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The house I’m renting is across the courtyard from a small church and the larger family home of the church’s pastor. He lives there with his wife and family of 2 (with one more on the way) and a collection of assorted extended family members. There’s an 80+ year old Granny, his wife’s teenage sister, various aunts and then friends and members of the church who seem to pop in at will. It’s very much a Cambodian set up. It’s rare for there to be no one around and yet mid morning it can be unusually quiet – the heat or school having driven people away or inside.

My little house is across the yard. It’s a work in progress having several unfinished rooms, but its one-bedroom houses a more than comfortable bed plus family size mosquito net. There’s a living space, porch (which is cool and attracts the 2 family dogs who act as guards) and back room that houses the toilet and kitchen. The children were inquisitive at first, but now seem to respect the space as mine – a concept which must be very alien to youngsters who share their own house with so many others.

Inquisitive eyes

My set up is simple. I give some more money each month to the family and in return I get some meals brought over when they see that I’m around. Nothing too flash and always what the family is having. There’s always rice and plenty of it, and then it can be fried fish or a soup or vegetable stew. The meat is small in quantity but perfectly satisfying. They use it more as a garnish or to add flavour than as the main element of the dish. It’s a situation I think is much healthier and ecologically sustainable.

The bare essentials to comfortable living

I do have a kitchen of sorts with the essentials for keeping and preparing food. There’s the icebox which has its block of ice replenished every 2 days (50 cents worth you have to collect yourself from the ice man up the road).

There’s the bottled water that lasts about a week and which, like the gas in the single burner stove, is recycled at the shop where you bought it from – the refill being considerably less than the container it comes in.

Then there are the ant-tight Tupperware boxes that house those non-perishable items that always seem to attract the thousands of tiny ants that descend on food in a matter of minutes if you are careless enough to leave them out.

The shower is the small bucket!

Finally, there’s the upside down colander that keeps the rats at bay! So fed up was I of having to clear up rat dropping every morning that I resorted to extreme measures. Look away now if you are squeamish. The Cambodian version of rat poison is a plastic plate and tin of extremely sticky glue. The glue is spread with some difficulty over the plate except for a small area in the middle, which is baited with food. It’s then left out over night where rat activity has been detected. The rat will stick in seconds, its struggles only makes it come into contact with more glue. The tin also states that the rat’s cries attract more curious rats. I had limited success on day one. Having placed the plate on a workbench the struggles of the caught rat had up set the plate and glue was liberally splashed around the floor and tabletops. This took several days to clean up as the glue had to harden. I couldn’t quite work out why, amidst all this carnage, there was no rat. The mystery was cleared up on discovering a gnawed-off tail stuck to the plate when I was cleaning up!!!!! Small modifications and a few days of trying improved things – 3 rats caught, although when you have to finish them off with a brick and then scrape them off and bury them I’m not sure it’s worth the trauma and mess.

About 20 months ago when I decided that I wanted to become an independent documentary filmmaker, I had a dream of living somewhere exotic and basic, yet still able, with the advances in technology, to be able to turn out films of high quality and for a worthwhile cause.

I think I’ve achieved the dream.

Portable workstation[/b]

I’m sitting here in a small wood and tin house that I rent for $50 a month, in a rural part of Cambodia with a lap top and external hard drive gently whirring and complementing the sound of the portable fan pointed in my general direction. I’m digitizing one of two short films I’ve completed for Epic Arts (the charity I’ve been volunteering for as drama teacher and filmmaker over the past 3 years). The DVD that I create will be sent off to AUS AID in Australia next week as part of a longer report showing various community projects that have been funded by them.

The two films are 4 and 8 mins respectively and took about 3 weeks in total to complete. I shot and edited them both and then, with the client’s assistance, tweaked and modified them so that they fitted the brief. One was a paid commission – only $300 so I won’t be retiring just yet – but out here even that goes a long way. It’s a small start and I’m hoping it’ll lead onto other paid work both with this charity and maybe others.

There is a risk when working in this sector that you don’t get paid or if you do then it’s only tokenism. When the work is so interesting and the cause so worthy it is difficult to say NO. It’s easy to go above and beyond the expected. However, even a short 2 min You-Tube film takes many days work and requires no less professionalism or less professional equipment. I can see that I’m going to need to think carefully before taking on any thing else for free! It’s a tricky situation. Charities by their very definition are organizations that don’t have much money, are reliant on the good will of donors and therefore are honour-bound to see that the money given is spent in the most effective way possible. My work may, on the surface, seem a frivolous extra. However, more and more I’m hearing that it’s one of the most effective ways to show off a charity’s work to the widest audience possible. Someone may not have the time or inclination to read a 20 page report but they can watch a 5 min film during their coffee break. I think with the development of the mobile phone as a device for screening images and downloading from the internet there will be a growing market in both the first world and developing worlds (for telecommunication technology is alive and kicking even here in Cambodia) for short, effective and informative films. The biggest question though is how to fund it! It might be what I’d like to do, but is it sustainable – can I earn a living from it!

It’s the closest I think I’ll ever come to filming in a war zone. If I had stayed on in Bangkok another week, when all hell broke loose on the streets as the army lost patience with the Red shirt demonstrators, I don’t think I could have been any more frightened as when I attended my first Laos Rocket Festival (Bun Bang Fai)

Jackie (translator), Mark (filmmaker) + a smallish Rocket

This was also my very first SOLO ‘overseas’ filming project. No longer the cosy- team feeling that surrounded the filming of a longer documentary back in Cambodia last December or the sense of being ‘hired’ by an organization; there to guide and support me as experienced with the 3 short promotional films I’d recently finished for the EPIC Arts charity (again in Cambodia). No. This was me, just me, self financed and pursuing a hunch that the Rocket Festivals of Laos and Northern Thailand in mid May of each year might prove an interesting subject for a film.

The seed has been planted back in 2007 on my first trip to Laos. I’d seen a postcard (just the one mind you) showing a decorated rocket about 6 meters in length on the back of a flat bed truck. A smaller photo insert on the card showed the rocket post launch – a plume of smoke the only discernable trace as it reached incalculable heights. This was ‘home-made’ technology in action and very impressive it looked too.

A successful launch

The intervening years hadn’t revealed too many new facts adding to the mystic of the event. I had discovered that the festival was an ancient one – its origins lay in a fertility festival where offerings were made to a rain god in advance of the planting season and hoped for monsoonal rains that would ensure a bumper crop.

I’d learnt too that it was a rural festival with villages, families and businesses all coming together at festivals all over the region to complete for prestige, prayer or even the possibility of a cash prize for the best dressed or straightest launched rocket.

My trip necessitated finding a festival to attend – not as easy as one might expect given that I was staying in Vientiane (the capital of Laos) and very few people seemed to know what was happening in the countryside. The English language newspaper on the day before I left even carried a story of how a group of monks from one of the city’s Wats had returned red-faced after failing to find the festival where their rocket was due to be launched. My ‘team’ consisted of Jackie, a short, lively, 20 something Laotian and work colleague of Anouza, my only Laos friend. He had agreed to act as my interpreter for $10 – the minimal fee that my self-financing budget could stretch to, but one that he seemed quite pleased with (During the week he informed me the average annual income was in the region of $700-100.) He had arranged for Gem, a Rocket Festival veteran and aficionado who also had a mini van for hire, to take me first to meet a rocket maker, then a monk with a tall rocket related story from 400 years ago and then to a festival several days later.

Apparently Monks make the best rockets

It was the rocket maker who told us the whereabouts of the festival that coming Sunday and even he got the dates wrong. The whole trip would have been for nothing or another costly week could have been spent in Vientiane waiting, had it not been for a ‘smaller’ (about 2000 people) festival we came across en-route to the non-existent bigger event we had been told was on the cards for that weekend.

The day had a vague plan. Find a couple of groups to be the film’s subjects – preferably a group who had never made a rocket before and whose efforts might be less than successful and then a group who were ‘experts’. As is the nature with documentaries, you may have a plan, but that inevitably is going to change. The fact that I was shooting and recording the sound all myself, was trying to direct Jackie in what to ask for in our interviews and that all this was happening in sweltering heat with firecrackers being let off all over the place made for a testing experience.

We did find 3 possible subjects soon after arriving. Jackie expressed reluctance to walk into a private family party and ask if a foreign filmmaker could begin asking questions and filming the events as they unfolded. I pointed out to him in assertive tones that surprised even me, that I hadn’t travelled half way around the world to have a refusal at the final hurdle. As it was, Ms Noi’s family orientated rocket party was very welcoming. It was 10 am but it looked as if the beer and whisky had been flowing freely for several hours. I had decided my best line for avoiding the drinks I knew would be forced upon me/us as guests was that I needed a clear head/eye to film with. Ms Noi no longer lived in this her village of birth, but she returned every year to celebrate the festival, launch the rocket that had likely been made by a ‘professional rocket maker’ and pray for an auspicious year to come. She wasn’t in it to win prizes; she was merely following a family tradition and getting pretty merry into the bargain with her quite sizable extended family. One of these was a man, dressed up in white face and lipstick, a dress and a blouse open just enough to reveal false, gently swinging breasts made from some old tights filled with sand. He danced in a coy yet flirtatious manner for the camera. The reason for the cross-dresser wasn’t immediately apparent. Later in the day when we caught up once again with Ms Noi’s troupe did we see the same man dancing but this time surrounded by men and women sporting 2 foot wooden phalluses simulating intercourse at regular intervals and a wooden female puppet animated by the bearer which f**ked itself with a small penis it carried in its hands. The age-old fertility origins of what is now seen as a Buddhist festival were here for all to see.

The second group we followed were a whole lot scarier. Not only were they plastered from the moment we met them at 10.30 am but they had by far the biggest rocket. A Bang Fai Sen – not the biggest that is possible to build, but 80-100 kgs none the less of tightly packed, homemade gunpowder in a 4 meter plastic drainpipe and with a trailing bamboo tail of another 3 meters for stability. The man we tried to grab an interview from casually lit small ‘bangers’ (paper triangles of gunpowder) whilst talking and randomly tossed them a few meters away as I filmed. After about the first half hour I learned not to flinch!

What is quite incredible about this festival is that no one got seriously hurt or killed. Considering most of the rockets were launched in the late afternoon after well over 8 hours of hard drinking and that smaller kids were letting off their own smaller rockets that could have shot off in any direction or exploded in their hands the lack of accident was frankly a miracle. Where were the parents in all this? Where were those Health and Safety Nazis you get so many of in the West? This was refreshingly free of them – the only H & S mantra that seemed in operation was “if it’s your time to get maimed or killed then it’s your time – it’s Karma!”

What was also apparent was that there was , amidst all the drinking and merrymaking, a fair bit of sophisticated science going on. Prior to launching all rockets were damped down. The exterior of the largest ones had cooling clothes draped over them. All, from the smallest to the largest, had damp rags on sticks inserted up through the gunpowder core to create the conditions necessary for the slow burn that would enable the rocket to roar majestically upwards rather than explode on the launch tower. This was rocket science – home style and pretty impressive it was too. Of the 30 or more rockets of size launched that day I only witnessed or heard of 4 -6 that exploded or veered off in a wayward directions.

Cooling the Rockets

And finally I couldn’t help but note the irony that the country which holds the unenviable record as being the most bombed country in history (with more than half a million bombing missions carried out secretly by the Americans in a side show to the Vietnamese war) should now, and apparently for many centuries, have used high explosives and missiles in a far less deadly fashion – but this time sending them in the opposite direction.

Some of those that came down

We processed, “ark-like”, 2 by 2, through the newly harvested rice paddies. It was about 7am and the sky was a little overcast. The number 2 is auspicious at a Cambodian wedding (for obvious reasons). Those guests who had braved the early start were asked to carry items for the wedding breakfast. Again, 2 of each. Apparently, if only one item is presented then it is taken out of the procession. The items were simple things – fruit, canned drinks and the all important rice (made into a sticky, sweet cake with the addition of palm sugar). Such is the importance of rice to the daily lives of all Cambodians (especially rural ones, like the participants at this wedding) that the rice dish gets “star billing” in the procession. As my partner and I had been asked to carry the rice I found myself just behind the groom and his ushers at the head of the line.

We snaked our way across the 2 -3 fields, keeping to the small levees that separate the now-bone dry rice fields. The small hut where the groom, food and guests had assembled was a few hundred yards away from the bride’s family house. It made for an incongruous sight. Rural simplicity, distant palm trees, mountains and grazing cattle combined with heavily made up women in all their finery, the men, some looking ill at ease in their rented suits and the typical gaudy, pin-stripped tent that one comes to associate with Khmer weddings.

The bride made her entrance by descending a rickerty looking ladder from the family house. The simple room where the actual wedding ceremony was going to take place, had been strengthened with the addition of a few more stills to prop up the already sagging floor.

The bride looked amazing, dressed in the first of her many outfits hired for the day. It is not an exaggeration to say that she would change her outfit about once every hour during the course of the day and into the evening’s celebrations. Her name was Ali and she was a worker at the EPiC Arts Café. In her early 20s she could easily have passed for a woman in her mid 30s so heavily made up was she. It’s a fashion thing – make up equates to glamour as do painted nails, jewelry and brightly coloured dresses. Even the simplest of rural weddings try to strive for the sophistication of a fairy-tale, glossy magazine spread.

Ali was marrying a man she barely knew. Her family had arranged the match. They had probably met for the first time at the betrothal ceremony 6 weeks earlier. He came from a province about 8 hours away. We were to discover during the course of the day that she was expected shortly after the wedding to leave Kampot and live with her new husband’s family. I don’t think the implications of this fact dawned on Ali until she was thanking her EPiC friends for attending during the evening party.

The morning ceremony was the important wedding bit – not that you’d know it from the behaviour of the guests. As so few could fit into the newly-strengthened room, the other guests simply got on with enjoying the wedding breakfast whilst the all important rituals were conducted out of view. At one point I managed to get access to the room. Ali was wearing a different outfit, the temperature was on the rise in a crowded room that had no air-conditioning or fan, and a woman friend was fussing around her, making last minute adjustments to the outfit and dabbing the sweat off her upper lip. I had arrived at a particularly poignant part of the ceremony. A hired male singer was singing a haunting, dirge-like song to summon up the spirits of dead ancestors. At the same time there was a plate of offerings for the summoned ghosts consisting of rice, palm wine and a lighted cigarette. All the essentials for a good meal!

I returned to the wedding later that evening. I had been able to rest throughout the heat in the middle of the day. As is typical of Khmer weddings, everything is broadcast to whoever is within earshot through a massive loud speaker system. I heard later that the various ceremonies had lasted until 2pm that afternoon. I was surprised to see Ali and her entourage still on their feet. They had been on their feet for over 14 hours by this point.

Guests and Lookers on

The evening was all about eating and drinking. Khmer weddings are big! This one must have catered for about 200 guests. These were two families who can’t have much disposable income, but food is at the heart of Cambodian life. It is literally “life giving” and so no expense is spared. Honeymoons, house deposits, future children college funds – all take a backseat to the need to provide friends and family with a good feed. We assisted with the presentation of money in the envelopes that our invites had come in, but I doubt if it would have covered costs.

Glamourous Chakriya (the main subject of our film)

I admire the Khmer philosophy for life – live life to the full today – don’t concern yourself with what the future may hold. This was born out in the effort and expense that guests had gone to in getting ‘glammed’ up for the evening party. People (well women really) who I have been working with for the past 8 weeks, appeared barely recognizable in outfits that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Hollywood red carpet. It seems no one needs much excuse to ‘go for it’.

After the eating we witnessed the final wedding rituals which including a strange fusion of borrowed Western rites and objects, like a 3 tiered cake and champagne pyramid, with more Cambodian ones like the symbolic feeding of the groom and bride’s parents by the bride and groom. After all of this was over the tables and chairs were cleared away for some dancing. Then we had another of those typical Cambodian events – a power cut!

Me and Sam (keeping the lad's side of things glamourous)

I thought we were doing quite well. I had spent the day on the back of Sam Neang’s motorbike as we travelled from one Phnom Penh suburb to another. Sometimes busy dual carriageways, other times small dusty alleyways. She’s a careful driver, but the road rules here are scary. Here are a couple of examples: pulling out into traffic that is going the wrong way, moving against its flow until there is a break and you can move to the correct side of the road. When on a roundabouts you give way to anything that is entering on your right – it seems to go against ones instincts and makes you monitor the other joining roads, but it does keep the traffic flow moving. If there is a petrol forecourt on an intersection with traffic lights it is not uncommon for your moto or tuk-tuk driver to take a short cut across the pumps rather than wait it out at the lights. All this and the sheer volume at peak times should lead to a large number of road accidents. As it was, on my 3 days in the capital, I didn’t see any – that is until the day I left. It was a Sunday morning, when one would expect the streets to be a little less busy. I was driven past 2 accidents that looked like they had involved motorbikes. There were ambulances in attendance at both and there, I thought, were at least 2 more disabled people to add to the many 1,000s in this country. Then an hour later we came to a road diversion at a country bridge. My travelling companions asked the questions and this was the story, born out by the grim remains being craned onto a flatbed truck. On Christmas Eve, two articulated trucks, one carrying gas, had met each other head on on the bridge. Neither had wanted to give way. There had been a huge explosion. The bridge had buckled under the impact and the heat. The two drivers had died.

And yet life moves on. Whilst the bridge was out of action, the local landowner, whose field was now being used as the detour route, was making 500riel (about 7p) from each vehicle that was using his land to bypass the scene of the accident.

There are traffic lights in Phnom Penh that are ultra realistic, and unlike any I have seen in ‘modern cities’ . They have the usual green man, red man set up, but above is a digital clock that counts down the seconds you have left, either to complete your journey across the road or wait by the curb. What is interesting and, to my mind amusing, is that when it shows the animated green man in the action of walking, the figure speeds up slowly as the seconds tick away. As it gets to 5 seconds and counting the little figure is actually sprinting! All that the animation needs to make the point is for a car to hit him when zero has been reached.

I had some new shoes made whilst I was in Phnom Penh. The old sandals had done me proud. Bought in New Zealand in 2001 they had probably travelled more kms than all of the Cambodian friends I was in Phnom Penh with. But sadly they were on their way out. Soles coming off and leather starting to split. I was taken to ‘shoe street’. I use to be amazed at how professions out here all congregated around the same street. Wouldn’t it lead to less trade than being spread out across the city? In Hanoi there is a street dedicated to the carving of gravestones, another for the making of coffins. As a customer is does make for easy shopping though. If you don’t find what you are looking for in one shop you merely move next door. My shoe experience was remarkably easy. I went in showed them my existing shoes, asked for some “exactly the same”, got to choose my leather, had one foot drawn around on some graph paper, two measurements taken across the widest parts of my foot and then was told to come back tomorrow about the same time. The only problem that presented itself was that I hadn’t brought any other shoes and therefore had to suffer the ‘flip-flop’ rubbing from the temporary shoes I was given whilst I waited. But the pain was worth it as I hope you’ll agree from the photos. And the price tag for my bespoke sandals? - $17 (just over £10)