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March 4th 2008

Published: March 5th 2008

So sad to be leaving Cambodia - such an amazing country; what makes it so special? - the Cambodians themselves (their capacity to overcome such recent adversity is astonishing), plus fantastic climate, food, beaches, countryside, temples... I had a bit of a dilemna coming home and had to seriously question myself as to whether I was going high, as I was offered a job on my penultimate night at a dive shop in the office, right near the beach in Sihanoukville. I was out having a drink with the boss and the rest of the crew, and he was saying "just miss your flight" repeatedly!! How tempted was I? Having felt the same about Mexico, San Francisco and Jamaica, admittedly when high, I had to allow my sensible side to take over and force my arse into a taxi at 5am. What clinched the dilemna was the fact the job was only until June when the season ends, and wouldn't start again until October. So be warned, I'll be quizzing y'all as to what you think about whether I should keep in touch with the dive shop and see if a job would be available from October and work there for a season until the next June? Would I get bored working in an office, sick of the same traveller conversations, obviously miss my amazing mates. It has to be said at this point, many thanks for all your messages - they meant an enormous amount to me, and I will get round to replying individually when I'm home.

I also had another freaky experience. On my last evening I was having a drink in a beach bar, and was recognised by the promoter for having being a drunken nutter at another bar a few days earlier. He started moaning on about having been let down by a DJ that night. He showed me the computer set up at the back of the bar, and so I started DJing off his mp3s! Got paid in drink, for an inpromptu hour long set, and had to leg it at 4.45 to get my taxi, having just been offered a job there and then - the money would have been enough easily to rent a room away from the beach and feed myself etc. 2 years ago that would have been my dream! But these days I know staying up all night every night just doesn't work with bipolar - maybe if I got in a regular routine of keeping vampire hours, but I think I would lose the will to live very quickly if I wasn't seeing much sun, and playing similar sets night after night. A once a week gig would be a different story.

So instead of having to chase a dream to stay living in a tropical country, as in Jamaica when I went for an interview at the Office for Security Affairs to find out about getting a security license issued to be able to work in clubs there, I had 2 jobs just fall into my lap! Do I want to earn decentish money in the UK (we're talking the NHS here!) and be able to travel to different countries, or work really hard for little money in Cambodia but live the beach lifestyle? It's a hard one.

The journey home was different, to say the least...I got back from the bar to outside my guest house at 5am where I'd arranged to meet a tuk tuk driver who was arranging a taxi for me to travel the 3 hours back to Phnom Penh to catch my flight - yes I liked Sihanoukville that much that I wanted to spend an extra day there rather than traipsing back the day before on the bus to the big smoke. I met a car with it's bonnet up, and the driver and tuk tuk driver buried in the workings of the engine! Maybe it was fate that I was going to have to stay in Cambodia?! After a few mobile phone conversations in Khmer, my bags were put in the car and I was driven at 5 miles per hour down the back streets. We got to a house where there was another car with it's bonnet up and 4 Cambodians standing around with a torch. They spent the next half hour swapping the car batteries over, to a sound scape of Buddhist chanting coming from a local temple. We got back in the car and drove still at 5 miles per hour! I was beginning to get seriously worried as time was ticking to get to the airport. After another couple of mobile conversations, I was driven down another back street, and the driver just stopped the car and got out. About 10 minutes later a car pulled up, and my bags were transferred into it. Miraculously this car was plush, air con, and the driver wasn't too kamikaze. I got to the airport in good time to check in. So fate bought me back to England, via a day in Kuala Lumpur where I changed planes.

KL was such a contrast to Cambodia, being a predominantly Muslim country. I was pleased to see women in brightly coloured hijab. I tried to go up the Petronas Towers to get an aerial view of the city, but unfortunately all the tickets for the day had been distributed. I wandered round the vast designer shopping centre under the towers, and found another electronics "consumercore" mall, and had a look round China town with all it's fake designer goods. Some of the skyscrapers were eye catching, but the capital city is like most others - consume consume consume.

So it's bye from travelblogville, but look forward to catching up in person soon.
Love, Shak x

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