So we all got in and rowed up stream again! We then pulled over to the bank and waited for the army team team the when they were about a mile away we started racing. Needless to say, in spite of our best efforts, they caught up with us and the finishing line seemd to be whenever they got ahead! There was much cheering and celebration of course -really good fun! This was also a good chance to practise our Khmer numbers as we chanted our muy pi (one two ) over and over like a work song.The return to VSO office was slightly marred by Paul being attacked by a branch as they parked outside the office! We all ducked to avoid the branches as they parked too close to the tree but as I held on to the bar at the side I was struck by a hefty branch. How I managed yet again to cause a drama I don't know - I really tried to take evasive action but it had my number on it!!It was back to the pool tonight at the Pavilion Hotel and there was some rain, thunder and lightning but it was quite refreshing.I was drafting this as Liverpool were playing Sunderland - unfortunately they seem to be struggling without me!Finally, tomorrow (Sunday) (I'm drafting this in the hostel - no internet) we have a massed cylco tour of PP tomorrow which should be really good - a chance to see the main sites - hopefully I'll be writing a review soon!By the way  - I will add photos as soon as I get long enough to sort this - it's been a steep learning curve with logging in etc. Very frustrating but we're getting there. Managed a Skype call with my brother Michael just now!