Met Sak at 7am for a final coffee at his streetside haunt before going back to the hotel to pack. I've left practically all my clothes (after 6 weeks of being covered in dust and scrubbed clean every week, my t-shirts and trousers were looking a bit sorry for themselves) and filled the space in my bag with Cambodian books & magazines! Prior to lunch, Sak & I headed off to visit a local organisation called Ptea Teuk Dong which is a small non-profit, non-r...

Didn't get much sleep last night - never do when I know a long flight is pending - so I really appreciated the strong coffee at the local cafe with Sak this morning! Spent the morning teaching and then a couple of hours this afternoon with Theara, learning to cook more Khmer food. Sak had given me the use of his dirt bike again, so mid-afternoon I went for an hour's ride into the countryside around Battambang. I've been riding without a helmet (although I have h...

Well I finally made it back to Battambang. The minibus was late picking me up from the hotel so the main bus didn't leave Phnom Penh until 9.15am......and the journey dragged and dragged and dragged! Finally 6.5 hours later we made it to Battambang, having stopped 3 times on the way, twice for food & toilet stops and the third time (which was really frustrating because we were only 30 mins from Battambang and I had Theara & Chamnap waiting for me) because...

Spent today with The Cambodia Trust and what an amazing day it was! My thanks go to Mary Scott and Jan Nye for allowing me to spend time at the clinic and also Lim Eng, one of the CBR workers, with whom I spent the morning in Kandal Strung District meeting four patients - 3 ladies with polio and 1 gentleman with a prosthetic arm. Lim Eng herself lost her leg in a landmine accident in 1982 and she has worked with CT for 11 years. She clearly loves her job. After ...

I've been unable to get in touch with my contact at The Cambodia Trust Clinic and so ended up spending this morning dragging my heels around the streets of Phnom Penh. By 1pm I decided that it was fruitless to just wander and so travelled an hour out of the city to a place called Oudong. Oudong is located just off Route 5 and was the former capital of Cambodia from the early 17th Century until 1866 when the capital was moved to Phnom Penh. The old royal city of ...