Poipet & Siem Reap

 The emergency department doesn't see that many people, yet. This is largely due to the fact that this is a new hospital and many people in the community are not used to using it. It is also about a 5K walk down a dirt road from city center to reach it - thus not everyone can make the journey easily


The Khmer doctors I have found bright, resourceful, and generally practice good medicine. Because government funding if limited, most.. if not all doctors at government hospitals hold private clinics which diver most of the clinical time. As a result, only the on call "duty" doctor is available in the hospital after noon. This doctor is generally a non-residency trained medical school graduate covering the whole hospital. In this picture, I was invited to radiology rounds to discuss chest X-rays. No shortage of TB patients, about 20% on the board.


By chance, a group of medical students from Singapore were volunteering with children at a local church. Their goal is to bring down a group of surgeons from Singapore to do a mission-style surgical trip for 2 to 3 weeks. This is the third year their group has been doing this. 





Today was my last day working with Visal, my nurse translator. He has been a tremendous help, and has a true passion for improving the healthcare in his country.

 To get a little fresh air and air conditioning, of often make the walk over the border crossing into the Thai casino zone for iced coffee. This company "Palais Coffee" seems very similar to another Seattle based coffee company I know all to well.

 The only food within walking distance from the hospital is this restaurant literally across the beaten path. They have one option for breakfast and lunch. It might as well be this way, as I wouldn't know what to order off the menu anyway. I personally found the cow intestine soup and tongue fry a little on the adventurous side.

 We hired a taxi and made the 2.5 hour drive to Siem Reap. It is as if we drove into another country all together. I imagine this is what it is like to drive through the dessert and suddenly wake up in Las Vegas. After taking a nice swim, I bought my trinkets at the famous night market and then headed to "pub street"... the unmistakable district with good restaurants for tourists.

Our hotel, the Frangipani, is like a colonial guest house from India. What a stark contrast from Poipet. As I arrived, an assistant literally took my bags off my back, handed me a cool, mint infused towel for my face, and handed me a fresh glass of mango juice. I definitely will be coming back to this place. The best part is that in Cambodia, this place is still 1/4 the cost of a Motel 6 in the bad part of LA.





Tomorrow I wake up at 5AM to make the sunrise over the Siem Reap temple. I talked a few of the URC staff into having dinner with me tomorrow.