Ve vill be back..

and so, onwards to neighbouring Vietnam,& Hanoi city. We will miss the FLOW orphanage here in Phnom Penh, & i would imagine that the friendship village orphange in Hanoi (we start on friday), will be a lot more demanding, it looks after victims of 'agent orange' - a chemical weapon that attacks the nervous system dropped by good ol' uncle Sam during their mess 30 yrs ago. Nowadays the victims are the civilians' children, & other mentally/physically handicapped kids - ergo it could be tough...we shall see.

Our experience in Cambodia has been richer than we could have hoped, mostly due to the magnanimity of its kind & humble race. Like all thinly veiled dicatorships (this one hiding behind tourism, with a moral veneer propped up by charitable NGO's - NON-government organisations), there is a disproportionate imbalance of poor to rich. 95% on the bread line, the rest make their huge gains largely through corruption (last wk's papers reported finding $3000 million in the prime minister's DAUGHTER's bank acc.!).After speaking to some of the more educated folk - it is worrying to learn that unless more of the 12 million population become educated (which thankfully is currently the case), then once the ego of the ex-khymer rouge, 30 bullying  yrs in power (& counting!)  prime-minister yields, there could be huge internal conflict for the race to leadership - a problem that has plagued Cambodia all it's long life.

 Not that i would know - but it does however, feel like things are moving in the right direction towards a more transparent Democracy in this safe,developing tropical country - i would strongly recommend a visit by anyone so inclined!