Today we leave Cambodia and start the long journey home that will end in Bristol tomorrow morning. First though a final day in Phnom Penh.
After breakfast, Tracey headed of to see some local children learning to do the traditional Aspara dancing that we saw a couple of nights ago, whilst I decided to join a fellow Brit in a walk around the city to look for the old railway station and central market.
Armed with some rough directions we headed off on foot despite the early morning heat and cries of "tuk tuk sir?". We soon found the station building which is next to a busy roundabout. The station will re-open for passenger traffic next year, but today it is eerily empty except for a lone police man standing out front enforcing the no photos rules.
With some gentle pursuasion involving a lot of pointing and gesticulating, we pursuaded him to allow us into the main concourse to take some photos, but we were not allowed to take any photos of the tracks, where some goods wagons were standing.
Next, we set off to find the central market. This is covered and housed in a huge yellow building in the shape of a cross, with a round bit at the centre. All sorts of goods and food were on sale, and curiously, there were armed guards wandering around as well. We stopped at a nearby cafe to have a coffee and watch the world go by, then we headed off back to the hotel for some liquid refreshment, and air conditioning.
At 2pm we checked out of the hotel and had lunch before being picked up for the hour drive to the airport. First an early evening flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. Our guide pointed out that the airport is only very small and does not operate any international flights outside of Asia. He also could not understand why a big airport an hours or so away that has been built and could take more international flights is not open and shows no sign of being taken out of mothballs. There is a national airline, but this is owned by China and Russia !
Our Thai Airways flight took about an hour, then we had a few hours to kill in Bangkok before our midnight flight back to Heathrow, again with Thai Airways. Finally we arrived home at 9.30am having had a fantastic trip to 3 countries where we met some really friendly people. All 3 countries have had a troubled recent history, and all 3 have made great strides to move forward, although clearly Cambodia has the farthest to travel.