When Tong Heng’s mother passed away, so distraught was the young man from Preah Sihanouk province that he decided to drop out of school, leave his home and venture to Thailand to work in a restaurant.
“I didn’t get to study much and I felt a loss of warmth after losing my mother. Not caring about life much, I just made a quick decision to start a new life somewhere else in different country,” the now 25-year-old says.
Just one of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers living in Thailand, Tong worked diligently in a small restaurant in Bangkok where he routinely saw many Cambodian tourists flocking in groups to savour the hot spicy taste of Thai cuisine.
