TRAVEL FEATURE - CAMBODIA LEIGH WILKINS
ADVERSITY , HEARTBREAK , AND A LESSON IN LIFE
Someone is watching me , my every movement monitored , all around is a scene of devastation . I look down to find the smallest of faces looking up , a scowl so furrowed I struggle to compose my emotions . A child no older than five assesses my situation , a face pleading for some sort of reconciliation , an understanding of what has happened to his world . Thirty minutes earlier we had been following the banks of Cambodia ’ s Kaohtraeng River , one of the many that form a delta at the southern end of the Tonle Sap lake . Passing through the Kandal village we ’ d marvelled at the impossibly tall structures that formed stilted houses along the banks , during the wet session the lake and river systems rise by as much as eight metres , the need for housing well above the waterline a necessity .
A small stream leading to a canal formed a cross roads of sorts , a small concrete ford providing access from one village to the next , the scene before us one of the utmost destruction as if war had been declared whilst we ’ d been off-grid and the result was that of a fire storm .
Twisted metal , crumbling stumps , smouldering timbers , gave way to blackened faces and charred clothing . I ’ d covered plenty of Australian bush and house fires , but nothing could compare to this post-apocalyptic world where people eagerly searched for the essentials of day to day life , where children played with toys no longer distinguishable , where daily existence had to continue .
Amongst the debris lay pots and pans , no longer usable . Remnants of bedding smouldered amongst sheet iron . Concrete , so scorched , had crumbled and collapsed upon itself . A once thriving community now gone .
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