We left the Four Rivers Lodge just after 08:00 and headed by boat for 30 minutes back up the Tatai River to meet with our driver and van. Our friendly driver had been staying with a friend in the local village and was at the little jetty waiting for us with a warm welcoming smile.
As we now had access to the internet we finalised our Lodge account and headed off for Phnom Penh.
The drive was quite scary and the road hazards were numerous but principally involved vehicles overtaking at inappropriate spots with the problem exacerbated by many large slow trucks on the highway. There was one situation when four cars, two in each direction met at a corner and the only action possible was for the two outermost cars to take to the gravel verges to avoid collision! Motor-bikes were often ignored by cars and usually forced off the road during overtaking manoeuvres.
After about five hours we were entering the southern section of Phnom Penh and the traffic density became unbelievably high. At one point we sat in a traffic jam without moving for just on twenty minutes and moved one kilometre in one hour.
We eventually arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport and checked in with minimal issues and relatively short queues.
The four South Australians were heading home to Adelaide via Singapore and our return flight was firstly to Kuala Lumpur and then through to Sydney.
We said farewell to our Adelaide companions and it was quite an emotional occasion as after four weeks of close company and great friendship we were now splitting up; but only until our next adventure!
For our flight from KL to Sydney we were assigned premium economy seats which gave us much more legroom and seats that tilted back further than normal particularly as there were no passengers seated behind us.
Transfer from international to domestic in Sydney was a laboured process involving train travel but eventually we were on our way to Hobart and by 17:00 we were home. We’d been travelling for 30 hours and were very glad to finally reach home and a good night’s sleep was high on the priority listing.
These past four weeks for us have been an educational trip as much as anything else as it exposed us to cultures far removed from our western mores and attitudes. The three thousand years of history on display in S.E. Asia is fascinating and reveals a time when architectural grandeur was the expectation of kings and the people (many as slaves) were the providers of these grand edifices.
We’ve spent much of our time mingling and talking with people for whom Buddhist religion provides their raison d’être. Buddhism with all its golden trimmings is partially constraining progress and yet its monuments are now the key attractions bringing tourists in to South East Asia.
Our feeling is that until compulsory education becomes available to all students, these countries will struggle to improve their standard of living. We were pleased to know that both our travel agents, ‘Good News Travels’ and ‘About Asia’ make significant financial contributions from our fees toward the development and education of their local communities in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
As a final note it is interesting to hear on return to Australia that Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) have recently updated their report on the atrocities committed by the Military in Myanmar on the Rohingya Muslims. Their estimates show that 6 700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in just one month and that now 800 000 are refugees having been forced to flee to Bangladesh. While we were in Myanmar we kept asking about this humanitarian issue only to be fobbed off with statements that it’s “false news” or the problems have been exaggerated or even that the Muslims were the perpetrators of the violence.
It was clear to us that any bad news emanating from Myanmar was to have disastrous effects on the tourism industry and that was to be avoided at all costs!