One thing about raising children as an expat is that your local children's library doesn't have the same cultural filter as your children's library "back home". The differences can be subtle, and surprising. You see, where I come from, my local librarian was actively trying to create a culturally diverse set of reading material - a little Roald Dahl, some Zen Buddhism, and one or two folk tales from Africa. And the thing is, it's easy to list off the things you've read your kids that are also being read to children in Russia, Qatar, or Milwaulke. But how do you tune in to what you're not reading? Well, you could do a hit and run trip through your local children's library, like we did last week.

Here's a short list of recent stories:

1. A book whose name I have already forgotten, so great was my haste to return it. The story revolves around a boy who is playing happily in his room one day when his friends drop by, unexpectedly. His grandfather comes up to the boy's room to ask him if he'd like to come down and play, and the boy declines. The grandfather advises him not to be grumpy, and he assures his grandfather that he is not grumpy, he's just not in the mood for unexpected visitors who are, after all, unexpected, and kind of just wants to finish off this thing he was right in the middle of doing before they dropped around unexpectedly. The grandfather, with a knowing smile, sits down on the bed and tells him an "allegorical" tale... about a fish who is playing happily in his anemone when ditto ditto ditto and ditto. In the end, the fish learns that he should "stop being grumpy" and play with his damned friends already. Moral of the story? It is not ok to be an introvert. (Secondary moral? Some people do not know how to write allegories and prefer to write bricks that will shortly hit you over the head thinly wrapped in what may technically be called an allegory.) 
2.  Today, Maybe (Dominique Demers and Gabrielle Grimard). The story revolves around a girl who sits passively at home making tea and jam sandwiches and entertaining visitors and talking to her pet bird and basically guarding her chastity and honing her domestic skills whilst her One True Love travels all over the world looking for her (and probably developing a fulfilling career at the same time). In the end, he turns up, they lock eyes, and... I guess... we are supposed to believe that they just lived happily ever. Because they are destined for each other. What is that? That is a book which should be ceremonially burnt by anyone who believes in either a) gender equality or b) real-life relationships.  Because, honestly. Grudging points for making the One True Love a bear, and not a white Anglo-Saxon prince (although the bear is still male).
3.  Why Cats Don't Wear Hats (Victoria Perez Escriva and Ester Garcia). The story is translated from Spanish, and the language retains a charming foreign air. Using a series of "logical" steps, the book explains that cats don't wear hats, because that would lead to a chain of events which would eventually necessitate the renouncing of the cat's essential "catness". To be a cat is easy, the book concludes, as long as you don't want to wear a hat. This is a delightful book about foresight, unintended consequences, the true weight of material objects, and the way one desire can lead to another, transforming you as you follow each call. Its subtlety begs discussion and allows the reader the freedom to frame the moral within his or her own set of values. (Reading the back cover, for example, gives the impression that the authors think they have written a book about the importance of being yourself.)
4.  John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat (Jenny Wagner). A true classic. A dog and an old woman live happily together, until a black cat tries to join their household, invoking jealousy on the part of the dog. When the dog sends the cat away, however, the woman becomes sad and ill, leading the dog to relent in order to make her happy. The reader has the opportunity to learn not only that an extra friend doesn't lessen the original friendship, but that sometimes loving someone means putting their wants before your own. Again, the story is subtle enough to invite thought and is open to individual interpretation.
5.  Green Eggs And Ham (Dr Seuss)*. Another classic - the story needs no summary. Again, one of its strengths is its subtlety - the messages are there, but they are not explicitly spelled out. This also allows the book to grow with the child. The more obvious moral - that you can't decide if you like something or not without trying it - suits younger children. The less obvious moral - that just because someone annoys you doesn't mean you will dislike everything they have to offer - can come later on.
6.  MOM (Mom Operating Manual) (Doreen Cronin and Laura Cornell). This is a genuinely funny book, even if they did miss the opportunity to create a title joke by using a meaningful acronym (Mum Upkeep Manual?). Unlike another book which I also hastily returned and cannot now name, it does not employ sarcastic humour of the kind that its readership is unlikely to appreciate. (The other book contained advice such as: "Be sure to wake your parents up super-early so they'll have time to stop being tired before work." This book employs the type of humour which is not only funnier but less dangerous: "Your mum is likely not getting enough sleep if: 1) She has packed you a lunch of unsweetened cocoa and a raw egg." I know which I'd rather read to my preschoolers.) The inescapable message is that your mother has needs and will not function well if those needs aren't sufficiently met. Of course, realising that other people have needs and that harmonious relationships will result from having everyone's needs acknowledged and addressed is an important lesson which goes well beyond the home hearth.

Mel's recent post made me think about what our kids learn from the stories we tell them. Fiction is a powerful tool, because of its ability to engage a reader's interest and dispense with the bounds of reality. It can teach in ways - and on topics - that non-fiction cannot. I have this wild** idea that we should form an online picture-book club, to over-analyse what we are saying to our kids through fiction and make use of the internet to help set aside our cultural filters. It would be like any other book club, but less time consuming. If you want to join, please review a book you've read to or with a child (depending on their agegroup - it doesn't have to be a picture book if the kids are past that stage, neither does it have to be your own child - it could be a niece or the pupils in your class) on your own blog, provide a link back to this post, and leave me a comment asking me to add you to the list. I'd like to be mindful of the lessons I'm teaching.

Picture Book Club List:

• Be first!

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*The Dr Seuss is part of our own collection, but seems to be a favourite at the moment.

**Obviously my definition of "wild" has changed since my teens and twenties.

Apologies for the delay. I wrote the last post shortly before the Connecticut shootings (I think it posted just after - I wrote it at the same time as the first), and for some reason I didn't feel like writing more about our wonderful holiday over that particular weekend. I'm sure those directly involved aren't ready to be back to normal yet, but the spirit of Christmas and the freshness of the new year calls me to turn over a leaf and resume what I started. Without further ado:

Is Cambodia a good destination to travel to with kids? Yes, yes it is. First of all, people are generally welcoming of children. A lot of people speak English, and well, which makes things a little more comfortable for the monolinguistic four-year-old. It's easy to organise private transport and tours at an affordable cost, allowing you to tailor the journey to your needs, and there are blessedly few things to try your patience other than your own toddler. But there's more! Here is a range of observations and advice on taking your young kids to Cambodia, according to our experiences. I'm going to cover strollers, car seats, sleeping, eating, nappies, sightseeing, poverty, touting and begging, and health and hygiene.

Strollers

They should be left at home, if you can possibly help it. If you can't, take the lightest, most foldable umbrella stroller you can find, or see if anyone's still making those ones that convert into a backpack carrier. We saw a total of two strollers the whole time we were in Cambodia. One was being pushed along the riverside by a rather well-to-do local woman in Battambang, who had three extremely well-dressed children with her. I don't know how many places she gets to use it, apart from along the river. The other was being pushed by a tourist in Siem Reap. The woman looked like she was getting pretty fed up with it.

It's not just that the streets aren't stroller-friendly (around the temples of Angkor, for example, you can pretty much forget it) - it's also that tuk tuks are a chief form of transport so you won't always have a boot to throw it into (a small umbrella stroller would be ok, though, as long as you're not taking motos). And if you're expecting ramps or lifts everywhere you go, you may have to reset your expectations. Many shops and markets are of the crowded type with narrow aisles and passageways. In addition, you won't necessarily need the stroller like you do at home - those tuk tuks and motos drop you pretty much at the door to where you're going, and there are usually plenty around, looking for work. The amount of walking we actually needed to do was very small.

We took our ergo, which (and they're not paying me to say this) is one of the best baby/toddler products we ever bought. With two adults and plenty of areas safe enough to let Miss explore on her own at a distance of a couple of metres (around the temples, for example, we barely carried her - she mostly either walked by herself or rode in the tuk tuk), it wasn't a hassle.

Car Seats

We brought The Young Miss's car seat with us. It's a Combi Corocco, which is lightweight and compact, so it fits easily in any vehicle with a seatbelt. We found the taxis we took all had good seatbelts, although the mini bus only had one - which we used for the car seat. I'm not sure I would rely on getting a car seat in Cambodia. The local kids travel in arms on motorbikes, or in hammocks made by tying sling carriers between the handlebars of bicycles, so I'm pretty sure they thought we were freaks for restraining our toddler like that. We only used the seat three times - from the airport in Phnom Penh, for the road trip from Phnom Penh to Battambang, and from Battambang to Siem Reap. The rest of the time we used tuk tuks (except for the one occasion where we used motos). The traffic, as previously described, isn't exactly screaming along, but we thought it was both safer and more practical for the longer trips and it was a small thing to pack it in for those rides.

For The Master, who is four, we brought along our Boostapak. Trunki are not paying me to say this either (although I wouldn't say no to a pink version to match our green one... Trunki?) but they are deadset geniuses. It is a backpack - a useable backpack you can put things inside - with a hard case and foldout bits to guide the seatbelt through. We used it on both our taxi rides, but not the minibus trip, as there was no seatbelt anyway. We also used it as a day pack around town most days, and as a booster seat at restaurants for the Young Miss (see under "eating").

If I have one criticism of the Boostapak (and I do) it's that the child tends to slump in it when they are of a certain, specific height. We've had ours for over a year now. At first, The Master's legs stuck straight out, so it was fine (he was technically under age for it at that point - we have no car and I can only lug one car seat around at a time, so I opted for the baby's capsule - but he was already bigger than the average 4yo when we started using it). Then he grew taller and his hip-knee length got to this awkward stage, where his feet dangled from the calf and he slumped in order to try and get them dangling more comfortably from the knee instead. Then he grew again and now sits straight and comfortable once more. I would have liked some sort of anti-submarine clip between the legs for that awkward stage, but I admit I can't think of how to add one off-hand. In any case, except for that 3-4 month period it has been an excellent product and it's certainly a good one for those travelling with young kids.

Sleeping

I heard reports that cots were available on request at some hotels, but since Miss hasn't slept in one for over a year, I couldn't really tell you. The beds we did have were generously-sized, particularly as regards their width, such that (in Battambang) three singles were adequate for our family (I slept with Miss). In the other hotels, we had even more bedspace. Usually, we either slept the kids together on a double bed, or pushed two singles together. The reason for this was so we could set them up under a mosquito tent - we'd brought the tent poles from our 2-person tent and the largest box-shaped mosquito net we could find, and assembled it over them. This served a double-purpose: keeping the mosquitoes away (obviously), and a firm tuck also provided some protection against rolling off the bed (for the toddler).

We were able to get family rooms in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, which were large. We also had a pool and restaurant in both these places, as well as in-room wifi, which allowed the kids to excitedly skype their grandparents with updates each day.

 Eating - Cuisines, High Chairs, Room Service and Breastfeeding

The Master is generally a good eater, but he got quite unadventurous the moment he hit foreign ground - although Miss continued to be happy browsing from anybody's plate. We were expecting this, and had no desire to push it. It meant we ended up eating at tourist-orientated restaurants which served both western and local food, of which there are plenty (French and Italian food was the most common that I saw). Korean food, if your family is so inclined, is also very big, and we saw Indian and vegetarian restaurants in all our destinations, too. This is, of course, not an exhaustive list - it's just what I happened to notice and remember. I would advise a little extra forward-planning when it comes to meals with kids, keeping in mind that the pace of service tends to be slower than what you might be used to at home.

No restaurant we saw owned any high chairs. The Earl actually asked at one place and ended up having to pretty much draw a diagram, before they gave him a bemused and baffled, "Sorry, but no." We were half-expecting this, and the trunki boostapak on a chair (plus or minus the shoulder-harness we'd also packed) is a good alternative, but mostly we just opted to let her sit on our alternate laps instead.

Room service. Whenever that debate crops up about kids in restaurants, someone always gives this indignant comment about how, in their house, children are/were taught proper table manners at dinner time each night and they therefore have/had no behavioural problems when dining out. This always gives me a chortle, because these people either a) have poor memories or b) have the kinds of families where mum and dad are both home at 5:30pm with easy-going kids who are in pleasant moods after 3-hour-long afternoon naps. I'm sorry, but my kids don't do anything well at dinnertime, much less sit in a restaurant, and it's not because I'm too lazy to teach them table manners. (Truth be told, I'm talking here about one of my kids, but it only takes one to set the whole situation awry - especially when I am always wrestling them single-handedly at dinner.) I will happily take them - together, single-handedly - to any five-star restaurant, anywhere in the world, for brunch*, but by the end of the day (and especially when travelling) it is just time to fall back on room service and that is that.

I don't know how many hotels officially offer room service in Cambodia (none of ours did), but the hotel in Siem Reap was happy to let us order at the restaurant, take the plates to our room, and then return them at some unspecified future time (we returned them later that night, after the kids were asleep). The waitress actually went to the trouble of helping my husband bring the plates down. In other places (with one exception where we did manage to eat out), we easily found ourselves a hearty lunch no matter where we'd got ourselves by lunch time, and let dinner be something light from a bakery (mine don't tend to be that hungry by dinner under normal circumstances anyway - which probably exacerbates our dinner table troubles. They're like me - starving at breakfast, morning tea, and lunch, and then petering out).

As far as breastfeeding was concerned, nobody batted an eyelid and I was able to get on with it anywhere, including the back of the tuk tuk as we were going along (just watch for those potholes...).

Nappies

We brought a pack and it lasted the whole week, but I am told (and believe) you can get disposables at all three of our destinations. We only saw one set of nappy changing facilities, however. It was a drop-down table in the ladies toilet at Phnom Penh airport, and I had to get the cleaner to unlock it so it could be dropped down. Otherwise, we changed our nappies wherever we could find a spot - most commonly on the back seat of the tuk tuk (or on the bed in our hotel room). Nobody was bothered.

Sights to See

There are enough family-friendly sights in Cambodia to fill the usual holiday, and that's without hitting the beaches (I'm told they're worth the trip, but I have no personal experience). Be aware that at least one young child (mine) considers the temples to be spooky, and a child's attention span with them may wane quickly unless they have a special interest (we spent only one day, compared to the three days we spent when there was just the two of us), but the grounds are still a terrific run-around area.

The fishing village trip we did (to Kampung Phluk) isn't awfully suitable for kids in the early stages of mobility (and corresponding impulsiveness), although the locals obviously get along, so it can be done. (Personally, I'm not sure that myself or either of my kids would do well at the under-three-year old stage if confined to a small boat all day. You should ask yourself how it would go down in your family.)

The standard tour around Battambang can be enjoyed by all ages, largely because it contains a pretty good amount of variety and the amount of time spent at each location is entirely up to you.

Poverty, Begging and Touting

Cambodia is not a rich country yet, though it has recovered substantially since its days under the Khmer Rouge. The villages certainly aren't full of luxury residences, but the simple pole-houses seemed full of happy, well-fed kids, even if they were dusty (our kids were at least as dusty - it's unavoidable) or sometimes naked. Touts were generally relaxed and friendly (there was a bit of a crowd, including some rather persistent kids, outside Ta Prohm temple at Angkor - but part of that was because I bought souvenirs and drinks straight out of the tuk tuk without even pretending to bargain) and we didn't experience the relentless "hard sell" tactics you have to get used to in other places. We saw only three beggars during our whole trip (which always makes me suspicious about what happened to all the other beggars... but let's assume they were being taken care of by the numerous NGOs) which is less than what you might see on a stroll through Brisbane, though more than what you'd encounter in Singapore (which is the place that really does make me suspicious).

In short, if you're worried your kids are going to be overwhelmed by the contrast between their privileged existences and the way the other half lives, Cambodia - at least the parts we visited - makes a very good starting point for your travels. There are certainly differences to discuss, but it will be a gentle introduction.

Health and Hygiene - Pills and Vaccinations, Toilets and Showers, Tummy Upsets

Obviously, this doesn't replace the up-to-date advice of your doctor, and is only our experience based on when and where we went, who we took, and the decisions we made. Hopefully, it will give you something to get started. We were advised by our doctor that malaria preventatives need not be taken in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and decided that, given the time of year and our very short length of stay outside those places, we would just use mosquito nets and repellents for the trip. One child got bitten by one mosquito - in Siem Reap. Antimalarials are available for young children, however, if you are staying longer outside those those two centres or want to err towards a different analysis of risk. Hepatitis A vaccinations are standard in the Singaporean schedule, so we were already covered there, although this would not have been the case if we were following the Australian schedule, so you need to check. Typhoid vaccination was also recommended, but the age-group-appropriate version we needed was out of stock across the whole of Singapore in the period leading up to our trip, so we had to fall back on standard food and water hygiene measures. We drank bottled water (some hotels have water coolers to reduce plastic waste) and freshly-cooked food, and tried to get everyone to wash their hands properly. We discouraged the patting or feeding of animals, as rabies is endemic, although all three of the places we visited could have provided post-exposure shots if necessary.

The toilets we used were all western-style toilets with seats, although not all of them could take toilet paper. We managed to get Master to use the hand-held bidet with some encouragement, but were glad we'd brought toilet paper and nappy wipes as backup. (On these occasions, we made sure he threw the paper or wipes into a bin next to the toilet instead of into the toilet itself.) Most of the toilets were pretty clean, by public toilet standards (the hotel toilets were all fine) and absolutely none of them - to Master's delight - had the hated automatic flushers he gets so scared about in Singapore. In fact, one of the toilets had a trough and bucket instead of a flusher, which Master found absolutely intriguing.

There were hot showers at all the hotels. Unfortunately for the kids, none of our hotels had baths.

More unfortunately, The Young Master did come down with a nasty tummy bug within twenty-four hours of our return - undoubtedly something he picked up from the trip. He recovered after 36 hours or so, and the doctor didn't find anything alarming on examination or via a stool sample. His little sister simultaneously had an extremely mild bout of runny stools with no fever or loss of appetite, and the adults were fine. So yes - it's definitely worth being vigilant, but no real harm done. I am blaming it on the home-made icecream he ate for afternoon tea on our last day, firstly because it's the only thing he had that nobody else ate, except his sister who had a grudgingly small spoonful, and secondly in the hope that I might be able to keep all the icecream to myself in future.

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*The other day we stopped at the cafe near the supermarket and the kids shared a fresh coconut. They'd drunk the juice and were on to the flesh. The Young Miss was saying, "Peas, [Master], nunner piece?" and The Young Master was replying - and I quote - "Why, certainly, [Miss], I can get you another piece in no time!" And then he was carefully scooping her out a piece and feeding it to her with the spoon, whilst they both sat politely on their own chairs and I sipped a cup of tea. And if you'd seen me then you would have said I was the Best Parent Ever.

Fast forward two/three hours, and - well, we were having our typical dinner time scene, let's just say. I won't describe it for you. I will just ask you not to judge parents whose kids lose their ability to be civilised human beings at around 5pm. People only have so much power over whether or not to take their children places, and I am actually luckier in a sense than some with better-behaved children in that at least mine are very predictable.

Continued from Part One.

BATTAMBANG

The next day we took a tuk-tuk tour around Battambang. We stopped for tea ("Western tea?" asked 'James', our driver. "Local tea," I told him. It's a hobby of mine to go places and ask for caffeinated beverages such as "tea" or "coffee" without giving any further instruction just to see what I end up with. In this case it was hot, sweetened, green tea.) and went straight on to the Bamboo Railway, which (after some initial misgivings on the part of The Master) was a huge hit.

Last time we took the same tour around town by moto. When we got to the end, we took the "small train" - they hadn't yet reached a consensus on the English-language name - back to town. I remember standing beside a cow shed, watching as a few men lifted wheels and a platform onto the track, and joking that this must be the "small train" coming in to our "station". Our moto drivers agreed, but they laughed too, so it took a few minutes to realise they were actually serious. The "small train" - now known as the bamboo train - is a bamboo platform on two sets of wheels, propelled by a little motor. It runs along a single track and can be put together or dismantled in a couple of minutes. Last time, we met a groups of villagers coming in the opposite direction, piled at least a dozen of all ages on to the same platform, and the two "trains" negotiated to see who would have to be removed from the rails to let the other pass. They had more people, including elderly women and children, together with sacks of rice and other food, but we had two motorbikes, which were deemed less moveable. Everyone pitched in together, though, and their train was soon loaded back onto the track behind us. Then we bid each other farewell before puttering away. Last time, that was the only train we passed on our way back.

There are a lot of tourists and (as far as we saw) no locals using the line now, and a tourist policeman is stationed permanently at one end of the line to oversee the operations. Handicraft and drinks stalls mark both ends of the ride. The policeman shook hands and introduced himself, directed our driver to a parking spot, then gave us the run-down whilst our train was being organised. The kids got on famously with the village kids at the far end of the line, and one girl, not more than 50% bigger than the The Young Miss, took Miss onto her hip and carried her all around the village pointing out all the animals and naming them in English and Khmer. Everyone was delighted with the way Miss mimicked either language with equal "proficiency", as one-and-three-quarter-year-olds will do. They showed us their brick factory and invited our kids to climb the pile of rice husks they use to fuel it and jump up and down with them. The pile of rice husks, it turns out, is springy like a trampoline. They made us grass rings and bracelets. They found The Young Miss a dog who was "safe to pat" and made sure she didn't touch any of the others, even though she wanted to. We bought some cool drinks. It was nice.

The Bamboo train may or may not exist in the near future. There is a big project afoot to upgrade the line so it is safe enough for real trains to run across the country once more, and in the meantime, the roads seem to have taken over as the main form of transit for the locals. It's great to see progress being made for the sake of Cambodia and its people, but I hope there is still employment for those who work on the bamboo train in years to come - and fun to be had for us tourists, too. If you get the chance, you should take a ride. It was a highlight of both trips.

The rest of the tour went just as well. We saw a temple, some temple ruins, villages, a winery (that was new...) and The Young Master (much to his delight) had his first ride on a motorbike. The Young Miss did, too, strapped into the ergo, but she seemed to view it as a rather ordinary event, whereas the Master was so excited about his ride that it didn't even bother him when we visited The Killing Caves at the top of the mountain, and he spent the next two hours breathlessly telling every child under ten years old he could find that he had just ridden on a motorbike, which brought some strange looks from the local kids.

Eventually, the Miss and Master started showing signs of having had enough for the day, so we asked our driver to cut it short and take us back to town, where another quick romp back by the river brought us to dinner time. The next day, we ate a hearty breakfast, took one last stroll along the river and through the central market, then piled into a taxi - with seatbelts - and made our way to Siem Reap.

Siem Reap and Surrounds

Last time we went from Siem Reap to Battambang by boat. This service still exists, although the locals who live in fishing villages along the lake and river have started complaining about the speed, noise, frequency, and general disturbance. In any case, it's a long trip in a little dingy, especially in the dry season, and with the improved road situation, it made more sense to take the three hour trip by car. And the car was a much better price!

I was glad the second road trip was the shorter one, as everyone was starting to get a bit scratchy by this stage. Our taxi driver canvassed the local tuk tuk drivers in Siem Reap until he located our hotel, where he dropped us with (no doubt) a sigh of relief. We hit the pool, followed by the hotel restaurant, followed by our beds - all of which helped us feel better, but not better enough. The next day, therefore, we decided it was time to split the party and get out of each other's pockets. The Earl stayed at the hotel with The Young Miss, and they did a bit of swimming, some eating, and some much-needed catching up on sleep. In the afternoon, he took the Young Miss to pick up his bib for the following day's half-marathon around the ancient temples of Angkor.

Wait, did I mention the impulse for the trip originated with The Earl's new-found fascination with running?  Yes, he's into running now. He could probably sit down with Serenity and have a good old chat about it. In any case, the idea of running, at dawn, around the ancient temples of Angkor appealed greatly to him, so he decided to step up his game and do his first half-marathon. But first, he took the day off sightseeing to rest up and eat well. Meanwhile, The Young Master and I grabbed a tuk tuk and headed off to Kampung Pluk, a nearby fishing village.

Kampung Pluk

Much has been said on message boards about boat safety in Cambodia, and most of it is not favourable. But in a country with stricter safety standards, would they let a four-year-old drive the boat? Probably not - and The Young Master loved it. I asked our boat driver if it was usual for the local kids to be driving boats by four years old and he shrugged and said, "Of course." Some of the other tourists didn't seem convinced, however - one woman in particular looked aghast as her boat passed ours, going in the opposite direction. At our speed (walking), depth (waist, on the Young Master), and distance from shore (less than ten paces) I didn't feel especially threatened, however, and our driver sat nearby, offering verbal and physical course corrections as necessary. We puttered like this for quite some time, until we got to the village on the water.

And when I say "on", I don't muck around. Most of the buildings were on stilts, and some were floating. We saw the police station, doctor's clinic, town hall and temple. There was also a school, with kids outside, waist-deep, playing a game of water-soccer, whilst others came or left by canoe. There were houses and houseboats, floating piggeries, and enclosed fisheries. We stopped in the "restaurant district" and swapped into a canoe, which wound through and around the mangroves. Then we returned the way we'd come. On the way home, The Young Master asked to stop and "help" some boys who were fishing in a creek using a net. They let him hang around, but in the end I had to point out that he was half their age or less and that braving the current and trying to wind and cast the net was harder than it looked. He returned to the hotel disappointed that he hadn't been able to go fishing.

Marathon

We were hoping to watch The Earl run his half-marathon on the Sunday morning, but it was not to be. My plan was to let the kids wake up at their normal time and eat breakfast before heading out to the sidelines. However, for the first year ever, the organisers decided to close off the course to traffic, leaving our tuk tuk driver stranded where he'd dropped The Earl off by the famous Angkor Wat. We were forced to potter around the hotel grounds until he turned back up again, which didn't take long. The Earl not only finished the run (he was afraid he wouldn't be able to) but finished in the top half of the runners, making a time he was happy with.

After a swim to cool off and a spot of lunch, he and The Young Miss took a nap together again, whilst The Young Master and I went into the central market for some souvenir shopping. The Young Master found another friend at the market, and bought a gift for his classmate back home. Then we all joined up next to the river, where The Young Master found a man casting the same type of net as the boys had been using the previous day. He asked if he could have a go, and the guy showed him how to wind the rope around his thumb and gather it in his hands, but he was really too little to hold it all together, much less throw it out. In the end, he accepted that even the local kids don't start using that kind of fishing gear until they are much older, and contented himself with "helping" the man retrieve fish (or debri) from his net after he'd hauled it back in. We bought sandwiches from a street seller for dinner, and returned to our hotel to rest up for our big day at the temples.

Temples of Angkor

Oh, the temples. They are certainly an impressive site, although also a much more cultivated one these days. The first difference we noticed was at the ticket booth. Last time, we found a single booth, manned by two people, beside a dusty road. Now there is a bitumened slip road containing about a dozen booths with staff everywhere. The grass is green and tended, the icecream vans have proliferated, and the whole enterprise has become safety and conservation-conscious. This is all great news, but it didn't impress The Young Master, who immediately decided he wanted to return to the hotel. I must say, I was surprised at this - I thought the temples would have a certain "wow" factor all their own, but I guess he hasn't hit his Indiana Jones phase yet. I thought he'd like hearing the stories told in carvings, like enormous, stone, picture books, but I musn't have been telling them right. Luckily, I had a flash of brilliance and drew up a list for a scavenger hunt*, which seemed to interest him enough to keep us going until lunch time, when he finally worked out how to express what was troubling him: in a nutshell, he found the temples kind of spooky. Once we worked this out, we were able to come up with a simple compromise - he would just stay on the outside. He was happy to do this, and romped around the ruins happily like he would in any old park, whilst The Early and I took turns having a closer look, and occasionally discussing an exterior feature of interest. The Earl and I were glad we'd seen everything in reasonable depth before - it took the pressure off this visit, and we were happier to potter around in a way that suited the kids.

Both of them slept very well that night. The next day we took a swim and then packed our bags for home. Our flight didn't leave til evening, so we took a stroll around the Royal Gardens, a walk along the river, and grabbed a bite to eat before piling into a couple of tuk-tuks for the airport. The Siem Reap International Airport was our last big double-take, having been completely overhauled since its days as a dusty building with a bit of an immigration bench and a handful of moto drivers waiting around outside. (In fact, Siem Reap seems to have relatively few moto drivers these days. The ones who tout for tourists, at least, have all gone and bought trailers for their bikes, thus upgrading themselves to the status of tuk-tuk drivers - a rarity on our last visit.) In any case, it's not so modernised that you can't still stroll across the tarmac to your plane, which we did with that mixture of satisfaction and reluctance which marks the end of a great trip.

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Next Up: Observations about travelling with young kids in Cambodia.

*This is our list for the scavenger hunt. Each of the speaking members of the party contributed to the list. We found everything except the danger sign (I guess they've replaced their danger signs with actual safety measures since our last visit), and it took us the whole day to do that. Even The Young Miss found a couple of items, although I'm not sure she was aware they were part of a game.

Lots of the finds opened up discussions about history, culture, or the local environment. For example, the water wheel provided a lesson in both local agriculture and Buddhist symbolism. The statue with the head (most of them are now headless) provided an opportunity to discuss the history of the temples and ancient kingdoms. And there was an interesting discussion about how the trees grow like that.

• Working water wheel
• Statue with its head still on
• Boat (we saw one being used by a bridal party on their wedding photo tour of the temples)
• Fishing net 
• Fishing rod
• Carving of dancers (apsaras)
• Tree growing out of ruins
• Tree that forms a tunnel with its roots
• Aeroplane (actually seen after we left the temple grounds - they weren't flying over the temples)
• Carving of wheel
• Carving of elephant
• Hot air balloon
• Flowing river
• Giant face on gate
• Big stone lion
• Danger sign
• Stone bridge with stone railing

This story has been discussed on Mel's blog. Thanks to Alexicographer, I have a copy of it, which I want to comment on briefly.

Alexicographer suggested (via the comments to the first link, above) that the study would cost about 4 hours' worth of a post-doc's time plus a mac-book (which I assume can be substituted for any kind of equivalent computing device). All I can say to this is, obviously I am not yet a post-doc. I am pretty sure it would take me four hours to work out whether I was supposed to be running a Cox regression or (let's be honest) any other form of statistical analysis you might care to name. As it happens, I'm in the middle of studying up on this as we... well, I should be doing it right now, but this counts, right? In other words, if you are a post-doc, and you have feedback or corrections, please leave them - I would be grateful!

My first comment is that, as suspected, everyone should start using the firefox add-on which redirects every Daily Mail link to pictures of tea and kittens, because honestly - you are not reporting science to the public so much as blatantly trolling. In fact, if your (I'm talking to you again now, not the Daily Mail) Aunt Jane tells you to adopt as a result of having read the Daily Mail article, my recommended response is to give her a sympathetic smile, and gently explain to her that she has been trolled.

The Daily Mail [that is not a link to the Daily Mail, it's a link to Dan and Dan's song about the Daily Mail - I refuse to link to The Daily Mail directly and I thoroughly recommend the song] reports that,

"Scientists say the study throws new light on the age-old question of whether life fulfillment provided by children can actually extend your years. The answer appears to be yes – but only compared with people who want children and are unable to have them. In these circumstances, adoption may reduce the risk of early death, according to Danish scientists."

Bollocks. Wow. They really had to put their best spin-doctors on the job to draw that message out of it. First of all, we don't know whether the differences in mortality are due to "life-fulfillment" - a possibility I would list as number seventy-hundred-and-eighty-seven, under such things as "leading a less adventurous life-style during your forties" or "less likely to have an undiagnosed clotting disorder which prevents successful IVF treatment and at the same time increases the chances of death". As it happens, the scientists specifically state that the study does not provide evidence that having children, even after infertility, extends your life years.

They specifically state that. I guess The Daily Mail reporter got sidetracked looking up big words like "exogenous" and never made it through the whole article.

With regards to the second sentence of the quoted paragraph, it is true that, in this study, adoption was found to be associated with a reduced risk of death amongst those for whom IVF didn't work. However, the authors feel that this is not because adoption "reduces the risk of early death" but because being able and eligible to adopt is associated with a range of other factors which, together, reduce the risk of early death.

Again, they specifically state that, and it is an even stronger statement than the one I described above, which merely tells us that the study is not designed to prove a causal link (although there is a lot of speculation in the statement).

Correlation, you must remember, is not causation. (This reminder is given three times in exactly those terms - once in the abstract, once in the box-summary, and once in the discussion of the results. I can understand how the Daily Mail missed the latter, but honestly... they couldn't read a box summary before writing a newspaper report? Or they did, but they decided it would be more fun to forgo scientific reporting in favour of trolling?)

Mel complained about the division of parents vs non-parents, stating that the idea of being "childless until proven parenting" is noxious. And I don't disagree. The way society divides parents and and non-parents based on whether they are raising or have finished raising living children ignores a wide range of circumstances. This was always a beef of mine (and not just mine) when Mother's Day rolled around (and it still is). Society is yet slightly divided on the question of whether an expectant woman should celebrate or not, but those in the trenches of infertility tend to be more or less excluded - which doesn't seem right, when you consider how much more parenting some infertile men and women have done (both in a physical and emotional sense), when compared to their expectant or newly-minted counterparts. 

However, the scientists make clear that their distinction is between those who registered a birth after IVF treatment and those who did not, during a followup period of three to fourteen years after the start of treatment. They openly admit not only the possibility but the probability of "unobserved comorbidity*" given the available data (which was taken from publicly-available registries) whilst pointing out that adjusting for the factors they could observe had not really altered the results. They do consider number of IVF treatments in their analysis. One could still argue that they should have used different terminology, whilst admitting, to be fair, that the debate over the alternative remains unresolved, even within the community. Possibly, to be accurate, it should have been an acronym such at PRB (parents, or patients, or people registering a birth) vs PNRB. In any case, you can be sure the Daily Mail would still have come out with "mothers" and "childless".

A few things must be brought to and taken away from studies like this. Firstly, note that the outcome under observation is rare. The Daily Mail will tell your Aunt Jane that you are FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE if you don't have kids, at least through adoption, but actually, almost everyone they followed - regardless of category - survived. Put it this way: if one person dies, on average, from cause X in one year and in 2012 you happen to get an extra person, that is a DOUBLING OF DEATHS FROM CAUSE X THIS YEAR according to the Daily Mail, or a single extra death to everyone with an ounce of common sense**. And if your unlucky statistic from 2011 happened to hang on til the first of January 2012, giving no deaths in 2011 and two in 2012, then it is still one death per year according to those with common sense, or an AN INFINITE INCREASE IN DEATHS FROM CAUSE X COMPARED TO LAST YEAR AND POSSIBLY THE BEGINNING OF THE APOCALYPSE according to the Daily Mail. So tell your Aunt Jane that either way, things will probably turn out just fine.

Secondly, these data tell a story about a population. They can't tell you if you are going to die soon (which you are probably not - see above). Statistics, as everyone who has ever sat down at a fertility clinic already realises, is not a crystal ball.

Thirdly, just because science tells you X, doesn't mean the right choice is necessarily Y. We make our decisions against a background not just of medical facts, but of values and circumstances. Context is everything when it comes to forging our onward path. This doesn't devalue scientific research or the input it provides, but we must remember to limit its use to its proper purpose.

This study should be a welcome report to infertility patients - especially those who for whom treatments fail. It may turn out that there are concrete steps which can be taken to improve your chances of surviving into old age - medicating with aspirin, perhaps, or increased screening for certain cancers. However, it should be recognised that this is piece, maybe, twelve of a one-thousand-piece scientific puzzle - and the authors are not only aware of this, but are at pains to emphasise it to their readers. We don't yet know why IVF patients who never end up registering births or adopting have an increased rate of death in the immediate followup period after starting IVF, compared with those who do. The authors claim that "because [their] study is based on a natural experiment, the results are less likely to be due to reverse causation" - an assertion which doesn't impress me much, under the circumstances, based on my limited knowledge of statistics, epidemiology, and reproductive medicine. "Less likely" seems (to me, here) a far cry from "impossible". We - and especially your Aunt Jane - must remain open to the idea that death coinciding with infertility treatment may be a cause of childlessness, rather than the other way around***.

In conclusion: this is an interesting, if somewhat limited study, which has been over-reported in what must have been either a slow news week or a please-distract-them-from-the-real-news week. The authors themselves deserve to be thanked for their efforts and encouraged to dig further. The Daily Mail deserves to be forever transformed into pictures of tea and kittens***.

Part two of our trip to Cambodia is coming.

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*I'm not sure exactly what sort of "comorbidities" the authors had in mind here - my assertion is the fairly vague one that they knew they didn't have all the info.

**There are valid statistical techniques for handling rare outcomes. What you learned about small numbers leading to unreliable results is an oversimplification which borders on an outright lie. Note that over twenty-one thousand couples were assessed.

***The authors do raise this point when talking about the group of adoptive parents who, they speculate, may have a decreased death rate owing to "survivor bias" - given that Danish laws do not permit parents to concurrently pursue adoption and IVF treatment. On the other hand, it must be noted that they have adjusted for the number of treatment cycles.

****I had to repeat both links again, just to encourage everyone to follow them.

I really enjoyed Mel's recent series on her family's Literary Tour of London and Oxford (I think I missed one there... but that'll get you pointed the right way). I'm a sucker for a travel blog. (If you are too, the other series that comes to mind is Vee and Boo in Thailand. Remind me how old he was then, Vee?) This travelogue is planned in several parts. Parts one and two describe our itinerary. Part three covers some general observations about travelling with kids of this age in Cambodia.

Phnom Penh to Battambang

We recently returned from a trip to Cambodia, with the young Master and Miss, who are now nearly-two and nearly-four-point-five. We last (and first) went to Cambodia in 2002 - a whole ten years ago - and there have certainly been a few changes. The first clue came when, just before the trip, a friend described Phnom Penh as her favourite city in Asia. "Really?" I thought. "Phnom Penh? That dusty little hicksville? Big enough to be mildly unfriendly and noticeably more expensive than the country's more regional areas, but without any more wealth or sophistication to show for it?"

Last time we came to Cambodia, we started out in Siem Reap, travelled across to Battambang, and finished in Phnom Penh. I admit this probably gave Phnom Penh a tough assignment - Cambodia is, without doubt, one of my two all-time favourite travel destinations, the other being Turkey. In both places we were able to rock up with no definite plans except a return air ticket from a different city*, and in both places we found the locals to be genuinely interested in making our journey a pleasure. There was no hassle and no hard sell from those who were also interested in making their money from tourists. Everyone was full of general conversation, and it was also easy to get travel suggestions. Organising stuff was a breeze. So of course, when we got to the less-welcoming big smoke, Phnom Penh, and sensed our return to the status of cashed-up strangers, it was bound to be the kind of let-down that paints an unfair memory.

Our guide-book described Phnom Penh as being "back", and they were right. The place has changed, and I might want to live there. Mind you, we saw it but briefly - we had only an eight-day itinerary, and we had decided we needed to ease The Young Master into it, as he tends to get a bit overwhelmed by new experiences, so we went straight from the airport to the hotel by taxi, hung out by the hotel pool and ate at the hotel restaurant, then packed up our bags fresh and early the next morning for our road trip to Battambang.

Phnom Penh to Battambang

Yes - road trip to Battambang. This was a new one for us. Last time we did the reverse trip, we did it by plane. You could technically get between the two places by road, but it was a fourteen-hour-plus trip - not including the time it would take you to dig the car out of a bog if it had rained recently - and that's if you made it past the land mines and bandits. The train service was worse, if a little safer from land mines. Nowadays, you can accomplish the 300km trip in five or six hours, along a sealed (though somewhat potholed) road. The train service and airline no longer exist.

We piled into our minibus at 9am after a hearty, western-style breakfast. We'd originally ordered a whole taxi since we filled one anyway, but the hotel could only locate a minibus, the exclusive use of which was offered to us at the same price but without most of the seatbelts. We used the one we did have to strap The Young Miss into her car seat, whilst The Young Master experienced the delicious thrill of travelling completely unrestrained. None of us were nervous about this - despite the newly-sealed roads, the traffic meanders. Our bus driver not only had to avoid the potholes, but also motorbikes, some with various trailers and ridiculous loads, bicycles, motorbikes towing bicycles, hand-led horses and cows, usually pulling carts, stray dogs, and people trying to hail minibuses from the middle of the "highway".

The Young Master spent the morning getting used to all of this from the safety of his vantage point behind the windscreen, which was just as well because the first time he actually had to interact with Cambodia directly - when we got out for a lunch stop - an elderly woman carrying a basket on her head bent down in his face, pinched his cheeks, flashed a toothless smile, and offered him some deep-fried tarantulas on a stick. He held up to this well, managed to decline the tarantulas politely, and even started playing with two of the local children whilst we ate lunch. When it all got too much for him, he asked to return to the minibus so he could hide out whilst everyone else finished up. The Young Miss, meanwhile, was in her element, having found a swinging chair, a playmate her own age, and more doting fans than she knew what to do with.

We got back on the road for the next big push, and the kids were just coming to the end of their attention spans when we pulled into Battambang. The hotel of our choice was unfortunately full, but we found a room with three wide, single beds in another one just across the road. We reshuffled our stuff and went out for an aimless walk around town to stretch our legs. The Young Master decided he was going to wave and say hello to all the under-ten-year-olds he saw, and he did. Before long, he'd found a group of them to play with, and he and Miss easily cobbled together a racing game despite the lack of mutual language. When it was finished, we walked on by the river - wow, such a lot of new buildings by the river since last time - where the Young Master was enthralled to discovered a game played with a shuttle-cock-like device, the name of which temporarily escapes me (lakeh? something like lakeh?). By this time, it was getting on for dinner. We grabbed some buttered corn cobs from a street-seller to tide the kids over, found ourselves somewhere to eat, and then headed straight "home" to bed.

Coming in Part Two: Battambang and Siem Reap
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*Side note: I think Mel is a great person and everything and I really was interested in reading about her travels, but I have decided to NEVER, NEVER go on holiday with her family. This is for mutual benefit. I like to arrive informed, but thoroughly unscheduled. Mel... likes to arrive scheduled. We would kill each other.