Your mother has a loose tongue.

Farewell Siem Reap.

Well they say you reap what you sow, and if thats the case, I siem to have misplaced my temple seeds.

Siem Reap was amazing. Angkor Wat, Dead Fish Tower, Dr Fish and Pit, what a rad combination. As I write this, I am sitting in our new guesthouse, the Waterview in Phnom Penh. We took the Paramount Express bus today, 7.5 hrs to find ourselves back here.

Yesterday we had the misfortune of being in Siem Reap for International Womens Day (its a public holiday here) so pretty much everything was shut. We took the opportunity to chill out, relax, went for a leisurely stroll by the Stung Siem Reap (River) and wrote a collection of haiku poems, mainly for shits and giggles.

We waited the afternoon away until we finally met up with Pit, and gave him his present. 23 cans of coca-cola. It would have been 24, but one can fell out on the walk back to our hotel, hit the ground, exploded, and covered me in the delicious beverage we know as COKE.

Pit was floored by the amount of Coke, assuring us it would be more than a months supply. It was a 40minute ride north, through traffic back to Pit's home, which was actually a bedroom in a larger house.

We met his wife, whose name currently escapes me and she welcomed us into their home. She had prepared a feast for us.. consisting of:

Catfish
Steamed Pork Dumpling
Pork Rib Soup
Mango Salad
Rice
and...
Dessert.
The dessert was a mixture of tapioca, coconut milk, and sweet corn. It was absolutely delicious. The catfish was tasty- some of the best fish in my life, the mango salad was again, just amazing... and the soup, to die for.

We stuffed ourselves full and sat there for the next 3 hours chatting away like old friends. Pit's wife is an english teacher and her english is amazing. We chatted about local Khmer tradition, their culture, Khmer politics, and then Mrs Pit started to teach us some Khmer words, to make our stay easier.

We have been dropping these all day, and the Khmer's seem to be lapping it up. It also helps us build more of a rapport, and is paying dividends socially already.

We awoke early to take the 930 bus, and were quite surprised when Ly (The owner of Motherhome, our guesthouse in Siem Reap) gave us $8 off our bill. Yesterday afternoon he asked Shannon and myself to peruse and make suggestions to the menu of the new restaurant he was putting in. Obviously Shannon and I ooze culinary intellect, and we gave him back a revised edition with additions and corrected grammar.

Whilst it was our absolute pleasure to help him with this (he is a top guy) we were by no means expecting a discount (unexpected but appreciated). Ly went out of his way to make sure we were comfortable during our stay, including insisting he drive us to the bus station this morning in his own car (for free), none of this tuktuk shit for us.

It was a pretty uneventul trip (we were given seats 1 and 2 on the Paramount Express). Now for you people who are not in the know I will explain the differences between seats 1 and 2, and all the others.

Regular seat: Fabric covering. 2 air conditioning vents. 40cm seat pitch.

Seats 1 and 2: Green leather with a stripe of leopard print. 6 air conditioning vents. About 200cm seat pitch, enough room for me to lay flat and still have room.

From seat 1, and also seat 2, we had panoramic views of the countryside. We were about 1 hr from Phnom Penh when we suddenly slowed. Turns out a lady had been killed on the highway, fallen off her motorcycle. As our bus drove around the corpse, the locals were covering it (she was laying in the middle of the road) in leaves. Rest in peace lady.

From there a quick cruise into Phnom Penh where our guesthouse tuktuk was not waiting at the bus station. No biggie, we just walked. Down the riverside, through the streets, passing a policeman with a Kalashnikov, and past the Waterview. Although we'd had good experiences at the Paragon, we decided we'd have a look. At the bargain price of $15 per night we have a nice big room, air con, cable tv and a nice bathroom, right on the river.

We have booked our bus for tomorrow morning, for we are heading to Sihanoukville to relax by the beach. S Tac is hoping to get some snorkelling in, I am hoping to get some beers in. We come back Thursday (only 2 days) as on Friday we are heading to the dump again to see our little buddies.

Thats the update, thats the latest, by any rate, I am the greatest.

Rhymoceros John.