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Published: January 28th 2006
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Wilson gives the toast.
"Gentlemen, the journey!" Phnom Penh - Siem Reap
Up at 6.00am, downstairs eating breakfast at 7.00am. Dara adds up our bill and gives it to Tez for his perusal. We can't help but notice that Wilson has slipped his laundry onto the group bill. There is some discussion over this but Kitty Master Tez deems it appropriate and we cover the $2 cost. Today we must leave Phnom Penh for Siem Reap. A van picks us up from the hotel to take us to the bus station. As we pass the Foreign Correspondents Club a little tear comes to my eye as I remember my fellow Busters sucking on their cocktails like a couple of ageing ladyboys. Farewell FCCC!
Our bus is clean but a little cramped. A Cambodian girl acts as a steward/guide handing out meals, drinks and cold towels while giving a running commentary on the passing countryside. She slips effortlessly between Khmer and English and the Busters are all a little in love with her. But then we remember the Buster wives and a cold chill runs down our backs, around our legs, across the bottom of our feet, spirals back up our legs and settles in our nether regions.
Tez responds
"I'll drink to that!" We stop in a little town for lunch and discover that the local delicacy is a large spider with rice wrapped in a leaf. Tez is keen to try it ("C'mon Busters, we have to give the spider a go!"), however the idea of the spider roll nearly has me blowing chunks - let alone actually putting it in my mouth - so we very sensibly leave it alone.
While we eat our chicken fried rice an American guy joins us and introduces himself as Jeff. Jeffso is here on a little sex tour of Cambodia and, seeing three 40+ blokes sitting together, obviously thinks we are as well. He gives us the run down on all his "girlfriends" and tells us the best bars in Siem Reap for hooking up with the ladies. I feel like saying "My dear fellow, it is quite obvious that back in the States you can't get a willing woman anywhere near your sad little excuse for a penis but do you really think that makes it okay to go a-whoring in third world countries?" But I don't. Jeffso sits next to Joe for the rest of the journey so that was
Joe and Jeffso on the bus to Siem Reap
Jeffso (thinks) "Hmmm, can't wait to have some poor, uneducated, girl/child play with my doodle". good - for me and Tez that is. Joe, I can see, is not a happy Buster.
Arrive Siem Reap at 2.00pm and quickly lose Jeffso at the bus station. Catch a tuktuk to the Two Dragons Guesthouse where I have pre-booked rooms. It is a really great guesthouse but there is some extended discussion (disquiet?) about the fact that I have the room with the new shower, new hot water system, new air-conditioner, box spring mattress, large double bed and 60 channel satellite tv while they each have a camp bed in a tent near the drains. I explain that I am paying $20 a night compared to their $14 but I have to live with their bitching for the next four days.
We meet in the bar area of the guesthouse and have a few Angkors to toast our arrival. We also have a hand-bill someone gave us at the bus station which reads "Come to the Elephant Bar - Enjoy the wild life! Happy hour from 4pm to 8pm" The Busters do enjoy the wild life so at 4.01pm we enter the Elephant Bar. It is in the basement of the most expensive, gorgeous, huge
Tez on the bus
"It may be a hell journey but at least we aren't sitting next to Jeffso". hotel in Siem Reap. I look around for the wild life but all I can see is a fat German couple in their sixties and a couple of matrons sipping Pimms. Lounge music plays softly in the background. The Elephant Bar does, however, have a few things going for it.
1. A full size pool table.
2. $2 cocktails during the 4 hour long happy hour.
3. A four hour long happy hour.
4. Complimentary popcorn.
5. Charlie Chaplin stayed and drank there in the 1930s.
So The Busters settled in for pool, popcorn and Brandy Alexanders. Tez, ever the culinary buster, opted for the Gin Alexander.
We leave the Elephant bar at 8.01pm and tuk tuk into town. There is a Thai Restaurant with a nice courtyard calling to us and we enter, order and cleanse our palates with a few dozen Angkor beers. Suddenly, and without explanation, Tez hits the wall at 11.30pm and we tuktuk back to the Two Dragons. The boys retire to their mozzie infested swamp while I channel surf and swig from Tez's bottle of 12 year old scotch that he inadvertantly left in my room. Tomorrow, the temples!
The Two Dragons Guesthouse
"Hiya Kez, it's Sugar Bottom calling.....No, not Joe - Frank!"
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BC G7 (prov.) D
non-member comment
Jeffso upgrade?
Um, from the look of that pic of Jeffso looking out the window, is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking? Perhaps it was in fact our Jeffso who ditched the G1s because they spend all their time in tuktuks on their way from one upmarket bar to another, odering a succession of girly drinks...just a thought. All the best! BC G7 (prov.) D