Day 84

Monday 24^th January 2011

Another lie in, its almost like were on holiday! Today were off to Phnom Penh on the bus (6 hours, joy!) and its coming to collect us at 11:30. By the time we’d packed (the one thing I’m sick of is packing my sodding bag) it was 10:30 but Suz really wanted to go back to the ‘Blue Pumpkin’ café that we frequented yesterday. I suggested that we should get a Tuk Tuk to save time, the café was only 10 minutes walk away but we were on the minutes so Suz agreed. We stepped outside and when we normally do this every tuk tuk drivier in South East Asia appears and shouts “tuk tuk? Tuk tuk sir? Tuk tuk? And we always say “no thank you”. It’s a tiresome game which tends to continue all over the city, sometimes in a bar the drivers will approach your table with the dreaded “tuk tuk? Tuk tuk sir? Tuk tuk? I’M HAVING A DRINK!!

Anyway this morning when we stepped outside there were none to be found, the only day we actually would have said yes, typical. So we hot footed it over to the café and ordered, received and promptly wolfed down breakfast before striding back to the hotel in time for the bus.

As it turned out we needn’t have bothered, the bus was late collecting us and when it arrived it had “The Mekong Express Limousine” emblazoned down the side of it, but today it appeared to be camouflaged as a shitty mini bus from 1978.

This took us to the station where we boarded another bus and soon enough we were on our way. The journey itself was uneventful and not too painful. I watched “Slumdog Millionaire” which I’d never seen it before, its good innit! and “Robin Hood” (the new one with Russell Crowe) which was all right, I couldn’t quite figure out what accent ol’ Russell was trying to do! Anyway the film wasn’t too bad.

We had a brief tioilet stop with some not so appetising fare on offer, not dissimilar to the stuff I'd sampled in Bangkok, but this time I wasn't drunk. Fortunately Suz had had the foresight to bring a packed lunch for us from the Blue Pumpkin so we didn't have to eat the locusts.

And then before I knew it we’d arrived in Phnom Penh and I turned to Suz and said “well this is another fine shithole you’ve brought me to darling”. We exchanged sarcastic smiles and disembarked. The level of Tuk Tuk harassment seems to have gone up a notch in Phnom Penh, the bus company have put a barrier up to prevent them grabbing your bags out of the bus and putting them on their Tuk Tuks. My bag was the last bag off and no sooner had I put the straps on my shoulders the Tuk Tukkers were all over us, they’d come through the barrier and were shouting;

“Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk Tuk”.

They sounded like an army of crickets. I raised my arms and shouted “NO!!!!”

Luckily our accommodation was only two doors down from the bus station so we walked around the corner and immediately arrived. This didn’t stop 4 (that’s 4!) of the Tuk Tukkers following us to make sure we weren’t lying. Honest to God!!

During the whole of the bus journey I had been dripping in sweat, the sun seemed to be magnified by the windows and I baked like a spud for six hours so the first port of call was a shower. The bathroom was another one of those ones where you can shit, shower, shave without moving an inch. The shower was powerful though so there were no complaints, even if it did drip on your head when you were trying to do your morning business.

We napped and then went downstairs for some tea and a few beers. I tried unsuccessfully to contact some of the jobs I’ve applied for as I have been shortlisted for interview which is great, but the interviews are on the 26^th January, not so great (I’ll  be in Thailand). The only number I could get through to was my Mum, so I asked her to sort it all out for me and she did, thanks Mum!!

We sat and watched some American Football (it happened to be on the telly) and a bloke came a sat at the table next to us. We soon got chatting and he joined us on our table. He introduced himself as Gordon and told us that he had just flown in from Hong Kong where he had been to visit and old school friend. He stated that he’d had a great time but was now feeling the effects of a 2/3 day bender. So we had a few more beers with Gordon but soon enough he was feeling the pace and retired to bed. We had arranged to Skype my mother to find out what was going on with the job interviews so we got our bill. Our bill said that we’d had 19 beers. 19? Surely not that means I’ve ten in the last two hours! We argued the toss back and fourth for ten minutes until I was tired and just paid. It was $35 dollars and that included the tea that we’d ate so it didn’t really matter.

When we got upstairs Suz did some calculations and we realised that we probably had the 19 beers plus 2 more that we’d brought to the room, so to celebrate I drank all the beer in the mini bar too! We ended up Skyping both sets of parents before falling into a beer coma.

We plan to visit the “Killing Fields” tomorrow, I’m sure the hangover wont add much joy to the day.