Friday, February 27, 2004

Back from Phnom Penh- tired but happy

Patrizia and I got back from Phnom Penh last Thursday (February 20th) after a two and a half week visit to Cambodia. It was the first time for both of us and the whole trip proved to be a very interesting and exciting experience. Our journey back home was fairly long (amongst other things 13 hours by air from Singapore to Paris) but that did not at all put a damper on our enthusiasm and enjoyment of the whole thing. The weather in Cambodia was clement and rain-free the whole time and we were able to see quite a bit, both in Phnom Penh and at Angkor Wat (more on this later...). The main stimulus for our visit was provided by a couple of friends and colleagues of Patrizia who are involved in coopertive scientific work in Cambodia: anthropologist Matilde Callari Galli of the School of Educational Science at the University of Bologna who for a number of years has been involved in the development of, amongst many other projects, a Master in Tourism Management at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, and mass media researcher Stefano Magistretti of the Department of Italian Studies at the University of London who is at present spending a year in Phnom Penh to study the effects of the growth of internet based communication in the region on the development of Cambodian society. While there he is based at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the Royal University. More later....