Day 83

Sunday 23^rd January 2011

Oh dear, Suz doesn’t look so good this morning and confirms that she’s not too clever with a grunt and a low murmur of ooooowwwwwwww! The red wine obviously took its toll. We hauled ourselves out of bed for a leisurely 12:30 and headed back towards “pub street” (for sustenance not alcohol). We ate in the bar opposite the bar we watched United trounce the Brum in last night and had a scrumptious ciabatta each and lots of liquid.

The sun was blazing and even in the shade it was too hot for us so we went looking for a café with air con and Wi-Fi. We found them both at the blue pumpkin, a lovely little café just off pub street. We ordered an iced coffee a piece and decided that we’d catch up with the blog. We wiled away a few hours in their before heading back to the hotel for a nap, shower, change.

Tonight we’d decided that we would visit the Angkor night market which is vast but everyone seems to be selling pretty much the same stuff. Either fake t-shirts, fake watches or artwork seems to be the sum total. I spied a nice Tag Heuer replica in one of the stalls and enquired as to the price and was startled to find out that the bloke wanted $35 for it. I started laughing and the guy said to me;

Stall seller: “Why you laugh? Is good watch, is from Japan.”

Me: “Well that’s no good mate, ‘Tags’ are made in Switzerland!”

I think it was lost on him. Suffice it to say that I didn’t buy the watch; even though he eventually crumbled to $20 I had seen them elsewhere for $5.

We ate at the island bar which was at the back of the market and they served us very pleasant Cambodian food which was some spring rolls, chicken curry and a beef dish, something like “luk lak”. We washed them down with a couple of cold beers before taking on the market sellers once more.

Suz wanted to buy some art with a monk on it so we went looking for that. We found various examples but she couldn’t find the one she wanted so we wandered back over to the market we were at the night before to secure the desired artwork. That done we wanted to try the “Dr Fish Massage” that are on just about every street and street corner.

Basically you put your feet in a fish tank and hundreds of fish eat away the dead skin on your feet (they are obsessed with feet in Cambodia!!). To entice you in they also offer a free beer and a back massage all for $2. Winner! Its incredibly ticklish to begin with, the fish sort of head butt your feet to disturb the skin and then kiss them to get it off, very strange and resulted in me squealing like 4 year old at Christmas for a good five minutes! You eventually get used to it and people in the street stop staring at you with sympathy in their eyes!

From there we headed back to pub street and settled down to watch the Blackburn Vs West Brom game. The bloke next to me got up after twenty minutes and left, he’d been expecting to watch Real Madrid and when I informed him they wouldn’t be on until later he replied in a thick French accent “well I’m not watching dis shit”. Nobody asked you too pal.

In fairness to Frenchy the game was shit and Suz was doing the ‘nodding dog’ next to me so we decided to call it a night. Back at the room I watched the second half (it didn’t get any better) and Suz fell asleep next to me.