Off the bus from Kampot to Phnom Penh, we went straight to the hotel Mary had booked for us and Rita was already there waiting for us. She had brought the candy from Paris, that Leo had asked for.

That’s about the last thing that went as planned!

We were barely seated when she first told Leo « why don’t you come to Bombay for a month, instead of Indonesia, all the kids are there on vacation, you’ll have a blast! »

Leo didn’t think twice about it, he was sold on the idea and too happy to have his bag and his parents off his back for a month!

Then Rita barely managed to hold it for five more minutes before turning to Mary: « You wanted to learn about recruitment. I have a new project starting and it’s the perfect opportunity for you to try this for a couple of months before returning to your job! Why don’t you skip Indonesia and come work with me instead ! »

The idea did make sense, it is indeed a good opportunity for Mary to try something else without having to handle two jobs at the same time.

And that’s how it took 10 mins for Rita to take away my wife and my son and leave me alone for the last leg of the trip! 💔

Eventually, we had to talk Leo out of it because it made no sense to loose the plane tickets we had already booked for him, and buy new ones, just to lock him in an apartment and watch TV for a month instead of visiting Indonesia !

But Mary’s mind is set; it’s her last two weeks in the trip. Then she’ll follow her sister, and I’ll continue through Thailand and Indonesia with Leo.

To change subject, we then went to the cheerful Genocide Museum that explains how Pol Pot brought the whole country to its knees between 1975 and 1979, and managed to kill one fourth of the Cambodian population ! 🤢