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.

16. Mekong Whiskey

The following day Pat had overcome his gastronomic woes, so to make up for lost time we decided to get a tuk tuk to some temples, which would allow to more distant areas like the ancient Banta Srei, This temple was very ornate but quite small, only a few heads taller than i was.

temple running

That evening we celebrated the successful day by drinking a titanic amount of alcohol, mostly at the guest house. We chatted and took turns to choose songs to play on our phones. At one point we ran out of booze so took a jaunt down the road to try and find an open shop.
The problem was it was extremely late and we could not see anything that might want to sell us anything. What we did see was a group of young Cambodian men gathered around some scooters on a street corner, not appearing to be up to much. As we approached they asked us "where we go" (as men with scooters have a habit of doing) so we asked them: Where is open and will sell us whiskey? They knew just the place. So we both hopped on the back of a scooter and we were taken to a shop that was open. After a short browse we discovered a 70cl whiskey called Mekong whiskey that cost $1.30. Holy crap! I thought. We got this and a bottle of coke, then got driven back to the guest house.

After that we sat out on the shared balcony overlooking the street. It was quite pleasant and warm, from what I remember. Which wasn't a great deal. At one point someone came out to have a look around. We said hello. He was a Japanese tourist so we invited him to have some of our whiskey. He politely accepted and joined us, His English wasn't great so he used google translate on my phone to converse with us, letting us know it was his last night in the city, asking where we were from etc.
At one point Pat, sat on the balcony railing fell off in the wrong direction, I nearly had a heart attack. He fell down about one story onto the top of the reception area below us. I jumped up and looked down, at which point he was already getting up, laughing. He hopped into the balcony on the floor near him and made his way back up, unhurt.

We made plans to stay another couple of nights in Siem Reap then head down to Phnom Pehn, so I spent the next day or two exploring Siem Reap and taking one more cycle tour of some of the other smaller temples that I had not yet visited. I even treated myself to one of those foot massages you can get with fish, They gave me a beer to sip whilst watching people pass in the street, so it felt very peculiar but not unpleasant.

All too quickly it came time to leave, so we packed our things and bundled into a minivan bound for the capital.

15. Angkor What?

I had made it to Cambodia. A different side of the country than I had been expecting, but by this point I was only making plans for things that lay directly in my future feeling very much like a leaf on the wind.

First order of business in the early evening in Siem Reap was to get some food with my new friend Pat Carty. There was a local looking place across the street from our guesthouse so we popped in there. I ordered what I believed to be a filling Khmer dish, but which turned out to be a pathetic amount of plain chicken and a tiny pile of plain rice.
After that we strolled to where we had been lead to understand by guidebooks that the nightlife was, primarily: pub street. We had a beer, and then another, and so on.
We got to know each other fairly well. He was 19 and from near Winnipeg in Canada. Bit of an outdoorsman, enjoying ski-ing, Kayaking etc and of course: Hockey.

During that evening various establishments were visited. We ended up in a bar where we challenged a couple of Cambodian guys to pool (as I had been itching for a game fora while), It may have been my inebriation, but I could not understand the peculiar rules they were using. Well the peculiar rules, which took 10 minutes to fathom, were that they were potting odds and evens, rather than spots and stripes which is what I thought was going on. In any case we were soundly thrashed several times. We tended to our wounded pride by drinking several pitchers of beer and dancing the night away.

The next day I nursed a hangover and generally planned some things to do during my time in Siem Reap. One of those things was to rent a bike to cycle around the area where the ancient and famous temples were. I bumped into Pat who was similarly hung over, and then later the couple from the bus. That evening I revealed my cunning plan to cycle around the temples. Pat said that sounded good and to knock on his door in the morning to go,
The next morning I tried to wake him as asked but there was no response! I tried a few more times but to no avail. With that, assuming that he had changed his mind, I went down to reception where they rented bikes at a very reasonable rate ($5 for the day), took one and headed out with a map in my pocket.
It was an absolutely fantastic journey. The weather was glorious (I did get a little burned). I found my way to the epic and magnificent Ankor Wat - the most notorious of the temples in the area. After paying a dollar to leave my bike near some other bikes I took a look around, It was very spectacular, although as it was nearing lunch it was starting to get very busy.
Following Angkor wat I rode around a further 5 or 6 temples, some were vast and magnificent such as Angkor Thom which had huge ornate pillars with faces carved into the stone. Another was smaller but built into the jungle with trees growing through the crumbling walls, and networks of winding roots sprawling over the walls, paving and ground.

The bike came equipped with a manly pink basket

With weary legs from cycling all day I made my way back to the guesthouse. I saw Pat who was fairly embarrassed to admit that we was not able to join me on the ride as he had been... "confined to the toilet" shall we say. I made him feel better by describing what an amazing and unmissable time I had experienced.

14. The border to Cambodia

The night bus to Bangkok was uneventful, and sleepless. We arrived in the city in the small hours (5 am or so). I once again had no intention of spending any more time in Bangkok than was absolutely necessary, and had already booked my onward travel from a harassed looking attendant at the packed ferry terminal leaving Kho Phagnan. It had scrawled on it that I was to be picked up at 9 from a hotel near a McDonalds on Kao San road.

Like the last time as we disembarked from the bus there was a small crowd of sleepy but eager looking taxi drivers waiting to take us where we needed to go. I did not recognise where I was so I asked one of the taxi drivers how much it would cost to go to Kao San road, expecting him to quote something exorbitant, but amazingly he told me I could just walk because it was only round the corner. I thanked him and headed off.

When I arrived I saw Kao San for in it's very small hours.  It was much the same as I had left it: rowdy bars; pop-up stalls selling various things; an impromptu party in the middle of the street where travellers had gathered around a portable stereo to dance. I was tired so rather than join in I focused on finding the pick up point for later. Eventually I found the posh hotel by the McDonalds. The staff helpfully advised that the mini bus pick up point was actually outside the McDonalds. So with that I went in there and purchased myself a McSomethingorother breakfast and settled in to wait.
I got talking to a couple from the UK who were also waiting for a transfer to Cambodia, except they were heading to Siam Reap in the north rather than the capital Phnom Penh which is where I was headed. After whiling away a couple more hours it came to pick up time so we gathered outside. As I had become accustomed to from Thai transfers; They were late. The girl from the couple was obviously less patient and agonised over where they were at length. There were a few other people waiting with us, a Canadian guy called Pat and some Thai holiday makers. I conversed briefly with Pat who was also headed to Siem Reap as well. I was starting to think that my plan to go to Phnom Pehn first was foolish! Although whilst I say plan, the only thing I had resolved to do was go to Phnom Pehn and then Vietnam at some point thereafter. Well after about another hour, and more fretting from the girl a man sauntered over and lead us to the minibus.

The journey to the border took us around 4 hours which was mostly spent chatting with the couple and Pat. During this time I decided that I too would head to Siem Reap, since obviously that's what all the cool kids were doing. It made sense too because going from there to Phnom Pehn was a neat line that could lead to the coast.
We got to the border and were hoofed out into some kind of office in the middle of nowhere that seemed to be something to do with tourism, or maybe it was a restaurant. It was tough to tell. I had been warned by my guidebook that where would be people that would try to rip you off going from Thailand to Cambodia for visas and connections etc - so had a suspicion that this what was happening here. However it did not seem like we had much of a choice, and also the office rep character was quite convincing in his assurances that this was all completely necessary and normal. Fundamentally I wasn't overly concerned because it seemed like going along with it would result in me being in Cambodia, which is all I really cared about at that point. In the end the price was fine, their fee, the visa, transport and changing my ticket from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap turned out to only be inflated by something like $10 from the absolute minimum when I worked it out later, All of us English speakers booked into the same guest house as it seemed like a good deal.

With all of the admin complete we were loaded into a covered pick up (like the Sanglanthews in Chiang Mai) accompanied by the "rep" from the office. It was only a short ride, after which we  enjoyed a walk to the border proper. On the walk our rep lectured us all about how we must be careful in Cambodia because everything is terrible there. We would be ripped off for converting our home currency, so before we go we should take some Thai Baht from an ATM machine to change. Then he also told us to be careful on the way to the border, and look nobody in the eye in case we get mugged. The tensions between Thailand and Cambodia must run deep!
In the end it was fine and apart from having to queue for a long time none of us had any issues getting into the country,

My first impression of Cambodia was that people generally seemed a little worse off, some people begging and on the roads I saw quite a few vehicles that appeared to just be an engine with a pole sticking out of it and a seat nailed on, chugging along at 20 mph.

The journey was only interrupted by our requests to stop for a snack and to change our money. So we were taken to a random featureless building where we all changed up our Thai Baht for Cambodian dollars. Well, they were US Dollars but apparently that we the de facto currency here thanks to runaway inflation of the actual currency: riels.

Siam Reap

We arrived in Siem Reap in the early evening and after a pleasant tuk tuk ride we booked into the Angkor Thom guest house and I am pleased to confirm that we did not get ripped off or mugged by anyone.