Sleeping through my second New Year of 2007

7/4/2007 - 19/4/2007

As you probably already know from my last posting, I'm back in Cambodia - a land of dramatic contrasts. This is the land of the wonders of the ancient Khmer architecture, and the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. A land of generosity and extreme poverty, of skeletal white cows and huge butterflies, of dusty, potholed, unsealed red roads stretching towards the horizon, of insanity inducing temperatures and where two showers a day is an absolute minimum. A land of NGO projects run by disabled people and landmine victims in every town, where going "off the beaten track" taken metaphorically can be incredibly rewarding and a highlight of your trip, but where taking it literally can also take you off the demined track. A land where in the cities and major tourist centres you can't walk for 10m without being offered a moto or a tuk-tuk by 5 different people, drugs, or if you're a man, boom boom boom (the chance to fire rockets at cars and grenades at cows, or just fire M16s at targets at a shooting range), or boom boom (more along the lines of "I love you longtime"). A land where if you ignore the people pestering you, more people will keep asking, but if you turn around, give them a big smile and say "Tay arkun" (no thanks), you get a huge smile in return for your troubles. A land where a white person driving through remote villages on a moto is still a novelty, and where this will cause everyone to stare and children to run out onto ther street shouting "Hi, hi, hi". A land where, if you wave back and say "Suosrai"(hello) you see grins on every face.

Dave and I had arrived in Kampot and splurged on a lovely hotel room when I ended the last posting, if memory serves. We had decided to stop being ripped off as solo travellers, and since no long-term contracts are signed and rooms are paid for on a day-to-day basis, we decided that we could share a room (obviously we were just thinking of our respective financial situations when making this decision). I'd known him for a week, we'd read all the same books (and had diametrically opposed views on all of them), and had the same favourite computer games - what more do you need to know about a person before you move in with them?

I spent the majority of the next day still catching up on my blog in the internet cafe, while Dave drifted back and forth from the guesthouse where he was finishing off a book, coping remarkably well with my wildly inaccurate guesses as to when I would be done. In the evening we managed to meet up with Keith, Angela and Georgie, despite confusing discrepancies and flat-out contradictions between meeting places arranged in various notes and e-mails that had been sent that day. Keith and I ordered rum and cokes in memory of Steve, despite the fact that neither of us actually likes rum. Steve has roped us both into drinking it many times over the years though, so it felt appropriate. We drank to Steve and discussed our options for activities on 10th - we both felt that we wanted to do something that he'd have enjoyed, rather than something that would make us all miserable, because there's no doubt that that's what he'd have wanted us to do - he'd want us to remember him with a smile and with laughter (when that's possible).

The following morning we met for breakfast at Epic cafe, a wonderful little place run by deaf people. A wonderfully warm and excitable albino deaf lady took our orders, miming things as she did so, and constantly laughing, especially at Keith, whom she renamed as something like big stubbly chin in mime. Angela's identifying mime was glasses, and mine appeared to be ridiculous triangle shaped haircut.

After the most delicious shake yet (banana and cinnamon), and a beautiful fruit salad, we played thumb wars with a couple of deaf boys, and I took a bunch of photos of everyone (as usual). We said our goodbyes, and Keith told the boys that they were heading off for a massage. One boy wondered if they were going to get a blind massage, so he did a very un-PC, but hilariously funny impression of a blind person walking into a wall, which they confirmed with a nod while wetting themselves laughing.

We left after the most enjoyable meal that I've had in ages. I'm very impressed with these well thought out, well run NGO projects that you find all over the touristy areas of Cambodia. At Epic cafe, the kitchen staff have clearly had extensive training, the menu is perfect for tourists and there are pictures of various bits of useful restaurant vocab in sign language at the back, along with information on the various projects that Epic runs. The thing that struck me the most was that throughout the meal we were surrounded by deaf people, communicating and joking with them, yet at no point did it even occur to me to feel sorry for them (which, right or wrong, is my normal reaction to meeting someone with a severe disability).

Dave and I packed up our things and headed off to Kep on motos, where we commandeered a boat to the remote Rabbit island (with Dave complaining about the cost of the 4 quid return journey - he's used to 3 hour long boat rides in Bangladesh for 50p). After about half an hour we arrived on a quiet beach with maybe 10 - 20 huts scattered randomly along it's length. We found ourselves a hut about 50m from the waters edge with candles in lieu of electricity, then went for a swim and an explore of the beach (happily we found hammocks strung up between palm trees at the water's edge - no SE Asian beach is complete without a hammock). For dinner I had the exciting and varied choice of veg fried rice or noodles, and then we watched the sunset and went for another swim. We went back to the room at sunset, as we didn't want to be walking into trees when it was dark, and then stayed up playing San Juan and 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon until it felt like bedtime.

In the morning we packed up and had a breakfast of fried eggs, rice and fresh pineapple, then went for a wander around the coast of the island until we found a deserted beach miles from anywhere and went skinny dipping. Eventually we tore ourselves away from our island paradise and took the boat back to the mainland and headed back to Kampot, where we went back to the Epic cafe for lunch. My date cake wasn't as sticky as I'd anticipated, and proved to be a bit of a disappointment. Dave didn't seem to understand why I was therefore entitled to several mouthfulls of his chocolate brownie (he'll learn).

When we'd pigged out sufficiently, we were hurried into a shared taxi to Sihanoukville that was just about to leave (in, as it turned out, half an hour). When we arrived I checked my e-mail to find out where Keith, Angela and Georgie were staying, and then we checked into the same hotel, leaving a note at the desk for the others, and went upstairs for badly needed showers (the bathroom on rabbit island was clean, but just a tad basic). When Keith and the others appeared, we went out to dinner via the internet cafe (where I completely failed to get hold of anyone back home). While we perused the menu and awaited our orders, we watched the bar staff taking it in turns to have a break and fire poi or staff on the beach (I, of course, had to have a go too). We had a lovely dinner on the beach - well, Dave and I did, Keith and the others wanted to go elsewhere, but by the time they got to the restaurant that they liked the look of, it, and all the other restaurants except one, had closed. The one restaurant that was still open failed to cook the fish properly, and as the chef had gone for a swim in the sea, Angela was forced to go to the barbeque and cook it herself.

The following day was the 10th April, a day I had been both dreading (as it was 6 months since the day Steve died), and trying to rationalise as just an arbitrary number of days that the Romans decided to split up in a certain way to form the calender with 12 months. After we had all breakfasted and got ourselves organised, we piled into an incredibly slow longboat and made our way across to Bamboo island, where we sat around and had a delicious lunch while swapping more Steve stories and listened to the Flaming Lips. We then spent the afternoon snorkelling around the remnants of the reef (the locals use dynamite as a way of catching fish here, and sadly don't seem too fussed about the indescriminate nature of the carnage that ensues), chasing the fish, diving several metres underwater from the surface with a snorkel (I finally learned how to do this by watching Dave - it would have been useful to know a few months ago when I swam with dolphins - maybe I'll just have to go again...), diving off the edge of the boat in daft ways, and taking pictures of each other doing all of the above. On the way back we watched the sunset and sang Keith's favourite cheesey 80s hits (I did request another decade several times, but to no avail).

That evening, after cleaning up back at the hostel (and trying and failing to get hold of my family again), we went out to a fancy seafood restaurant. The variety of vege main courses was rubbish, but I'm extremely resourceful, so this wasn't a problem as I had a starter and 2 desserts instead (as Dave warned me in advance that he wasn't going to let me steal his cake this time, so what could I do?). The chocolate fondant cake was just beautiful, as was the fresh mango (see it wasn't that unhealthy). We chatted some more about Steve (I honestly can't hear enough daft stories about my brother's antics), and toasted him, and then the conversation meandered through topics as diverse as Cambodian politics, fear of flying and our travels so far. I've really enjoyed travelling together as a group - it's not always easy with a group this big to all get along, and make decisions in a way that keeps everyone happy, but the five of us have managed it, and I've really enjoyed their company. Astonishingly, I actually found myself having a great day today - the boat trip really felt like something Steve would have loved doing, and it was nice to get to one of the many milestones in the first year after Steve died, and actually be happy thinking about him. No doubt I'll have bad days still, but it was good to get through today feeling positive.

We went back to the hotel, and Dave continued to be a bad influence on my sleeping pattern (or rather complete lack of a pattern - sleeping chaos would perhaps be a more accurate term).

The following day we had planned to get our visas sorted for Vietnam, and then head back to Phnom Penh, but we were slow to get moving, and by the time we got to the Vietnamese embassy at 12:15, the visa office had closed until 2pm for lunch. Damn. We went to the bus station and faffed around looking for cheap buses that went late enough for us to get our visas still (there were none - the Khmer New Year was coming up in a few days, and all transport and accomodation prices were going through the roof). Eventually we found a ridiculously expensive bus that gave us half an hour to get our visas, we rushed off to the embassy, and miraculously actually made it back to the bus station in time. By the time we arrived in Phnom Penh, there was no question of either of us moving on to our next destinations as it was too late, so we booked into number 9 guest house as usual, pigged out, watched Kill Bill (for some reason this film or the sequel seem to be watched at least once a day by new guests who have just arrived) for old time's sake, played pool, swung in the hammocks for a while, then ignored the New Years advance party that was taking place, and retired early.

The following morning started with an astonishingly accurate reenactment of the first scene from 4 Weddings and a Funeral, as Dave and I slept through the alarm clock that was meant to wake us at 5:30am for our buses. We packed at lightning speed, didn't have time for showers, said incredibly hurried goobyes (we decided that neither of us wants the other to change their travel plans, and that we'll try to go our seperate ways when we want to do different things, then meet back up), got in separate courtesy taxis as we were travelling with different bus companies, and then my taxi, instead of rushing to the bus station to make my bus in 5 minutes, meandered around the streets, picking up other people in no particular hurry. I repeatedly pointed out to my driver that my bus was going to go at any minute, but he still didn't appear to appreciate the urgency of the matter. When we got to the bus station, the bus company were nice enough to give me one of several spare seats on the 8am bus (that I had been told was full by a travel agent the previous evening).

As my mp3 player ran out of juice a few days ago, and none of the internet cafes I'd been in in Phnom Penh had usb 2.0 ports, I did my best to sleep through most of the lengthy and bumpy journey. I woke up after half an hour to find that a Cambodian lady had sat down next to me. I had hoped to have the double seat to myself as I was painfully aware that I hadn't had a shower for 24 hours in a country where the absolute minimum is 2 a day, and I was giving off the most unbearable, unholy stench. Well, that's the impression I got from the lady sitting next to me, who seemed to be struggling to breathe. She rubbed tiger balm under her nose, and when that didn't cut through my rather distinctive perfume (eau d'oeuf rance), she coated the inside of a paper bag with tiger balm and inhaled with that under her nose. I was too mortified to apologise, and she seemed to prefer turning away from me slightly, so we avoided eye contact throughout the journey. I tried to kid myself that she was of a nervous disposition and was trying to stop herself hyperventilating, or that she had a problem and was getting high on tiger balm at 9am on a bus.

When I got off the bus (much to the relief of everyone within 10m of me) I was mobbed by moto drivers. I chatted with them to guage prices, and then (having chatted to Dave who has already been to the area and looked into doing the motorbike journey that I was about to set off on) made the decision to pay more, hire a moto and driver here (rather than 140km further on, after travelling on by pickup truck) in order to secure a moto driver with decent English to avoid confusion along the way (given that the next 2 nights would be spent in villages in the arse end of nowhere in the north of Cambodia, where I can't rely on anyone being able to speak English). It was the right decision to make, as there was no confusion about prices and routes, but I did add substantially to the GDP for Cambodia in 2007 with the amount I paid. When I agreed on a price with my moto driver, I asked to be taken to a guest house that would let me use their shower for a nominal fee (I couldn't bear the thought of my moto driver struggling to breathe for the next 4 hours).

The road was an unsealed, dusty, red, potholed, puddle ridden nightmare that was so bumpy that I kept finding my arse leaving my seat and then crashing back down just in time to be sent airborne again. I thanked christ for my boulder holder industrial strength sports bra and my amply padded arse (who wants a supermodel's boney bum anyway?).

We passed mango plantations and native forests, villages of wooden shacks on stilts with one room for the whole family, signposted demined fields, cows being herded along by teenage girls and ice cream motos (tempting, but I was too scared of it being improperly frozen to try it) and everywhere children turned and stared, waving at me, running out of their houses to the road and calling out to me with big smiles. I couldn't not grin back, even if I'd wanted to. My clothes, arms and face became coated in red dust, so I couldn't see if I was burning. Putting on suncream left the dust in orange streaks and made me look like an Essex girl preparing to go to the Costa del Sol.

We stopped for petrol (stored in plastic bottles) and I walked around in the village, trying to get blood circulating through my sciatic region again. My moto driver pointed and said I could go over there and wash up if I wanted. I wandered around in confusion until he showed me an open barrel filled with water with a layer of dusty, oily scum on top. I decided that I didn't need a wash after all.

We carried on driving for hours (140km can take a long time when you're slaloming and dodging potholes, puddles, dogs, cows, pigs and chickens), and just when I thought my arse could take no more, and was contemplating a stunt driver style standing on the seat trick for the rest of the journey, we arrived at our stop for the first night. I paid through the nose for a room at the first guesthouse that we came to as I didn't have the energy to look around for a bargain. I showered again to get rid of the fake-tan look and went out for dinner.

After lots of miming (that no-one understood) and doing farmyard animal impressions (that no-one seemed to get) followed by shaking my head, a local man who spoke some English was found, and I explained to him about vegetarianism - a new concept to him. He directed me to another restaurant that could cater for my needs and sent his mum with me to explain. The new restaurant owners looked at me like I was mad and went off to prepare my food. They had no menu so I had no idea what I was getting. I sat there, playing with the local children, taking their photos and showing them the photos (digital cameras are such a good ice-breaker in areas where virtually no-one speaks the same languages as you), and hoped for the best. Eventually I was brought my hearty dinner of boiled rice with fried eggs on top.

I went back to the hotel and chatted with the driver about the temples we would be going to on the following day. We agreed to set of at 6am (why is it that while travelling I frequently find myself getting up earlier than I did when working in London?). I spent the evening in bed reading Notes on a Scandal, and then slept fitfully as I was woken up repeatedly by dogs howling and someone nearby playing loud music in the middle of the night (odd behaviour in a small village).

I got up at some hideous hour of the morning and wandered around the village looking for someone, anyone, to sell me fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. I eventually gave up, and in a dramatic departure from my meal of the previous evening, I had boiled rice with a omelette on top.

We left later than planned and headed off to my first ancient Khmer temple of this visit - Prasat Preah Vihear. The journey proceeded in a similar manner to that of the previous day, with me slowly transforming into a streaky orange Shazza-monster, and with my bum in agony by the time we arrived.

I paid the entrance fee, haggled over a more powerful motorbike to take me up the ridiculously steep path (35 degrees in places, I shit you not) to the temple at the top of the mountain (I wanted to walk it, but my moto driver didn't think I had time as he was all worried that it might rain that afternoon, and he wanted to get to the village where we were staying that night before it did, as the roads become even more hellish when wet).

I knew before I came to this temple that it was right on the Thai-Cambodian border, that the Thais have built a tarmac road to the temple and that there would be a fair few Thai tourists from the other side. I wasn't prepared for the crowds though. I did still feel pretty intrepid, as I only saw 7 white people in the 2 hours that I was there, and they had all blatantly come from the Thai side, given that they did not look like they had just been tangoed. The temple had some pretty impressive architecture, and the view from the grounds was stunning, but I wasn't sure that it had been worth the money, the distance, and the pain in my bum. The temple was surrounded by stalls selling poor quality tourist tat, and there were children everywhere trying to get tourists to come to their stalls (children are so much harder to say no to). I took lots of photos of the kids instead, and kept finding myself saying no thanks in the wrong language to everyone - their nationality was only obvious to me when they wore the yellow t-shirt that all Thais have been wearing to celebrate the anniversary of their king's coronation. I also took photos of the beautiful butterflies flitting through the grounds (I resisted the urge to chase them into the tall grass though, as the area is still heavily mined).

It was only when I took the moto back down the hill that I fully appreciated the insane gradient - it was like a black run without the snow. On a motorbike. Going across broken concrete, gravel, stones, dirt tracks, mud and the rockface of the mountainside, none of which made my arse feel any better.

I grabbed a mango (that the stall owner sliced up for me) between motos, and then we started off on the epic journey to Koh Ker. When we stopped for petrol I wandered around taking photographs of locals. I discovered that saying "moi, pay, bie" (1, 2, 3 in Khmer) never failed to raise a smile (mind you, getting a Cambodian to smile is about as difficult as getting a Londoner to avoid eye contact on the tube). When I showed them the photos, half the village clustered around to see. One boy was sitting there playing a harmonica. Sadly he didn't know who Bob Dylan was, so my compliment was wasted on him.

After several eons we arrived at Siyong, where we found a guesthouse (I managed to find the energy to haggle this time, as I wasn't paying 2 pounds fifty for a room with a shared bathroom that consisted of a toilet and a bucket of water in lieu of a shower). I dumped my bags, had a wash to de-tango myself, and then travelled the mercifully short distance to Koh Ker with my moto driver.

Because it was late in the afternoon when we arrived at Koh Ker, the desk at the entrance was unmanned, so I paid a $5 bribe (to some guy on a moto) rather than a $10 entrance fee. I shared the temples with a handful of Cambodian people, but no other tourists. I climbed to the top of a temple in the shape of a 7 tier stepped pyramid and watched the sun go down, I saw ruined temples, small temples with trees growing out of them and temples with Linga (large phalluses), but to be honest, I think I was a bit templed out after a long day exploring temples and covering about 300km of the road to hell. On the way back we stopped and chatted (well I chatted, my moto driver translated) to a guy who is currently working demining a field in the area. He said, depending on the concentration of the mines, he neutralises between 2 and 5 mines a day. To be honest, I felt like a bit of a prat as the guy seemed utterly bemused by my wanting to stop and talk to him, so I told him to keep up the good work and left.

Back at the guest house I dumped my stuff and headed out to dinner (veg fried rice with egg on top - I actually didn't mind the similarity to everything else I'd eaten for the last 24 hours this time, as it was beautifully cooked, and absolutely delicious) with my moto driver. He got chatting to the guys at the next table, and I was starting to get very bored, when it turned out that they were from Phnom Penh and spoke a bit of English too. I told them the Khmer words that I knew (Yes, no, please, thankyou, hello, goodbye, and the numbers from 1-10, Dad did suggest that I find out how to say "Go ahead, but you won't find anything worth nicking; oh, and, yes, of course I'd love to come and help you solve your financial problems in your brothel, but I don't think your customers would really like the STDs we wild liberated western women all have, so perhaps you would be best advised to disappear, preferably up your own back passage", but I thought that that might be a tad advanced for me) and they then spent the next hour patiently repeating various words that I or they thought would be useful to know, while I wrote them down phonetically. I can now say sorry, no problem, toilet, good, mango, pineapple, banana, money, bill, beautiful (they may have been trying to flirt with me at this stage. They did mention something about coming to see their guest house, but I pointed out that there was beer here, so we didn't need to move), can I take your picture, thankyou very much, happy New Year (for the following day), thousand, I understand little, water, thirsty, hungry, smile, laugh, mosquito, sore, arse, up yours (good enough Dad?) and the most useful word of all - yummy. My daily food bill has roughly halved since I started using this word. It really is amazing how much people respond to you making a little bit of effort with their language, and it's not that difficult here (compared to Thai or Vietnamese, both of which are tonal languages, meaning that changing the pitch or tone of your voice changes the meaning of the word completely). It was a lot of effort trying to get them to understand the concept of swear words (it came up because a mosquito bit me and I uttered a couple of English words that they weren't familiar with). I eventually explained it by saying "words you don't say in front of your mother" (unless your Mum listens to Eminem and gave up trying to edit your vocabulary, if not your grammar, years ago, like mine), and then they got it. After much persuasion they taught me up yours, but were very emphatic about the point that I mustn't use that particular phrase. I said that I didn't think I would need to, but that my Dad thought it would be a good idea (with hindsight, I don't think I gave them a very good impression of my parents). We then chatted about life in Cambodia, NGOs, the government, the school system, our jobs and our favourite places in Cambodia. When we got up to leave, I was so busy saying goodbye and happy new year to all the customers, and thankyou very much and yummy to all the staff (who were by now giggling at me), that I didn't notice the guys paying for my dinner. There really is no polite way of saying "Don't be ridiculous, I earn more in a day than you do in a month.", so I chickened out and said thankyou very much instead. I went back and spent the remainder of the evening finishing off Notes on a Scandal.

My third and final day on a moto (thank fuck) took me to Siem Reap via Beng Mealea - a temple that's described in the lonely planet as so overgrown with trees that it makes Ta Promh (Tomb Raider temple - see pictures from August) look like they forgot to mow the lawn. That's a fairly apt description, but they didn't really emphasize just how badly ruined many parts of it are. I arrived at 8:30am and had the place pretty much to myself (except for Cambodian people trying to sell me things, or trying to convince me that I wanted a guide). After about half an hour a boy of about 10 started following me, and then gestured for me to follow him up a path over the piles of stone from walls and stupas that had collapsed. I would have never spotted this path, and it looked like fun, so I made the autonomous decision (without so much as a by-your-leave from my bank manager) to fork out 25p for a guide, and then proceeded to spend the next hour clambering over the ruins, along walls, across the tops of gateways, through doorways half blocked by an avalanche of stone and back down again onto the official path. I had soooooo much fun, it was like a great big adventure playground obstacle course in the middle of a spectacular ruined temple overgrown by rainforest, plus the views over the temples were stupendous from the tops of the ruins. At one point I dropped my lens cap and it fell into the middle of a heap of stone. My guide (La) clambered off and rescued it - I started to protest that it wasn't safe, and it was only a lens cap, but he had it back to me before I could finish. I had to stop several times to wipe the sweat off my face and drink some water (it was hard work, and it was bloody hot, and it didn't help that I refused to put my hands or feet on any intricate stonework, or anything leaning on it, so I didn't always go up the easiest route), so La and his friend Ton, who had now decided to join us took to carrying my water for me, and taking my arm to help me over the difficult bits (that was quite sweet, even if it did make me feel like a geriatric). I was going to pay the boys more than I had promised, after the stellar effort they had made, but when I went to pay, I realised I only had 25p in change, or US$50 notes. Bugger.

I carried on wandering across the more conventional path for another hour, took hundreds of pictures, and then went back to the moto, taking pictures of more adorable temple brats along the way. By the time I left at about 10:30, the tourists were starting to arrive in their droves.

After 550km on the road, my moto driver dropped me off outside Siem Reap (moto drivers there must have a special permit, or they risk heavy fines - my moto driver doesn't have one). I caught the bus, tried to pay, but the driver just gestured for me to sit down, and was getting quite irate, I was too tired to argue, so I collapsed in a seat and slept most of the way there.

When the bus arrived, unsurprisingly the driver tried to overcharge me to a ridiculous degree. I actually found myself doing something I rarely do when travelling, and that's get cross. I absolutely refused to haggle, as he'd absolutely refused to tell me the price before I got on the bus, and I absolutely refused to give him a penny more than the price that the locals would pay (I asked my neighbour in Khmer before I got off the bus). I thought about using my new found vocabulary that I said I wouldn't use, but thought better of it, gave him the money and marched off.

I checked my e-mail to find out if Keith and Angela's guest house was affordable for a solo traveller, it really wasn't, so I found a room that was only slightly overpriced given that it was the Khmer New Year that evening. I stood under the shower for at least an hour until every last bit of road had left my pores, wandered (or rather hobbled) round, found the local branch of seeing hands and told the masseuse to concentrate on my lower back. By the time he was done my muscles were an odd combination of sore and relaxed, to the extent that it took me 15 minutes to walk a distance I would normally do in 5. I had roughly the muscular responsiveness of a patient who's been in a coma for so long that they're suffering from atrophy.

In the evening I met up with Keith, Angela and Georgie again, after some confusion over the meeting place, due to some messages being passed on by hotel staff, and others not. Luckily we found each other, had a lovely meal and some cocktails and jabbered at each other until we'd exhausted ourselves and had to go to bed (before midnight - I slept through the New Year again! I must be getting old).

The following morning, I actually found myself ready to go long before my bus (this almost never happens), so I checked my e-mail, and spotted a search button, tried it out, and discovered that it did exactly what I wanted it to do when it sorted through my 5000 or so e-mails and pulled out all the ones from Steve, which are now in a seperate folder. I looked through a few before my bus turned up, particularly the ones from when Steve and Ruth travelled round S America, and laughed out loud at several bits.

I'd still not managed to charge up my mp3 player, so I spent the journey looking forward to seeing Dave again and attempting to sleep on the bus, but kept waking to find my head on the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me. I hate it when that happens.

I arrived in Phnom Penh in the early evening, to find that Dave wasn't there yet. I checked into my old room, ordered a banana and chocolate shake, checked my e-mail again, and then gave up, assuming that he couldn't make it back from the sticks on Khmer New Year and would be back tomorrow. By 10pm I was consoling myself by slobbing in front of the tv, watching the Killing Fields, when Dave appeared. I think my surprise may have caused us to stray into embarrassing P.D.A. territory, and when Dave had had dinner, we spent the evening getting reacquainted (over games of San Juan and pool of course).

I spent the majority of the following day going through my photos, burning them to cd and doing useful things like sorting out my bus tickets and trying and failing (once again) to find an internet cafe that could charge my mp3 player. If I can't manage it in a capital city, what hope is there for the next 3 months?

In the evening we met up with Keith, Angela and Georgie again and we all said our goodbyes to Georgie who was heading back to old Blighty.

The following day Dave saw me to my bus to Ho Chi Minh City. After further P.D.A. infringements we said our goodbyes and I spent the bus journey wondering why I had chosen to leave both Cambodia and Dave behind, as the reason escaped me. Hopefully we should be able to meet again in Vietnam at some point in the next couple of weeks.

As I still had no tunes, the highlight of an incredibly dull journey was getting off the bus for the border control. Actually, that's a lie, the last hour or two one the way into HCMC was just bizarre, and not at all what I'd expected. I was struck by how impossible fresh and stylish all the women looked in their long white ao doi (traditional Vietnamese outfits), especially considering the temperature in what is now the hottest time of year, just before the monsoon rains come. What really surprised me though, was just how capitalistic the comrades here are. There are fancy clothing shops everywhere with every imaginable garment in every conceivable colour available (not just red), and more different types of useless tourist tat than I ever thought possible. At least no-one has approached me with a croaking frog yet though.

For the last two days I have stayed in Ho Chi Minh city, trying to get used to the noise, and the huge numbers of people on motorbikes weaving round each other in patterns more complex than a westerner can discern with the naked eye. Crossing the road is a bit like a leap of faith. You just amble slowly across the road and it's the driver's job to dodge round you (I think).

Most of the last 2 days have been spent writing this blog, but I did manage to make it to the War Remnants museum - the, well, best is the wrong word, but I'm too tired to think of the right one, the best parts of the exhibition were the photos of the Vietnam war (or the American war as it's called here) taken by war photographers and journalists who died in the conflict, and the bits documenting American atrocities, particularly the effects of their use of defoliants like agent orange. The museum was a bit one sided, but very informative. I've also been window shopping my little heart out, and am idly contemplating buying several things, including oriental lampshades, a silk ao dai (which will no doubt no longer fit me within 2 weeks of my getting home and recommencing my pie eating ways) and a fairly good immitation of a Kandinski painting for about 20 pounds.

Tomorrow I will leave the city (hopefully with the washing done that I handed in to my guesthouse owner this morning, that was still sitting there unwashed when I came back from dinner this evening) and head off to a national park (whose name eludes me, and I don't have my lonely planet to hand) with an amazing variety of birdlife apparently, and from there I will probably make for Dalat in the central highlands. After that, who knows?