22) Cambodia in Three Acts. Act 1) Dust and Such Things

I met some great folks in the 4000 Islands and followed them blindly into Cambodia. Things fell apart pretty quickly but we had a great time anyway.

4/11

A Louis Vitton roll-bag at the Laos-Cambodia border? Who brought Victoria Beckham? Jesus.

Backpacker joints throughout Southeast Asia have small libraries to trade/buy books. They inevitably all have the same shit, which falls into three general categories:

1) travel books;

2) John Grisham/Michael Crichton paperbacks;

3) The occasional self-help book.

This gem in the middle falls squarely into the last category. Where’s God when it hurts? Same place as always dude, on the 4^th tee at Augusta. Duh.

Pop quiz. This chick is either
A) Bored
B) Stoned beyond belief
C) Exhausted from putting 3 kids to bed by herself for the third night in a row.

The answer is:
D) None of your fucking business; she’s the goddamn queen. Now shut up and kneel motherfucker

We headed to a town called Ban Lung for no reason at all. It is most known for giant dust storms. I knew I never should have listened to a bunch of guys from Belgium. We left after 1 day there, which took about 12 hours on a bus to come and go. Sucks to be us.

See what I mean? This was the bus ride in. It looks like a frat party on fire.

That night I got a room with cable TV. Flipping through the channels I found an interesting show on Nat Geo Junior called What Would Happen If? The premise was testing modern quasi-scientific ‘what if’ scenarios, like what would happen if you responded to every spam e-mail for a month. Today’s episode- what would happen if you shot a cell phone? My ears perked up.

Really? That is the experiment? Umm, I’m pretty sure the phone is going to get fucked, bro.

And here comes the ballistics expert

And the result- drum roll please… No shit Sherlock, your phone has a bullet hole in it. You just blew my mind.

Thanks Nat Geo Junior. I’ll drop this bit of groundbreaking science at cocktail parties going forward.

4/12

awwww

And to ruin that nice moment, here is a dead bird we put inside a dashboard bobble-head lion. I told you this town had nothing to do.

OK, here’s a phenomenon in Cambodia-
it’s perfectly acceptable for women to wear pajamas at all hours of the day in public. Pump that gas Blossom. You go girl.

This was meant to be a funny Star Wars joke (Sand People? anyone?), but let’s look at what is really funny here. I am a scrawny shit.

After seeing this I weighed myself and clocked in at a frightening 142. That means I’ve lost 14 pounds on this trip. Granted I was sick for a few weeks, but still. Burger King here I come.

Go Speed Racer

A flat always kills the afternoon

3 hours to fix it. Literally.

Ashley’s contribution was reading the Cambodian version of Star magazine in a hammock. Thanks Ash.

Remember how dusty I said this town was?

Foul

Beer and pizza!! Are you shitting me? Fuck yeah! You must understand how rare this is for me at this point.

4/13

Absolutely beautiful.

Individually wrapped fruit treats in tiny banana leaf packages.

Another fucking flat? This town sucks. You can’t even leave without getting hassled.

Again with the pajamas.
Classic.

That night as I tucked in, Dream with the Fishes came on Star Movies. Can we say blast from the past? Anyone remember watching that with Tamara in that tiny indie theater in Berkeley in 1997?

Way to be, T

4/14

After the dust storm town I decided to check out for a while. I paid for entry to the gym/pool at a fancy hotel in Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia) and did nothing all day but read, write this stupid blog and worship the sun.

This might not look like much, but after 3 months of rice and noodle dishes, this blew my mind. I nearly cried when it was delivered to me poolside.

And then that night, wham.

I nearly fell over when I saw this. The good news is that my senses have not diminished one bit on this trip. I caught this out of the corner of my eye and immediately knew what it was. We’re talking mili-seconds to total recognition. Good boy Robby. FYI- this is the first Bud I’ve seen since early January. It was sort of like looking at the sun for the first time in months- blinding, but you don’t mind the pain because it is so beautiful.