Phnom Penh

Well, lets see... where did I leave off.. ahh yes, having lunch in Phnom Penh on the 12th.. right so, after lunch I bought some books - namely "No Logo", which I've been meaning to read since I read the "fences and windows" also by Naomi Klein, "Ancestral Vices" by Tom Sharpe and finally the "Curious incident of the dog in the night time" by Mark Haddon.

So I headed back to my guesthouse and layed around reading the "Curious incident of the dog in the night time" - which is a very quick read, depressingly so, as I finished it later that same afternoon.. but I really liked the book - most good, and made for a nice break away from the reality of Cambodian street life that gets me down after a couple of hours.

At any rate, I was feeling antisocial that evening and decided to go find some dinner for myself at the quietest restuarant I could locate... found an indian joint that looked well abandoned and decided it was the ticket.. but after sitting down, ordering my
meal and reading my book while consuming an Angkor beer (which is shite, in fact I dont like any of the beers in south east Asia.. god I miss dark beer!) a mad kenyan woman sat at my table and just started talking to me... other then her name being Anna I
really didn't understand much of what she was saying.. apparently she was married, but was seeing a friend of a friend who she'd told everything yet never met and that africans open there hearts to other africans yet white people are always suspicious (at this
point I mumbled "and with good reason you mad wench" but she continued merrily on with her monologue) and eventually moved onto talking about someone named Lee Vuthy who she thought worked for the Cambodian daily.  It was all complete nonsense and
once my meal was finished I escaped. Incidentally the Cambodian daily seems to be the only English language paper here... and it has a great couple of pages called the 'police blotter' which lists all the major crimes for the last few days... talk about depressing, but I digress.

Off to Siem Reap

The next day I checked out and grabbed the bus up to Siem Reap... this was a thrilling trip, especially the stop in a town I think was called Stung sen, where there were so many street kids begging for food ... it really does your head in when your eating a packet of chips and kids are pulling at your shirt to have some, I cant even equate this to the greed exuded by most of the older street kids here (who only ever want cash) - it really does suck, and the local Cambodian adults are largely desensitized to it - in fact I guess they would have to be - but it does my head in.

At any rate, I met a girl named "sky" from the states who suggested a guesthouse to stay at (the garden village) - which is reasonably central and stocked with loads of boys, like every other guesthouse, who just wander around like they're A.D.D - fiddling and fidgeting, because other then the little bit of driving work they do, they have absoloutely zero stimulus.  Personally though I find most of the boys to be generally dishonest, full of shit (sob stories that don't line up with everyone elses sob stories) and greedy (average income is $20 US a month here, yet I would estimate that most of these boys earn that in a week or so) ... some people discribe tourism in Cambodia as a gold rush, and I think that's quite accurate - things will no doubt change over time, but at the moment it definitely seems a bit cheeky and ruthless.

So I grabbed one of the boys, "we", as a driver for Angkor wat and headed out to catch sun down from the hill... which was good, met a couple up there I'd hung out with in Savanaket in Laos, so that was amusing.. exchanged stories etc.  That night I had dinner at the Dead fish tower, which did a really nice thai meal (the restaurant has free live music and crocodiles.. *shrug*).. very tastey - and then headed to bed because I had to get up early (5am!) to catch the sun rise at Angkor wat.

Throwing up on Angkor temples

So I got up that morning (the 14th) and was feeling a bit dodgy... nothing out of the ordinary... and then headed out to Angkor Wat, got some nice pictures... felt a bit more dodgy... had some breakfast... complete loss of appetite... felt even more dodgy... had some water... and then had waves of Nausea and eventually threw up in the middle of the Bayon temples... thankfully nobody saw me do it, as it really does seem a little
disrespectful.. not to mention gross... And after that it was all down hill, I started overheating, couldn't keep water down and so around mid day I decided it was a bust and got my driver to head back to the guest house...

On the way back I stopped off at the chemist and got some electrolytes to help with dehydration, and some antibitoics (Ciprofloxacin, well Neocip-500 which appears to be the same thing) which seems to be doing the trick as I feel a lot better today... hopefully tomorrow everything will be back on form and I can continue my exploration of the Angkor wat temples.. on the down side, it means buying another $20 US ticket :(

Right, time for some lunch - hopefully I can keep it down!