A young boy walks on the tracks from school. Phnom Penh on ROYAL CAMBODIAN RAILWAYS. The journey from Phnom Penh to Battambang is the last working route. A passenger train, operates only at weekends. A Czech made diesel locomotive, leaves the capital Saturday morning, arriving in Battambang 22 hours later in the dead of night, and returns on Sunday. Max speed is about 30kmh, often slower due to the track's terrible condition. Carriages are dilapidated, with holes in the floor and only spaces for windows. Passengers sit or sleep on hardwood bench seats, hammocks, or on the floor of cargo carriages. The drivers, controllers & guards add to their small monthly pay by charging for local passengers and cargo; from motor bikes and local produce to timber loaded aboard at the 30 stations along the route. This together with other trains and farm vehicles further slows the journey. In rural areas, the track is a lifeline, and used for local transport on 'bamboo trains' powered by belt-motors, or pushcarts. Boom towns, with a 'goldrush mentality' near the rapidly depleted rainforest, are a hive of activity, with logging as their resource, where children workers even gamble away their earnings on cardgames. In the city, the railway has a life of its own, where people live and work nearby or on the track itself. Market stalls, restaurants, chairs and tables, are removed only briefly, when the infrequent train passes! Cambodia Phnom Penh Battambang train track railways locomotive engine royal Cambodian railways travel route path way journey chemin de fer passenger, cargo goods tourist arduous hard work slow fast car vehicle poor dilapidated energy environment transport fuel traditions old falling apart bygone age epoch another time Khmer local long short distance sun boy girl children alone schoolboy walking satchel rucksack idyllic journey tree rural outside rural countryside hand walking by walking balancing tightrope going to school

FISHERMEN MEKONG RIVER. South East Asia, Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Mekong River. The Cham fisher people live in various desolated villages along the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. The fisher families live like river gypsy nomads, working and living on their boats, sleeping under a sprung bamboo frame, all their worldly goods stored below deck. They live in extended families, with numerous boats, together for safety. Their diet is rice, vegetables and fish. Their sleek wooden boats are powered by petrol outboard motors with batteries or generators to supply lighting at night. Their fishing technique is laying nets twice or three times per day, which are weighted well below the surface, using old paint aerosal canisters as buoyant floaters, hanging just beneath the surface. These particular fisher families, living at the junction of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, overlooked by Phnom Penh, sell their catch at the Vietnamese market, on the banks of the river. Their life and fortunes are controlled by the cycle of the river. As the river levels drop, so the quantity of fish decreases, until after the heavy floods of the monsoon they fill the river again. They are poor traditional Muslims, marginalised from mainstream society, living a third world life in the immmediate shadow of the first world. The Cham, originally a people of an ancient kingdom called Champa, are a small and disenfranchised community who were disinherited of their land. They are a socially important ethnic group in Cambodia, numbering close to 300,000. The Cham people, live in some 400 villages across Kampong Chnang and Kampong Cham provinces. Their religion is Muslim and their language belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian family. Their livelihoods are as diverse as rice farming, cattle trading, hunting and fishing. Cham Muslim fisherman Mekong cham, Champa Cambodia Phnom Penh Tonle Sap river stream water religion boat fishing fish fisherman fishermen fisher peoplecommunities net nets trawl trawling trawlers family extended community wooden nomads nomadic gypsy gypsies men women children travellers houseboat house home water delta junction two rivers freshwater contrast third world developing sustainable ecology environment survival making a living veil voile sarong silhouetted shapes dark silhouette reflections sun sunrise sunset red glow communal

EVANGELISM AMERICAN STYLE. South East Asia. Battambang, Cambodia. A 'University of Nations' project, registered in Cambodia as a project of the international Christian Evangelical 'Youth With a Mission' (YWAM), run by 'Group Leader' Garth Gustafson. It is a fanatical Evangelist youth movement who use english and sports teachings as a vehicle, together with religious indocrination, to turn buddhist youth and even monks, towards the Christian Bible. Garth preaches quasi-religeous sermons about 'hot and cold' climate types, of Western moral superiority and stronger work ethics, American right obsessions with family and personal responsibility, versus "primitive people who use smiles to hide their lies". They preach they "want to see your (Cambodian) nation change to be a good nation, to glorify God" but YWAM is a cult-like organisation with right wing and facism roots. The YWAMers force themselves upon AIDS patients in local hospitals, looking for the very sick and dying, offering neither drugs nor food, but instead, prayers about Christian redemption, offer everlasting life, which when rejected by buddhists, they are accused of being "bitter" for declining them.

SEX INDUSTRY TOURISM. South East Asia, Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Taxi girls, prostitutes, serve foriegn tourists & Khmer, Cambodians. The sex industry is part of the fabric, servicing all classes of Cambodian society. Girls are forced into prostitution because of poverty and corruption that exists across the country. People might earn 1 to 2 $ per day, even less in rural areas, so the lure of prostitution is high. Families can sell young girls, virgins, for several hundred dollars. Cheap brothels line the streets in parts of the city centre, near railway tracks, and on the periphery. Sex for Cambodians at cheap prices in the street brothels, as low as 1 $ US, to exorbitant fees in penthouse hotel suites for the rich. Sex tourism industry attracts Western and Asian tourists typically paying 10 - 30 $ US. Expressions such as 'yam yam', eating, for a blowjob 'bam bam' for intercourse. There are 'lady-boys', youths, who use the money to pay for sex change operations. Prostitutes spend lots of money on make-up, clothes, and mobile telephones. They live in squalor. Due to public advertising campaigns and outreach work, Aids and HIV cases have dramatically decreased, in Cambodia, since the late '90s. Condoms are encouraged, are cheap and widely available. This is seen as a success story by medical and health authorities. There are risks as ex-prostitutes known as 'sweethearts' don't use condoms with their partners. Brothels, v & madams take their cut, but many taxi-girls work as free agents. Bars, pool halls or beer gardens have staff and taxi-girls available to service male clients, some work as barmaids or escorts. There is violence against prostitutes; gang-rape and murder by Khmer gangs. Once a girl has worked as a prostitute it is unlikely she can ever marry. Phnom Penh Cambodia Sex Industry love selling body prostitute hooker lady streets AIDS SIDA dangerous porn pornographic, trade girl girls buying casual informal sex tourism trade unequal protection single couple man woman young age difference, beauty Asian billiards pool bar brothel bordel mobile telephone eyelashes stool power for sale tourisme taxi girls lady boys call girls escorts foreigners whites Caucasian men sheets

KHMER ROUGE CHRISTIANS. South East Asia, Cambodia, Pailin. Several high ranking ex Khmer Rouge officials including the notorious former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Khek Lev, also known as Duch, have sympathies towards Christianity and Evangelism. Some have changed religion or even become Evangelist priests and pasteurs. Ex-Khmer Rouge buddhists have something to fear: Buddhism offers neither redemption or forgiveness; the Karma and the next life are affected by the present one. On the other hand, Christianity and Evangelism allow one to be born again, it forgives our sins and offers redemption. This proposition is far more attractive to those who orchestrated, organised and carried out mass murder, and torture on a grand scale, against the Cambodian people, leaving 2 million dead in the 1970's. American priests are working in Khmer Rouge strongholds, bringing their Evanglist message, and are having some success. Approved rules for UN-backed Khmer Rouge genocide trials are now in place. The highest ranking Duch is in prison, in Phnom Penh, ready to be tried. What role the Evangelists will play in this scenario is yet to be seen.

Koeun trains indigenous women, traditional birth attendants, the basic procedures for ante-natal care and support for pregnant mothers (Koeun centre measuring, wearing stethoscope).. Touth Koeun, an ex-Khmer Rouge child soldier turned midwife and trainer, is on the frontline again, but this time campaigning on maternity issues, in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia. The country experiences an extraordinarily high incidence of infant and maternal mortality. The Preah Vihear province, in Cambodia's north, bordering on the Thai border, can be described as an outback rural area, villages often many hours away from a health centre or clinic, and sometimes near the frontline where soldiers and their families are living. Here, Touth Kouen, a locally much respected pioneer and experienced in maternity issues, trains indigenous women, known as 'Traditional Birth Attendants' (TBA's), correct procedures to assist midwives and nurses, to give direct support to mothers and their babies, during ante and post natal periods. Traditional bush medicine and spiritual practices by 'Kruu' bush doctors, involving the killing of endangered species, gathering herbs and plants, whose burnt remains are often ground up into unhealthy potions, and fed to mothers as miracle cures, and postpartum heating, can cause illness and death. The Kruu, and local people in general need to be re-educated, so as to create a healthy nurturing environment for mothers and their babies. Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia

Phnom Penh's Nagaworld Casino and five-star hotel is one of Cambodia's biggest private employers with more than 3,000 staff catering for a stream of visitors. It functions non-stop 24 hours a day with an inside airconditioned controlled temperature of 21 degrees.It is a 14 storey hotel and entertainment complex, with more than 500 bedrooms, 14 restaurants and bars, 700 slot machines and 200 gambling tables. There is also a spa, karaoke and VIP suites, live bands, and a nightclub. Its monolithic building dominates the skyline at the meeting point of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, in stark contrast to nearly intricate Khmer architecture.///Guests gambling with croupier with her back to us in Nagaworld casino Headline: Nagaworld Casino, 5 star hotel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia Keywords: nagaworld, casino, hotel, relax, leisure, entertainment, phnom, penh, cambodia, five, 5, star, tourism, restaurant, accomodation, travel, holiday, asia, south, east, SEA, globe, mekong, development, poker, gambling, cards, baccarat, croupier, losing, game

FISHERMEN MEKONG RIVER. South East Asia, Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Mekong River. The Cham fisher people live in various desolated villages along the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. The fisher families live like river gypsy nomads, working and living on their boats, sleeping under a sprung bamboo frame, all their worldly goods stored below deck. They live in extended families, with numerous boats, together for safety. Their diet is rice, vegetables and fish. Their sleek wooden boats are powered by petrol outboard motors with batteries or generators to supply lighting at night. Their fishing technique is laying nets twice or three times per day, which are weighted well below the surface, using old paint aerosal canisters as buoyant floaters, hanging just beneath the surface. These particular fisher families, living at the junction of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, overlooked by Phnom Penh, sell their catch at the Vietnamese market, on the banks of the river. Their life and fortunes are controlled by the cycle of the river. As the river levels drop, so the quantity of fish decreases, until after the heavy floods of the monsoon they fill the river again. They are poor traditional Muslims, marginalised from mainstream society, living a third world life in the immmediate shadow of the first world. The Cham, originally a people of an ancient kingdom called Champa, are a small and disenfranchised community who were disinherited of their land. They are a socially important ethnic group in Cambodia, numbering close to 300,000. The Cham people, live in some 400 villages across Kampong Chnang and Kampong Cham provinces. Their religion is Muslim and their language belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian family. Their livelihoods are as diverse as rice farming, cattle trading, hunting and fishing.