Its coming to a close.. the final hoorah.

Since we talked last.

We headed back from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh. This time we took the $5 shitheap bus and it took 4 hours.Go figure. The bus barely had brakes, but really, I think that made hills much more interesting and a little intriguing, not to mention full of suspense. Everyone loves a bit of edge and mystery, I hear thats why the girls love Johnny Depp. So I guess the bus was a lot like Johnny Depp.

We arrived back in at midday and back to our hotel, the Waterview. We dropped our stuff off and decided to go for a stroll. We strolled all about Phnom Penh, before heading to Bogey and Bacalls to see if they were still having a dump run on friday. Luckily for us they were, and we stayed there for a few hours, drinking 65c beers before heading off.

As we were heading out the next day, I headed down to the Russian Markets on the back of a moto to buy some soccer balls for the kids. When we got to the market and I went to give the driver a dollar he said

Moto: "Where are you staying?
Me: Paragon ( a devious lie so he wouldnt try and mug me or something equally as lame )
Moto: I know a hotel that has free accomodation
Me: I bet it does
Moto: And girls. Sexy girls. All the girls you want. I will take you there.
Me: GFY.

So I met a pimp who moonlights on a motorbike. This place is full of surprises. Haha. I grabbed the soccer balls, and headed home, then later on we went for some beers.

The dump was good yesterday, a really rewarding day. This time we were accompanied by a couple of Germans, a couple of Brits and an Irish guy. The dump smelled a lot worse this time, like really really fucking reeked. I had the job this time of distributing the food in the boys line. So each little tacker came up, grabbed 2 apples, a loaf of bread, an orange and 2 bananas. Absolutely amazing that for $150, 450 kids can get a decent vitamin-packed meal.

While we were up there, a couple of Japanese tourists came up in a tuktuk and started taking photos. Didn't even get out of the tuktuk. Its quite disheartening to see that there are some people who think some good holiday snaps are those containing 450 kids living on a rubbish dump.

After we handed out the food, we distributed the soccer balls. One word only can desribe it: SHITSTORM. Haha. The kids went mental for them. We only took 10 so we made sure to remind them to share them, but even if they get a bit of fun out of them, then thats ok by us.

From there we had the obligatory 10 beers at Bogey and Bacalls, and as we were leaving, David, the owner of Bogeys and the Founder of the Dump Run invited us to dinner at his favourite pizza parlour with his lovely girlfriend Allie. So we agreed to that, came home, showered and met them there at 6. We all took a tuktuk took a took down, had some pizza, laughs, etc before bidding adieu to them both as we won't get a chance to see them before we leave.

We then headed back to Bogeys where we met Richard (the barmy English guy who accompanies David on most of the dump runs). Richard insisted on taking us on a walking tour of the Riverside bars, so off we went. Stopped in a few bars, had a few ales, before heading to the pontoon. The Pontoon is a bar, thats on an actual Pontoon. Its got a fullsize lounge, a fullsize dance floor, a fullsize bar.. and its actually a really cool place to hang out. Unfortunately for us, we'd been in the sun all day, were tired (Shannon was recovering from her delhi belly the night before) and we bailed at about 10pm.

Today we rose late, and then headed for some soup at our favourite little place on the corner of 136 St, opposite Huxleys. After breaky we headed to the markets with our main man Mr Thai, bought some cheap DVD's, thongs etc, and made plans to meet Mr Thai for a drink this afternoon, which is where I am headed now. Obviously won't get a blog out before our pretty uneventful flight home, maybe after if something slightly entertaining popped up.. We've certainly had a great time, and until the next trip, thanks for reading.

Cheers
John.