Red Lights and Green Lizards: A Cambodia Adventure - Liz Anderson

Hey, a book by someone who went and had an adventure in Cambodia! Of course I'm gonna read that...

Okay, so it's the story of two English doctors in the early '90's; I was there in 2006. They were in Phnom Penh; I was in Siem Reap. So, I don't know how good the story is at actually capturing what was going on while they were there. I do know that I didn't find the book as enthralling as the Duchess of Kent or the British Ambassador to Cambodia did.

It's a fairly straightforward chronology of a couple of doctors in their 60s or so who decide to, before they're too old and creaky, to depart the quiet doctoring life in England to do the good work in Cambodia for a year or so. That is, we get:

a) Their awakening and delight at their decision,
b) The hijinks of the flight over, shared with a bunch of other interesting travellers,
c) The wonder and shock at disembarking in a strange world,
d) The honeymoon period,
e) The reality sinking in period,
f) The adjustment and settling in period, and
g) The "I don't really wanna go home" period.

This is getting just a little harsh - it's wonderful stuff they did, bringing education and health services to a brothel, and helping run a hospital. It's just that these voyages tend to yield the same sort of stories, and without something to set them apart, it gets a little difficult to really get into the story - even when there is a shared locality.

Not a terrible story, there's some insights, but it's a lot of reportage.