After a week in Phnom Penh, I returned to Singapore with a newfound respect and love for water and ice, respectively.

It was HOT in Cambodia with temperatures pushing 38 degrees C around lunch time.

The passangers from my flight coming into Cambodia were treated with extreme caution, coming from a SARS affected area. I really felt like a pig/sheep/chicken.......getting spray-disinfected at least twice.

My passport and money for visa were handled with rubber gloves. I'd let out a little smoker's hack/cough and had my temperature taken immediately. Nobodhy was taking any chances with us.

Now I know....how it feels like to be treated like a pariah.

I'd gotten back the 11 rolls of negs and burned another 300+ digital images into CD. The jury's conclusion is that the Cambodian Kick Boxing story should have enough materials to give it some serious depth for the July exhibition.

Pictures for the other photo essay on amputees and victims of land mines in Cambodia is almost complete, save for a couple of shoots at an actual mine field and a de-mining school to be done later this year.

So who won? The digital Canon G3 or conventional film Contax G2 ?

OK immediately the first hassle that disappeared was worrying about the airport X-ray machines. I didnt have to worry about possible film fogging with images saved on the CF cards.

The Contax stood tall in many low light situations where the G3 failed (forget about shooting the G3 at iso 200/400) while the Canon allowed versatile angles.

I used the 28mm and the 35mm primes extensively this time 'round.

I really hated the shutter lag on the Canon. I just couldnt believe the amount of half-bodies I got.

On the other hand, the digital flip out screen allowed me to experiment with new camera holding techniques previously impossible with conventional film cameras (save the TLR).

I can now belly-hold (provided the stomach doesnt jiggle too much). The camera bag is now a defacto stable shooting platform. etc etc etc....

Shooting digital also means giving up plenty of beer and massage time for the back breaking work of same-evening post shoot editing and archiving. "Yeah you lazy bastard, what's the big deal?" Well, friend, after a whole day out in the sun and dirt, after a nice ice-cold shower, the last thing I want to do is to down load images and sort them out in the lap top.

I went out to a bar about 2 nights out of 6 when in the past with the 'ol Contax, I could safely be counted on to be out on the town every night. A couple of nights, I actually fell asleep in front of the LCD screen. I ordered room-service most nights and ate in, foregoing my favorite Mekong riverside 'happy' pizza.

Is this what shooting digital means? Giving up my beer time? Slogging over the laptop in the evenings so that I can get a couple of images emailed back to civilization before a deadline? It felt like jail and worse...... it felt like work.

All the images could be brought back to Singapore and done in the comfort of my home but.....its still alot of work!

I know the solution.... hire a local guy/girl for $3, teach him/her how to download and do the work for me while I revert to my film-day habits of chilling out in the evenings!

Phnom Penh is currently pretty devoid of foreigners and tourists. I guessed it was because of SARS and that its now the hottest time of the year to visit. I liked it this way....no more worrying about tourists getting themselves into my pictures!

Friend from Bangkok, Adam Gregor has been living in Phnom Penh for the past 4 months working at an Italian run orphanage. He did the stupid thing and asked for official permission to shoot. He's still waiting for the official OK from Rome to begin. I told him to move on to another orphanage....and hope for silent consent.

He'll be exhibiting at the Java Cafe in Phnom Penh sometime in July and getting back to Bangkok end of May to get into a wet darkroom to do the prints.

I stayed at the Dara Reang Say Hotel for US$14 a night. Pretty ok with a large room, air-con, cable TV, attached bathroom and a nice balcony. The only hitch was that my room was on the 4th floor.........and NO elevators.

Food was so-so but cheap at a dollar a meal. Foreign imported munchies and junk food was expensive. I know....I'm a junk food junkie. A bar of Snickers was about US$1 and a tube of Pringles cost US$3. Diet Pepsi and Coke Lite was rare and when found cost US$1.20 a can......twice the price of local beer!

They really have to fill up those pot-holes on many of the city streets. I almost flew off my guide's motorbike hitting deceptively waterfilled holes that almost sucked the whole front end into its depths.

The Cambodian country side is beautiful. Each day was a magic display of gorgeous sunsets beautiful skies.

We passed by Hun Sen's home on the way to one of the villages one day. Its huge and he has his own airport in the backyard!!! I counted about 3 helicopters on the pad and several tanks at the perimeter.

At one of the villages, we'd realized that we had forgotten to bring along any water. I had some well-water drawn and boiled.........and paid the price for the next 2 days with diarroea. I never really appreciated clean water...and ice....until then. Now I treat iced water like fine wine, each drop to be savoured and appreciated.

This led me to believe that a country like Cambodia would be relatively free from SARS. I mean, stuff that will land a city folk like me in hospital, they eat. Honestly I couldnt survive more than a night or 2 at the villages. Their bodies are much resilient to infections and other 'sissy' sicknesses than me.

Back to the shoots. At both boxing stadiums, the press were using old beat up manual focus Nikons. I guess it'll be another generation before they get AF much less digital. They were friendly enough and my little portfolio of pics helped me get up close to the ropes and in the warm up areas.

Some of the pics from the last trip had pictures of themselves in it (boxers, musicians, security guards etc ) and immediately got me access and welcome into alot of other areas of the arena.

The rehabilitation center outside Phnom Penh is the largest in the country housing at least 4 NGO aid organizations. I spent sometime shooting Cambodian volleyball (ranked 4th in the world) and sports co-ordinator Mike Minko (Australia). Also spent time in the wheel-chair building workshop, newly-amputated rehabilitation areas, the wheel chair basket ball team and the technical vocational training centers. It took a good 2 days to cover the sprawling complex.

Most days, lunch was a long drawn out lazy affair to get out of the way of the sorching sun. I loved lunch time (between 11.30am through 2.30pm) Cambodian style. We almost always ate along the Mekong or Tonle Sap rivers in little thatched huts with partitioned sections. Eating was always on the floor and I began a love affair with beer in a glass of ice.

Hammocks were strung out for that after-meal siesta and it was heavenly snoozing and swaying gently in the shade/under a huge tree, deep out of the way of the flaming sun and carressed by river-cooled breezes.

Seriously, coming back to creature comforts and Singapore, the differences and priorities are stark. I'm worrying about my mortgage and car payments here while the millions around us worry about living and surviving. The threshold of hardship seems unimportant and trivial compared to families who are living on US$200 a year.

Why am I a photographer? A rich hobby? For personal and public masturbation? Or will the pictures make a difference and bring awareness, and more importantly, help, to my subjects?

And how am I going to help make a difference in their lives? I'm no Mother Theresa and feel the growing weight of hypocricy building up standing by the sideline, documenting and still looking after my own interests, are causing personal conflicts within me.

I share their hardships for only a few hours a day, for about a week..... yet my subjects continue to live in wretched conditions long after I retreat back to the comfort of my hotel and ultimately whisked back home to an environment they can only dream of.

The following months and year will yeild answers as I search within myself which directions my personal life path takes me. I do not wish to close my eyes in sleep and awake with the hope that what I witnessed in a week in Cambodia was just a dream that does not actually exist.

Pray for me.

End.