33. Sipadan - Parte the Seconde

Pretty much immediately after arriving we were scheduled for 2 dives.

We did have just enough time to drop off our things, grab some food from the lunch buffet before we had to go and get our gear from the hut on the jetty.

Diving at Sipadan island itself was strictly regulated and you needed to pay for a special license to dive there. The deal that we had hurriedly arranged a few weeks back was inclusive of one day diving at Sipada - but that would be tomorrow. On that day we would just be diving at sites around Mabul itself.
The first site was stingray city, where I saw 0 stingrays, but did see a few clownfish. The other site was a more interesting. I saw a frog fish for the first time - it was a freaky looking thing. There was also a baracuda protecting a sunken rowing boat that was being engulfed by coral; a turtle and more clownfish. The visibility was brilliant and both dives were thoroughly enjoyable. The evening we decided not to go too crazy and spoil the next day’s Sipadan dives, which was the whole reason we were there. But we did have a few drinks, and got to know some of the other guests: Cassie Crosby from Tazmania, Johnny Keely who was a diving instructor working in KK, and a few others. I remember talking about how I had enjoyed my dives. I learned that the local Mabul sites were supposedly not as amazing as those around Sipadan. So as the evening drew on I became increasingly excited!

32. Mabul Island (Sipadan, parte the firste)

Before long we could make out the little island of Mabul approaching. It appeared to be a mess of wooden huts, piers and jetties tumbling out over the ocean. Through the man-made facade the occasional beach could be seen, and trees further in. Our boat approached a wall of rickety looking wooden huts. We docked onto a jetty and got off, excited to see what was in store for us.


The island itself was very small, you could walk end to end in about 20 minutes.
Given the island’s diminutive surface area, the difference in qualities of resort was obvious. The eastern side was mainly fancy, idyllic resorts. Our rickety home stay was on the the western side, in some kind of tropical shanty town. I quickly came to love it all the same. The whole thing was built on stilts over the water. It was laid out in a square U shape. The closed end was made up of  some hut-like staff areas, which lead to a foot wide wobbly gangplank leading onto dry land. The open edge looked out to a clear ocean dotted with some permanently moored long boats. We came to learn that these boats were inhabited by “sea gypsies”. Extending out from one arm was a small jetty and staging area accessed by a high, arching wooden bridge which creaked and wobbled when the wind picked up.

The decked central part of the homestay was where we ate and drank. The outer side consisted of the rooms. Once again Pat and I shared a twin room  in an effort to economise. Our room was cheaply decorated, and featured a nice hole in the floor near one of the corners that looked straight down to the ocean. We put a chair in front of it to avoid accidentally falling in.

31. Semporna

It was the day of our Sipadan booking. According to our docs we were meant to be off for a couple of dives around Mabul that very afternoon.

I had been careful to set an alarm for the crack of dawn to be there when the dive shop opened. However the boat we had supposed to be on departed earlier than the dive shop opened.  This  fact gripped me with an odd cocktail of urgency, fear and resignation.

We grabbed our things and dashed out to wait by the dive shop. The place was hidden behind a featureless metal gate. No windows or signs to betray that this was the place we needed, barely even a street sign but the lack of other doors indicated that it had to be this place.
It was very early, and of course: still closed. Pat and I nervously waited as the sun rose in the sky, and morning traffic began to trundle past. At some time after 8 a sleepy looking woman opened the door and we hurried in.

It was a cluttered place reminiscent of someone’s living room. We explained our situation to the woman, she asked us to wait in some faded yellow armchairs as she made a couple of calls. Her demeanour and assurances that everything would be fine assuaged my anxiety somewhat. 
Sure enough, after a few moments she told us that she had put us the last boat to the island that day, and our booking was still fine. A short while passed and someone turned up to take us to the dock.

We lobbed our packs in the back of a huge motorboat. It seemed that we were the only passengers on it. Everyone else must have made their transfers properly. We soon left Semporna and the harbour behind us and headed out into open water. I felt eager to explore the island we were headed to, to meet some new people and most importantly: Hyped that I would soon be diving in one of the most beautiful dive spots in the world!

30. Circumnavigating Borneo

I had assumed, seeing as Borneo looked quite small when viewed on a map, that the coach trip to Semporna (the staging town for Sipadan) wouldn’t take too long. It seemed that I underestimated the travel time for literally every journey I had been on that trip. It ended up taking over 10 hours!

After an early start, taxi ride, and short wait at the bus depot we got underway. The road left KK, where it quickly climbed and twisted its way up into the hills. We were driven past glorious tropical valleys, cliffs, and eventually mount Kinablu itself came into view. We went so high that we were almost driving past the summit! I suppose it was a consolation prize since we weren’t able to climb it properly. It was very spectacular, and I vainly attempted to capture the magnificence on my phone’s camera before the road left the mountains and wound its way down to flatter terrain.

I was sat next to a young family, 3 small children and their mother. The road was very winding, and this soon got the better of them and they promptly began filling numerous carrier bags with vomit. I made use of loud music and staring steadfastly at the awesome views to block out their distress.

Around half way there, (a point I wrongly assumed was just outside Semporna) our young driver stopped and let some of his friends on. As we pulled away they put on a Malaysian music channel, for everyone to enjoy. The all then gathered around the driver seat laughing, drinking and chatting ready for a night out.

Spurred on by his chums, the driver drove a lot faster. I had been watching with some detached interest the malay-pop on the coach tv, but the drivers speed caused renewed havoc with the tummies of my travel-sick neighbours, so was again forced to retreat behind my own noise excluding headphones.
I was actually glad the driver was in a hurry. We were meant to be heading out to Sipadan on a boat at 7.45 the following morning, and so I wanted to go to the dive shop in Semporna and get everything sorted out that day. However the afternoon was rapidly drawing on and it was making me pretty anxious. Especially since I thought we were nearly there a few hours ago.
It was about 6pm by the time we finally rolled into town. I really wanted to get going, and also the vomit bags from the young family next to me had really started to stink - so Pat and I pretty much sprinted off the coach.

It seemed to take an eternity to find where the dive shop was. Once we found it we discovered, perhaps unsurprisingly, that it was closed. I was pretty gutted. At this point part of me was resigned to having lost the booking. In spite of that we resolved to return at the crack of dawn tomorrow and sort something out.

We made our way to a nearby hostel and attempted to get some sleep.

29. Kota Kinabalu

In the couple of days Pat & I spent in the city we explored it quite thoroughly. We visited a number of markets and covered a lot of ground.

It is a very nice place to be. I found it to be surprisingly modern and westernised, especially when compared to the most recent big city I had been in: Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city. I had half expected that since this was Borneo that we would be landing in the middle of a jungle and need to stay in bamboo huts and barter with the tribal locals for bowls of rice or something. Not so. The roads and pavements were clean and well maintained; the traffic was ordered and sedate; the buildings were all new; and the meals we had were typically in modern, relatively fancy places.

We must have visited in "market season"

For a little while my inner geek had been a little restless, because I knew that “the hobbit” had just come out. KK looked equipped to meet my western needs, so I decided to try and watch it here. With a little research I managed to find a cinema that was showing it: inside a large mall not too far from Lucy’s.
We tracked this mall down and went in. The place twisted and wound around like a maze. I couldn’t quite make sense of where anything was, and there were no signs so this made finding the cinema quite difficult. After some time, and worrying that we would miss the start of the film we got to the floor where we thought the screens were. Unfortunately we still couldn’t see where to go. We ended up hurrying through lengthy corridors lined with crowded karaoke booths, eventually finding the entrance to the cinema just in the nick of time.

I enjoyed the film, despite the dismal picture quality (it almost looked like a stolen camera copy) and everyone in the audience chatting and messing about with their phones.
I remember thinking to myself during the film: What a jump the things I was doing in KK were from the rustic isolation of Otres beach. It oddly made me feel a little ashamed that I wasn’t doing travelling properly, since I was doing something that I would just do normally back home.

I needn’t have worried too much, we were soon to be launched into a something entirely different and unexpected.

28. Lucy's Homestay

Getting to Kota Kinabalu (or “KK” as the cool kids knew it) involved going through 2 border controls, which confused me immensely. Initially you arrive in Malaysia and they check your passport. Fine, that made sense. Then there was an internal flight to get to Sabah in Borneo which is where we wanted to go to, but still part of the same country. But once we were there everyone went through border security again! Well, at least I got another passport stamp.

We were staying in a hostel called lucy’s homestay. It was a little late when we arrived there, and had to navigate the intimidating locked metal gate and doors to get in. The eponymous Lucy herself dealt with everything in the hostel, including our late check in. She immediately made me feel at home, having quite a motherly manner. I almost felt I was staying round her house. I supposed in some ways we were.

The following morning after getting up Lucy, ensured that we knew where everything was for breakfast with typical brusque efficiency. I found a welcome comfort from England: marmite! I hadn’t had marmite in months so fondly guzzled some of that on toast and good old cuppa for breakfast. After the weeks of rustic beach life this almost felt like home.

We only had a couple of days in KK. Sabah boasts some incredible scenery and wildlife, one “must see” attraction is mount Kinabalu. We asked Lucy about some options of climbing it. However it looked like it would be a full day excursion and would not be a trivial activity. It was also fairly expensive. So we reluctantly decided against that. Instead bought 2 coach tickets to Semporna (where we needed to get to for Sipadan) from Lucy, and take it relatively easy for a couple of days.

27. Farewell Cambodia

So we left Otres beach with a heavy heart. However I had to admit I was also very excited. As Pat kept repeating: We’re going to fucking Borneo! It seemed a little surreal. So we took the long drive back to phnom penh, stayed one night in the place we were at before before, and in the morning took a tuk tuk to the airport.


I was aware that we were 2 weeks over our permitted stay of 1 month. At the airport I was careful to make all the staff I interacted with aware of this. Oddly, my grave admission was universally met with a shrug and being waved on.

So we got to the check in desk, and  I once again said that I had overstayed by visa and probably needed to pay a fine. This yet again seemed to fall on uninterested ears. The surly looking gentleman at the desk scrutinised my documents at length. As he checked them, though, a look of horror spread across his face, like he had just seen something never before encountered in his lifetime. He hurriedly grabbed Pat’s passport as well as if to confirm something. I was starting to worry that I had committed some unspeakable crime in the country without realising.


“Over there! Over there” He said, handing us both a slip of paper. He was pointing to a desk I had passed already (and announced that I wanted to pay a fine at). Anyway we went to the desk and the slightly taller surly looking gentleman scrutinised the slip of paper we had been given, and then looked at our documents for a while. A look of horror spread across his face, like he had never seen such a thing before either.

He wrote $30 down on a bit of paper and held it out to us. That was actually quite a lot of money relatively speaking, but not to me so I was a relieved and paid the man. Well it was either that or make a run for it and become a fugitive over thirty dollars.

And with that, we left Cambodia behind us, destined for Malaysia.

26. jul mouy

A couple of days after new year's came our time to leave. A couple of days before me Mikel and the gang headed off. They said that we should get in touch when we are in Vietnam. I promised that I would, since I intended to head through Vietnam.

Given that Pat and me are very awesome the owner decided to throw us a surprise Cambodian style leaving party.
The day before we had to check out and move on we were out busy doing the usual activity of not too much. We returned to find that everyone all of the regulars were in the common area, along with all of the staff. It was quite humbling.
Mr Lim himself donned his chefs hat and manned a barbeque, cooking up various Cambodian delicacies for everyone to sample.  A little annoyingly though, since I didn't know it was going to happen I had already had eaten a massive pizza over the road shortly before! So I must have come across as a little rude since I didn’t eat as much as I would have liked to.

The other lovely thing was that we had all the beer we could drink. Perhaps a little too much so. When Mr Lim shouted “jul mouy!” (which is Cambodian for "cheers") (and which happened about every 5 minutes) everyone had to down their drinks, which would then be replaced immediately.

Selfie! Pat, Me and Mr. Lim

Things got late and loud. Some guests I hadn’t seen before came out to complain that we were being too noisy.
At this Mr Lim the owner took great offense and began angrily shouting at them:

"This is a party for my friends, who do you think you are?"

As the man vainly attempted to reason with him. Mr Lim started taking off his shirt and began squaring up to him for a fight. The man backed down and hurried off to their room.

I couldn't help feeling bad for him, but at the same time very honoured.

25. New year on the beach

A few days later came the new year’s eve celebrations.

The festivities started, as most days did, at the guest house with the regulars. However there was a new group of newcomers that had recently arrived at Lim hour. They were called Mikel, Sunny and Hanna. They had come from Vietnam where they were working, and were taking a few days holiday in Cambodia to celebrate new year’s eve. They had befriended us all and settled in quickly, as most people did.
Mikel wasn’t messing around, and started off in the afternoon with neat vodka. The rest of us joined in with some beers not long after.

The venue for the countdown was Richies bar. Again, not that dissimilar from most other days. So before long we made our way there. We proceeded to enjoy the night, drinking copiously and setting off fireworks.

By about 11, Mikel had passed out in a sunbed on the beach. Being the nice chaps that we were, we didn’t want him to miss the revelry and so attempted to wake him. However no amount of yelling in his face or shaking seemed to do the trick. There was nothing for it but to attempt to get him home. Me and Pat attempted to deadlift him home. However despite only being a 5 minute walk we realised this would be a bit of a struggle. So we made it as far as the road, and then unceremoniously dumped him in a tuk tuk, I rode along with him. The driver wanted several dollars payment. I paid him despite the fact that I was trying to help a friend, despite the fact that it was new year and despite the fact he had only driven for little over 10 seconds! The swine.

So Mikel was unceremoniously dumped on the ground, and the tuk tuk took off. Then came the difficult challenge of actually getting him to his room. It took a while but eventually I half carried, half dragged him there. Once that was done I ran back to the bar just in time for the new year countdown, and a kiss from one of the girls. I guess it wasn't all bad.

After more drinking and dancing I staggered home and plopped myself in an armchair outside the room for a bit. Thomas soon appeared looking pretty wired and joined me. We both sat outside babbling about nonsense. He moved from the chair to an inflatable tyre. After a very long time we ran out of the drink. There is a hint of dawn in the air as I went off to bed.

The next day I woke up and found Thomas fast asleep in the exact same place that I left him.

24. Christmas Cambodi-dinner

Despite the sedate nature of this (so called) travelling me and Pat were doing Christmas came around worryingly fast, and arrived with a bang.
The entire place was awoken absurdly early at about 11 am by “holiday in cambodia” by the dead kennedys being played at full volume from reception. I had no doubt it was Thomas.

A while back I had booked Christmas dinner at Richie’s. They had promised that they were going to fly in turkeys and sausages in from a butcher in the UK and it did not disappoint. We had prawn cocktail starter, turkey roasts stuffing & pigs in blankets and sherry trifle. To top it off all Booze was included.

The feast

By the evening I was nicely sloshed. A group of us got some inflatables and went to sit in the sea. Pat used his waterproof diving bag as a chiller for some beers using ice kindly provided by Richies. The rest of the night’s events are a boozy blur. I do remember that I skyped my mum from the beach and had to admit to her that whilst I was sad I could not be with the family - I wasn't sad about anything else!

The day after Christmas I was not feeling too hungover (which worried me a little) so decided that I would do something a little different and visit Sihanoukville to go to the gym. Mr Lim kindly provided me with the address of a couple of gyms, so I stepped out onto the dirt road to employ the services of a tuktuk (there were always a couple hovering about here and there).

After getting to town I was driven to a random part of the suburbs, seemingly where the first gym was located. This so called gym was essentially a warehouse with a running machine in it and a couple of dumbbells. I decided to try another one. The second one was far nicer. It seemed to be primarily a Khmer boxing place, but had plenty of gym equipment and was set in a pleasant tropical garden. The tuk tuk driver waited for us to finish and drove us back.



I ended up going to that gym a couple of times in the run up to new year. On the second visit just as with the first my driver said he would wait. No problem I told him. I went and got changed. When I emerged I found that the gym was actually extremely busy. I had a go on the machines when they became free. After that I grabbed some dumbbells. It was very crowded to the point that there wasn’t anywhere obvious to stand. I searched around and eventually noticed a spot at one of the edges of the gym area. When I got to it, however, I found that my driver was sat there on a low wall looking in at everyone! The space was directly in front of him so I had no choice but to finish my exercise there. He didn’t seem like he wanted to move, so I carried on regardless, essentially doing my exercises as an odd performance for his benefit! It was quite bizarre and somewhat embarrassing.

23. The Diving Plan

One topic that kept coming up between Pat and I was diving. Both of us had recently qualified for our advanced open water and so we spent a lot of time talking about our experiences of that, and how if the opportunity came up we should both do a dive. We were both friends and at the same level diving-wise so made sense to arrange something.

We did intend to do a scuba dive in Cambodia, but according to reports the quality of the water isn’t good and the marine life isn’t the best.

A few days before new years, to make up for not diving here Pat and I decided to rent some Kayaks instead and explore the coast a little.

 When we got back we found Nico in his usual wicker chair, with Cam. Cam was having a quiet evening and had only drunk 4 bottles of red wine. The sun was throwing glorious orange rays across the sky.

“You’re missing the sunset, Nico!” We said
“fuck the sunset” He replied


That night there was excited talk of fire plankton in the sea. I hadn't seen "the beach" yet, so didn't really know what the fuss was all about. I decided to go for a bit of a late night dip to see. It was my first experience of fire plankton. In the darkness when you move the plankton’s natural bioluminescence is triggered which creates a bright blue glow whenever you move. Quite incredible.

Later on Pat and I got talking about diving again, and how it was a shame that we wouldn’t dive during our time here. So we began to wonder: Surely there were some good dive spots in our general global vicinity? Neither of us had concrete plans for what to do after Cambodia, so one evening we made use of Google and sure enough a plethora of options presented themselves. It didn’t take us long to settle on Malaysia, more specifically Sipadan Island of Borneo. It boasted incredible coral; turtles; and something that I especially wanted to see: reef sharks.

I couldn’t book the flights fast enough!

22. My hours at Lim Hour

Over the next few days we settled in to Lim Hour bungalows, familiarising ourselves with our new home and the other guests residing there. Some of the more memorable folk were:

• Cam the ex-pat Aussie surfer bum, who was in his mid fifties and determined to drink himself to death. He basically sat in the front common area with a glass of wine glued to his hand slurring his wisdom at anyone that would listen. 
•  Another common area stalwart was Nico from Norway who never seemed to go anywhere. 
• German Thomas, who was (aside from being largely incomprehensible and crazy) apparently a roadie for faith no more and various other famous bands; 
• Adi bass from Israel, 
• Dave from Canada

Best of all were the staff headed up by Mr Lim and his son. Aside from the standard duty of manning the front desk or taking our food orders they would usually just sit with us chatting in the common area and were very lovely people.

I quickly formed a routine here.

1. Crawl out of bed around noon. 
2.  Shuffle into the common area to have an omelette for breakfast. 
3. After this I would usually sign into my spotify on the computer behind the front desk, put some music on for Cam and Nico. 
4. The afternoon would pass with me helping myself to a drinks; playing pool with whoever was about; taking swims (being careful not to have my toe sliced off by one of the billion crabs that lived on the seabed), or just reading. 

Otres beach, not bad looking. Plenty of crabs

1. In the evening I’d head over to Richies to drink beer and paddle.
2. At some late hour I'd head back to Lim Hour for a nightcap and a chat.
3. At some point it would be necessary to carry Cam to his bed because he was too drunk to move.
4. Pass out

Most of the staff would sleep in or around the common area in hammocks. I remember one evening I was sat outside the bungalow and it was late, drunkenly shooting the shit with Pat. But disaster! I needed cigarettes. Everyone was asleep though so I couldn't get them in the usual way. So I had to employ my finest drunken sneakyness and crept into the common area where Mr Lim's son was dozing, careful not to wake him. Behind the front desk I helped myself to a pack of cigarettes, and a couple of beers since I was there, and headed back victorious.

It may have been my imagination but I was sure I noticed his eyes ever so slightly open.

21. Otres Beach, parte the first: Settling in

We awoke in the morning feeling refreshed. We were promptly informed by the miserable receptionist that we need to get out because they are fully booked for that night. We later discover this is because they booked out all of the rooms for a family do. Their own family do. It was nice of them to tell us this when we checked in! I wasn’t too bothered in any case because the whole lot of them are miserable as sin, and the room wasn’t that great.

So with that, we headed out.

The Otres beach area is basically a stretch of dirt road maybe half a mile in length. It runs next to the sea, with a row of guest houses and bar/restaurants on each side. It’s not built up at all. Quite the opposite: the road doesn’t have any tarmac on it and there are cows and chickens running about all over the place. It’s quaint and rustic but I got the feeling that it wouldn’t be long before it became built up.

About halfway along the “strip” we stopped for breakfast at a bar called Richies on the beach side. A scottish family were running it, so and had quite a few home comforts on the menu. I immediately ordered bangers and mash and devoured it the second it arrived. I quickly warmed to the place. It felt a bit like the cheers bar. Well: Maybe if the cheers bar had been made of bamboo, built on a beach. And you could smoke joints at the bar. 
It had a family of multinational bar flies who all got along in the interest of the common good, which I gathered to be getting stoned and going for swims in the sea. In fact this lifestyle I gathered was typical of the Otres beach area. It had a strong community feel with the ex-pats and Cambodian nationals getting along in the sunshine.

Something that had been on my mind was that there were only a few days to go before the Christmas and New Year season kicked in. My vague requirement was that I spend it somewhere sunny by the sea, but was aware that lots of people might want the same thing, and so rooms might all fill up. Otres beach seemed to fit my requirements very nicely, though. Pat seemed to be of the same opinion, and so with that in mind we decided to find somewhere to stay for Christmas, which would then take us up to the end of our Cambodian visas.

After some reconnaissance we found “Lim Hour” bungalows which had rooms free. They said they were ok with us staying there until after new year, although we were warned that prices might increase a little as it gets busier. We’re cool with that so take a room. In order to try and save money we decided to share a twin bungalow.

And thus we had properly settled at Otres, our home for the next month.

20. Sihanoukville

I had assumed the bus to Sihanoukville would take mere moments. How wrong I was. It rattled and beeped it's way to the coast over the course of the entire day. Eventually we got to the town. The bus purposefully parked miles away from the town center in some random gravelly expanse on a hill where tuk tuk drivers hovered like vultures. Pat and I, seasoned travelers that we were, decided to be very brutal hagglers. We ambled past the punters uttering phrases like “Nope, 5 dollars? what a rip off. I’m going to walk!” I think we had both actually convinced ourselves that we would walk to town, so we were all but walking down the hill when we thought better of it since the sun had set and it was late. We took an offer of $4.

It was dark by the time we got into what looked like the center of town. Some advance reading of Lonely Planet had yielded a few options of guest houses we could stay at. However spurred on with our success at tuk tuk haggling we felt like we could easily wing it, so we just jumped out of the tuk tuk, ignoring whatever the driver was saying and aimlessly wandered off.

There was a problem with our tactic, however, which was that it seemed that there was no obviously condensed and useful arrangement of accommodation where we were. Our old driver seemed fully aware of this and just hovered around and followed us.
We had heard mutterings in the traveler grapevine that Otres beach is way nicer than Sihanoukville, so between us we agreed that we should abandon town and head there right away. Our predatory tuk tuk driver friend was eager to jump on this. “Oh Otres beach? Yes I can easily take you there but its verrrry far, easily 15 dollars!” We had an idea from maps that it wasn't too far and that $15 dollars was a bit expensive, so headed down a likely looking street that seemed to contain some activity and found another tuk tuk. Our old driver wasn't going to lose the business so easily so hurried over to us. He entered into something of a bidding war with the second driver, but couldn't match the newcomers competitive fare of $10. We thanked them both and headed off.

It turned out that is it was actually quite a drive from Sihanoukville to Otres beach. There were no lights at all except for one dim lamp at the front of the tuk tuk so we couldn't really see a thing around us. It was literally pitch black and a little unnerving. The vehicle was completely open sided and it went bumping and jolting over god knows what in the darkness for what seemed like hours.
Suddenly I felt some animal around the size of a pig noiselessly thud onto my feet from somewhere in the blackness. I let out a girlish shriek and flailed madly to extract my legs from under the beast. I nearly elbowed Pat in the head in the process. We were both lucky to not fall out of the speeding tuk tuk.
After a moment there was no further movement so I came to realise it couldn't be an alive thing. A tentative fumble revealed that the “animal” was actually Pat's back pack which must have slipped down from the seat in front of us. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed off my slightly wounded dignity.

We arrived at our destination, which we only assumed by the fact that the tuk tuk stopped, although there was a distinct lack of signs, buildings or even lights to indicate that this was somewhere travelers might want to rest their heads.
At this point we were not really in the mood to shop around so we walked for a bit and took a room in the first guest house we could actually see. We were greeted by the most miserable person in existence at the front desk who begrudginly took our money.  It was late, and being quite exhausted we both got our head down fairly immediately.

19. Phnom Penh, parte the laste: The Palace

I spent  the last few days in Phnom Penh taking in some of the sights like the history museum and doing some less interesting things like visiting another gym (as it had been a while since doing anything active) and going to a big mall to grab some bits and pieces.

All to quickly it was the day before we were to head on to Sihanoukville. That evening to celebrate Pat and I decided to consume a titanic volume of beer in various establishments along the river front. Once that mission was complete we headed home. On the way back we once again passed the kings palace. This time nobody was there, as opposed to the last time when numerous locals were camped out in front. The only person I could see was one guard asleep in a hammock near the entrance. If anyone wanted to attempt a coup of the monarchy, I thought aloud, then that night would have been an excellent time.

The palace was a bit of a magnet for moths

We passed the guard and came to a point where the wall was slightly lower than at other points. Our keen sense of exploration, combined with our inebriation slightly trumped our newfound reverence for Cambodian culture. I decided to pull myself up onto the wall to take a look into the ground of the palace.It was quite dark and I couldn't really see anything, so decided to get back down before I upset anybody.
We decided that this was successful proof that invading the country would be a cinch I hope that nobody learns of our drunken and abortive attempt to invade the country. I think the safest way to do that is to write about it here on the internet.

The ok guesthouse turned out to actually be not just ok, but pretty good. All of the staff were great and there was a lot of rapport.
For example one day one of the staff said to me,
"Hey, you got a problem with me, man?". appearing to square up for a fight,
I wasn't sure if he was joking, so a little uncertainly I assumed he was and replied "Yeah, I've got a problem with you"
He was joking, and proceeded to cheerfully box my midriff. I suppose in retrospect that we did appear to be big fans of Khmer boxing, as it was the first thing we went to see when getting to town. So it became a running joke between me and him. Every time we met there was another pretend outrage that we needed to square off about.

All too quickly the day of departure came about. It was with a little regret that we had to leave because I had very much enjoyed my time in the Cambodian capital. A minibus that we had booked rolled up to the guesthouse and we clambered aboard and headed off for Sihanoukville.

18. Phnom Penh, Parte the seconde: Killing Fields

We had a general plan for our time in the city. It was to spend a few more days there, and then head down to the coastal town of Sihanoukville.

Pat and I had arranged to do a tour of the S-21 genocide museum and the Choueng Ek killing fields, and the person we naturally asked to take us was the ex-boxer driver who to the khmer boxing and the river front. It was clear that he had decided that he was our dedicated chauffeur, so welcomed us warmly whenever we emerged from the guest house ahead of any of the other drivers and took us where we wanted to go.

It was sad and unbelievable to learn about what had happened, I'll avoid describing it all in this blog, because that's not what it is for but I'd recommend reading a little about it. It certainly put a new perspective on my visit to the country, to think that as little as 30 years ago a third of the population of the country had been wiped out.
So we walked around the old school that had been used to imprison the political prisoners. Following that we took an audio tour of the killing fields, and learned about those. One chilling fact that stuck with me was that after a rainfall they need to walk around and clear away the human bones that have risen to the surface.

Sobering

Many of the tuk tuk hawkers tended to offer a package which included what we had done (killing fields and the genocide museum), followed by a trip to a range where you could shoot some real guns. I thought that was a pretty strange thing to want to do having just visited sites famed for mass execution. So we didn't do that.

17. Phnom Penh, Parte the firste: Khmer Boxing

All of the roads I'd been on in Cambodia were really flat, and straight and long. For one things this lead me to believe that the country actually didn't have any hills. I still don't know if it does, to be honest. Despite the long straight roads everyone still seemed to drive like a complete maniac. Our minivan driver was no exception on our journey to Phnom Pehn, careening around all the other traffic with his hand permanently glued to the horn.
About an hour from the capital, the motorway (well it was only 1 lane) (not that this stopped people from using the side of the road all the time) (or any bit of the road not occupied with an object, for that matter) descended into a dusty, rocky, gravelly mess. Apparently it was undergoing some sort of rejuvenation. The driver, unconcerned by the deterioration of the road surface, continued on at breakneck pace. After about 10 minutes, somewhat unsurprisingly, one of the tyres blew. He had a spare though, a little to my surprise. I has assumed that his laissez faire attitude towards safety on the road would also apply to preparing for such things as a flat tyre.

So we arrived in Phnom Pehn in one piece and proceeded to shop around for a tuk tuk. After finding one we took a mini tour of the several guest houses that we had earmarked ahead of setting out from Siem Reap. It took some time as we discover that the ones we wanted were either full or a bit too pricey. Our driver finally suggested one called "OK Guest House". I found it to be ok. We took a couple of rooms there (only $7 a night) and settled in.

The guest house seemed rather popular with tuk tuk drivers for some reason, many relaxed in the street outside and seemed to filter in and out of the front lobby / restaurant area that opened out onto the street and where the common area was. The drivers were quite friendly and chatty, and thanks to a tip from one of them we learn there was going to be a fairly big Khmer boxing fight in the city, part of the national championship. This sounded like fun, so the driver that mentioned it took us.

Khmer boxing

It was very busy at the arena. There was a film crew there for TV coverage. There was even a cordoned off area especially for a large group of gamblers, who smoked profusely and waggled bits of paper at eachother. Our driver joined us in the arena as well.

It was entertaining to watch the fights, I couldn't tell you any more detail than that, really. I wasn't sure if there was match rigging going on, but one in one of the bouts a fighter was knocked clean out within 2 punches, so I did wonder. This made the gaggle of smoking gamblers hoot and yell in disapproval. Or it might have been approval, it was difficult to tell.
The driver seemed to be especially in to the whole thing, miming the punches and wincing emphatically. He told us on the way back that he actually used to do Khmer boxing.

The next day I explored the city a little. Cambodia historically had been a French colony, and this was clear from many French influences in some of the structures and leafy open spaces. The traffic was quite sketchy. It mostly comprised of scooters. On some of the bigger roads there was no break in the flow, and so you simply had to walk out into it and hope that they would avoid you.

That evening was begun inauspiciously with some drop dead exciting admin. Pat's bank were asking him to confirm his identity by sending a fax or some such. We embarked on our quest but despite being in the capital city, finding somewhere with fax technology proved nigh on impossible. We spent a good couple of hours attempting to find somewhere to do it with no success.
Eventually we ended up asking our driver from earlier if he knew anywhere. Indeed he did. Turns out it was in the one place we didn't check, about 10 minutes from our guest house along the river front. We thanked him and before long it was all sorted. On the way back we had some food and a fair few drinks. We went via the palace of the king of Cambodia. It was very well lit up and spectacular. There were lots of locals outside the palace, sat on mats, praying, selling or eating food and just generally hanging out. We speculated inconclusively as to what they were doing there, before getting back near midnight a little tipsy and very tired.

The driver was somehow still there and awake. He greeted us cordially and bade us good night. I started to suspect he lived in his tuk tuk.