Day 9 (12/12): Siem Reap - Phnom Penh - Kampot, Cambodia

Day 9 (12/12)

I catch a bus to Phnom Penh this morning. One of my hotel's desk staff is on the same bus so I can rest easy as I don't have to deal with the stresses associated with catching intercity buses in Cambodia.

The sign promises a lot – toilet (no), cake (nope), cold towel (nu-uh), dvd-tv (yes, but it's playing Khmer karaoke from a VHS), 'safety-driving' (the jury's out).

Someone's brought fermented fish onto this six hour bus journey. Nice.

Khemara, the guy from the hotel, is very camp and I think he may have a little crush. But it's innocent, and he even buys me a dumpling for lunch at one of the stops we make (one stop just at the side of the road involved the whole bus unloading and everyone emptying their bladders wherever they could find a free spot).

I'm listening to Astral Weeks as rice fields stretch out either side of the bus on this straight, straight road.

Could you find me
Would you kiss-a my eyes
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again

I'm out of cash. Siem Reap cleaned me out. I can't even afford a plate of tarantulas at a rest stop.

I got a home on high
In another land
So far away

"Martin, Martin!" Khemara wakes me. "We stop. You need to go pee-pee?"

In another place
In another time

More than 60% of Cambodia's population works in subsistence farming. The seemingly endless rice fields make for a pretty landscape, but, just as I felt in Ireland, the stark prettiness is at the expense of forests that used to cover this country and are falling every day with no sign of halting.

And i'm wondering if I ever felt the pain

The bus trip takes over eight hours. Van's helping me get through it.

You've gone for something, and you won't be back

Seb's sister and her boyfriend are over to visit and they were all kind enough to invite me on their trip down south to Kampot. Before we take the car down there though, we go to the Chinese noodle place and have dumplings and noodle soup, and Tsingtao, and that wonderful, spicy dipping sauce and watch the guys hand-pull the noodles, and all is good, and I eat just enough. I'd been hoping I could come here one more time.

All five of us squeeze into a taxi (same price as a bus) and in the darkness, telling fart jokes, we scream towards Kampot and its soothing waters.