Holiday! A week's break feels like an enormous luxury. Time spent in Phnom Penh so far has been breathless and full. It feels like every lung and brain space has been stretched out of shape by new experiences. My head is heavy with a new internal guide - pulled together quickly to help me function in this new country. Learning how to do the basics (like haggling, arguing over tuk-tuk fares, ordering the right coffee, asking Khmer colleagues for information) is e...

First Week Blur Time flies by here. I'm not sure if it's because the sun seems to set so soon, although there is nothing cooling about the night sky drawing around you. The heat lasts, and then it is early morning and you are drowsy and in a tuk-tuk to work in 30 degree heat at 8am. We have an apartment in Phnom Penh, found during a mad day's hunt. Despite our best efforts to live somewhere a little more Cambodian, our tall white house is in BKK1-the expat and...

Week 1 in Phnom Penh The Asia rush first hits when you are tuk-tuk-ing through crosshatch traffic that moves with no discernible order. You feel you've arrived somehow when your lungs breathe in a heady roadway mix of exhaust fumes, frying noodles, petrol stalls and dumpling steam. The street to the centre of Phnom Penh from the airport feels like the longest in the world. It is filled with shops which sell just TVs or motorbikes or sticks of wood or buddha ca...

Departure Day! Today is my last day in London. There's a fairly enormous backpack looming in the corner and it feels like the adventure is finally happening! In fact, one member of our little band of therapists is already in Phnom Penh-apparently he is investigating the best restaurants near our Bright Lotus Hostel-a tough job but someone's got to do it! Last week was spent at the wonderful Great Ormond Street Hospital where we were able to experience working w...