...We are the sum of our experiences...

Dosage: 3 tablets, 3 times per day for the next 3 weeks.

The food poisoning saga continues.

In a few hours I'll be leaving Cambodia. Increasingly, I am realising that a place is defined for me by the people I share it with. And the experiences. I have a feeling I'll be back in a few years, but to visit, not to stay. It just wouldn't be the same.

Three months in Phnom Penh has provided me with experiences I don't think I'll find anywhere else:

Sitting in traffic, waiting for the lights to change on the back of a moto (surrounded by other motos) as a fleet of UNDP vehicles drives past

Seeing monks in unusual places (such as buying a mobile phone)

Learning to take things more slowly because I had to (often because of the slow internet and telecommunications)

Learning not to take what I eat for granted, after getting food poisoning from the simplest things (and the two ensuing trips to hospital)

Sitting in a hut in northern Cambodia in the rural village of Poipet, helping an old woman make a carpet

Witnessing the bravery of a local Khmer as he ventured out of his city and into a town where he felt uncomfortable and out of place in his own country

Cruising gorgeous rice paddies as the storm clouds roll in

Getting drenched due to my lack of raincoat, as the storm clouds roll in

The endearing restaurant menus that are trying so, so hard to bring you a piece of home. No matter where home may be for you.

Herding geckos out of my room to the tune of 'gec-koooo...'

Having dinner with people and learning about their careers. They're not in banking, or marketing or IT like I'm used to. They work in sanitation, healthcare, sourcing international funding, eco-tourism or in an NGO.

Engaging in the business community here. Deals done in cafes, constantly running into people I've met before, the strength and ease of networking is incredible.

The truly hedonistic cafes like The Shop and Del Gusto

The fun that can be had with a three-litre squirt bottle of vodka, take-out Russian dumplings, a wad of dollar bills and a bottle of washing liquid

To live in a city that seemed to have it's very own social conscious: a city with many virtues and vices. I came to appreciate tuk-tuk drivers proudly wearing anti-trafficking slogans and cafes staffed who have come from challenging backgrounds

Perfect French croissants

The sheer amount of time I've had to think about myself

According to market researchers, Mintel, the flavour trends for 2010 will be cardamom, sweet potato, hibiscus, cupuacu, rosewater and Latin spices.

Interesting.

Full report can be found here.

A second bout of food poisoning. Thanks Cambodia.

Until today, I divided the international expatriates living in Cambodia into two categories. Today I discovered a third grouping.

The first group were underwhelming. Seedy, middle-aged expatriate business men, sent to Cambodia by whatever company they represented in the UK/ Australia/ US for a few weeks or months at a time. They come here for business, but stay here for play at their main stomping ground - Sisowith Quay - an area with a loud nightlife and unfortunately where I lived for the first two weeks of my stay.

The one networking event I went to (keep in mind, one) did not impress me. The men I met were cashed up, arrogant womanisers doing plenty of damage to their home country's (and company) reputations, handing out business cards like confetti.

Wave *hand motion*. The less said, the better. Let's move on.

The second group are those that I've had the good fortune to spend the most time with: the NGO workers and volunteers. They're an eclectic mix of the wide-eyed and inexperienced, the short-termers, and the realists who have 'Done Rwanda' and are looking for a quieter lifestyle.

My experience with them has been everything from hearing snippets of conversation in cafes, chatting with the disability worker who used to live upstairs and watching the UNDP convoys roll through town. I'll remember dinners where the whole table was engaged in diverse, meaningful work, crossing paths with Oxfam officials, email threads from the interns debating NGO salaries and the slow, eventual realisation that my work bundled me along in the same category.

The third group, was the one I didn't notice for a long time. The young expatriate professionals and their families. They've uprooted from France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the US in pursuit of job progression, the impressive salary bracket and just a little adventure, along with partners and children.

They enrol their children in the American school, have Mothers Group cocktails and build a tight and distant social group. Fathers come to collect their wives from a cafe, with floral baby bags on one arm, and a toddler on the other, then head home to a house maintained by their Khmer housekeeper.

Just a few days ago, Jente and I were marvelling at two Dutch children that effortlessly switched back and forth between Dutch and English. They'll probably pick up a little Khmer while they're here.

This is the view I've built over the last three months living in Cambodia. Give me a month and I'll have switched to Eastern European Stereotypes.

I'm leaving Cambodia in a few days, so I started researching my next stop: Phuket.

I discovered – to my great surprise – that Phuket has a whole lot of things Cambodia doesn't. Shopping malls, fast food, elite resorts... I'd forgotten that Cambodia was a bit of a Western development anomaly in Asia and that other parts of the region were "normal" (Australian perspective normal, OK).

Here was my thought process:

Phuket has McDonalds?!

I haven't had McDonalds in three months! Cambodia doesn't have McDonalds!

That should be my first stop! Thailand! Fries! Thailand! Fries! FRRRRIIIEEESS!

Waaaait... hold on....

I should not be this excited about the prospect of fries... what is going on here...

I'm starting to wonder if I will experience reverse culture shock, or if I'm a 'seasoned' enough traveller that I'll just melt back into my former lifestyle easily.

Seems to be the place where all the cool kids are chilling right now.