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I've been home for about 24 hours now and I realised I never updated anything - most people know already, but I thought I might as well.

The flight from Phnom Penh to Bangkok was just under an hour long, and then we spent about an hour and a half maybe two hours in the airport waiting to fly back to London.



The first flight was hard - I think it hadn't properly hit me that we were leaving until then. I pressed publish on my previous blogpost literally as they were telling us to turn our phones on flight mode, and then seconds later we were going up into the air. And then I felt so gutted to be leaving - it was a real wrench. I spent most of that flight looking through photos and just feeling sad.

We've come so far in the last few weeks - our work was going well, our relationships were only getting stronger. My host family and home were a haven from day one. Being away from my counterpart who I'd barely spent an hour or two away from in so long was hard to think about. Cambodia itself is just an amazing country and so different to the UK, so thinking about adjusting back was difficult. We never got to end our work and we didn't to get to do our Debrief, which makes it feel like there's a lack of closure.

After sitting around in Bangkok, we got on the 13 hour flight. I've never been very good at sleeping on any form of transport. We took off at about midnight Cambodian time and landed at 6.15 UK time, and I maybe got a couple hours of sleep. Thankfully on the second flight I was sat with Zaynab so we were able to talk a bit about things. And even when we weren't talking it's just comforting to still be with a team member. Especially when the time together is running out.


We got breakfast on the flight about an hour before landing in Heathrow. Thankfully I had packed some slightly warmer clothes in my hand luggage, because we all felt the change in temperature as soon as we landed. Zaynab and I went and got changed and updated the Khmer that we had arrived safe:


A lot of the selfies you can see on the last couple of blog posts are ones that we were sending to our group chat to reassure the Khmer that we were safe. They don't like seeing us without our face masks! They worry about us a lot. 

We got through passport control... 


...and picked up our suitcases, and took one last photo (minus Connor, who had had to leave)...


... and then we went out to meet our parents and get home. Tim had to get public transport to Liverpool, and Liv got the train back to where she lives in London.

We said a few tearful goodbyes and hellos and then mum and I got in the car home.



We stopped for a coffee and the service station was very quiet. The roads were too, which was my first look at the UK in a pandemic.


It was a bit emotional getting back into Wales too!


It has been nice to be home. It's hard adjusting and I really miss Srae Thmei and the team, but I know I'm safe here and people aren't worrying about me anymore (- except the Khmer). Now I just have to adjust back to life in the UK.


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