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Published: February 9th 2006
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Two men went a-busting...
...while the other one had a massage. In which The Busters continue to absorb Cambodian culture...
Tez has decided to skip a day of temple exploration and, instead, take a little "me" time and get a two hour massage. Over breakfast he encourages us to join him but the thought that I might catch even a glimpse of Joe or Tez's ageing, naked bodies is more than mortal man was made to endure. Joe is naturally embarrassed about his once rock hard triathlete's body having changed into the soft, white, chubby thing it is today, so he chooses to skip the massage as well.
First, though, we get 1990 to drive us into town so we can change money at the bank. Tez is drawn to the Boom Boom Music Room where you can buy cheap songs for your Ipod. These guys actually reformat the hard drive on your Ipod and then download albums at a cost of under $1 an album. Personally, I wouldn’t let them come anywhere near mine with a ten foot pole and advise Tez that, although he has had his Ipod for a year and only has 12 songs on it, not to Boom Boom Boom go back to that room.
1990 then drives us to a street full of massage places. Anything you could want is on offer - The Frangipani Massage, The Four Hand Massage, The Aromatherapy Massage, The Shaking Pearly White Coconuts From The Blue Veined Palm Tree Massage - you just had to take your pick. Tez chooses a traditional massage house that doesn’t even offer the option of a happy ending and we leave him to be pummelled, perfumed and pumiced.
1990 takes us back to the temples and is just about to drive past the ticket offices when we tell him to pull in. There is a confused look on his face, “Didn’t these dumb nuts Westerners buy tickets yesterday?” Yes we did and we will buy more today. After ticketing 1990 drives up to the officials 20 metres away that check your tickets. Yes, ours are all in order and would we like to buy a bag of smoke. The guy in a uniform pulls out a 2 kilo bag of dope. We decline and head in.
Our first stop is at the temple of Bantaey Kdei, mainly to see Sras Srang, the royal pool. It is 700m by 300m and (I
may be wrong here) was originally only ever used by the king. Now every stallholder and his kids wash, swim and play in it. We are mobbed by stallholders and sit at one stall with a view of the pool and have a coke. The place is run by a 15 year old Khmer girl who speaks English and Japanese excellently. (Try finding that in Australia). Like every temple we have visited so far there seems to be hardly any tourists and we are bombarded with requests to buy something.
We visit Bantaey Kdei, Pre Rup and East Mebon and, though getting a little temple weary, still enjoy the exploration and discovery of these wonderful places. On the spot we decide to adopt the 19th century explorer Frank Vincent Jr as our mascot and take on board his ambition to “systematically explore all the world’s most interesting places”.
Everywhere we go we are constantly but lightly harassed to buy cokes, scarves, postcards, sarongs, bags, toys and food. Two things weigh on our minds: 1. We can see these people are struggling due to low tourist numbers and 2. Kitty Master Tez isn’t with us. We end up buying
The spirit of Cambodia.
A tree, a temple, a Buster. quite a pile of junk just to help these people out. Every so often we came across a group of musicians - all landmine victims - busking and it felt good to thrown in a fiver without Tez’s disapproving stare. Joe and I vow that Tez must never find out about our flagrant waste of money. (Oops, blown it!)
We stopped at a roadside stall outside Preah Khan for lunch and Joe and I were the only customers in a strip of about 6 restaurants. Again, because Tez wasn’t present, we blow the budget with a couple of icy Angkor beers and enjoy our fried vegies and rice. Right in the middle of Preah Khan a policeman in uniform calls us over with an angry look on his face. We stand in front of him like naughty school boys and he flips open his wallet to display his badge. We all stand looking at each other silently for a moment. “You buy?” he asks pointing at the badge. We once again decline this unusual offer and climb a set of dizzy stairs up the side of a stupa to get away. After an extended exploration of Preah Khan, which
was ridiculously huge, we get 1990 to take us back to the Two Dragons.
Tez is sitting in the courtyard looking fresh and relaxed and positively glowing with good health. Seems he opted for the body scrub as well as the massage. We share a couple of beers and then head into town. That night we eat at an excellent Indian Restaurant and then retire to the first floor balcony of the Red Piano for a few cocktails. We drink Bailey’s Irish Cream Coffee topped with about a foot of whipped cream. We also think that a little dessert is called for so order French Vanilla Ice Cream, chocolate sauce and more whipped cream. As I kept reminding Joe and Tez - Nobody said Cambodia was going to be easy.
On Another Matter Altogether
Great to see the lower grades still being inspired by the Busters - particularly BCG7(Prov)D. Come on now B! I've told you what you need to do to consolidate that G7 - just email the photo through and I will have it up on the blog pronto. Do it for V. Do it for R. But most of all do it for yourself! ATB
FSL
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Robyn
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I have spent the last hour trying to "spot the Buster" in the photo entitled "A tree Growing in Bantaey Kdei"- am I missing something or have you actually taken a photo WITHOUT the three stooges appearing?