So we spent much of the day inside a mini van with our year’s worth of luggage lugged into it, only to go a few miles down the road to return once more to the comfortable innards of our Phnom Penh hotel.

Why? Well, a bit of an abcess on Timmy’s balls (since he’s told Facebook, I’m sure he doesn’t mind me sharing the knowledge).  So one full week of bed rest and some aggressive antibiotics  should see him kickboxing his way again. But until then, we are housed up in our hotel. Dad being given a separate room to avoid any affectionate pounding by his loving sons, or me for that matter.

Cambodia has its own plans for us. With this extra time in the capital, we’ve been working on a photo essay about the rubbish situation.

Quinn saw a dude carrying a bamboo pole with a sharp spike attached and said ‘What’s he hunting?’. Well, rubbish my lad.  And it seems to be a full time occupation. Similar to the untouchables in India, it looks like an undesirable job for the poorer people on the scale, but the only kind of recycling that goes on, better than letting the whole lot putrify on the streets.

You can’t help but question the government’s lack of infrastructure- sure bins exist and I have seen a handful of overflowing garbage trucks. But that whole education thing (‘Keep Australia Beautiful’) and providing adequate choices (limit plastic options) is totally overlooked. The rate at which this place, whole of Asia for that matter is expanding, population-wise and materially, the Earth is gonna have to absorb a whole lot more rubbish.

Who are we to tell others not to develop… but geez plastic could be the end of us all.