Leaving SE Asia

So I’m keeping this brief b/c my flight to Sydney is in a few hours. I made it to Hong Kong alright. I last left you in Mongkol Borei – a little rural town in Cambodia not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It’s not exactly a tourist destination. I spent the night staying w/ an NGO worker. My favourite memories are eating mac & cheese and sitting in the hammock looking up at the stars in the sky. It was great!

The next day, I followed an AIDS home-based care worker around the countryside and we visited various different people in the villages. I heard snippets of quite sad stories. When I get a chance, I will try to post a few pictures from that day – the faces of HIV/AIDS in Cambodia. A common thread was poverty. These people need ARV’s but they also need opportunities to generate incomes for themselves. I’ll mention more when I get the pics up. Thankfully, a lot of them have access to ARV’s so they’ve been given a second lease on life. I also visited the local hospital and AIDS clinic in the afternoon. Then I caught yet another crazy bumpy taxi ride jammed full w/ people to the Cambodian border town of Poipet.

I spent the evening hanging out w/ a bunch of young NGO workers who work in Poipet. Poipet is a very interesting place… Most people just pass through and avoid spending time there. But I think it gave me tremendous insight into Cambodia. There’s a strip of land between Thailand and Cambodia that is a sort of no man’s land. It’s just full of casinos. There’s no gambling in Thailand allowed but lots of Thais come to the casinos. Gambling is not permitted in Cambodia, but Cambodians are allowed to work in the casinos. I think there are a lot of other shady activities that happen in the area – as is w/ any wild west border town.
The next morning, I crossed the border with hundreds of other Cambodians going to Thailand to work for the day. And it’s amazing to see the difference – big dirt roads, poor people, slums on the Cambodian side, and then once you cross over to the Thai side – it’s pretty smooth sailing along paved highways. So I eventually got to Bangkok and caught an earlier flight back to Hong Kong, which I was very happy about. I had a day in HK just to do errands – cut my hair, print photos, and go for dim sum w/ the fam. Onto Australia in just a few hours……………. :D Wohoo!