Gubei Watertown

I get behind with this blog very easily, but not too long ago China was lucky enough to have a 3-day weekend. Eunju and I decided to spend the time together and we had it all planned out; down the pub on Sunday night to watch the North London Derby and then a 2-day romantic trip to Gubei Watertown. 

It took little convincing to get Eunju in an Arsenal shirt. She obviously hasn’t been keeping up to date with our recent results, the fan protests about the total lack of confidence in the boardroom and management, or she hadn’t even seen the recent images of that orange racist’s son wearing the full Arsenal kit. Luckily, I had so I was smart enough to bring a jacket with me to the pub. If we lost I was wearing it and she’d have to ride the waves of abuse from that other mob in North London. It’s the choice she made when she put the shirt on. We don’t need to dwell on the result.

The next day we went to Gubei. I've been looking at taking a few trips out of Beijing, but every time I find a place I'd like to go I find out that it's a 4-hour flight from the capital. I'm still not used to living in such a big country. 

We boarded the bus to Gubei only to find out it was a city bus. An old city bus. You don't appreciate the comforts of a coach until you sit on a city bus for 2-and-a-half-hours. Eunju told me that the bus smelt pretty bad too, it was one of the few times in my life that I benefitted from having hayfever. 

We drove through mile after mile of Chinese countryside. As nice as the farms and mountains were it really seemed like the ideal opportunity to get 40 winks and recover a little more from the night before. As I was just drifting off the bus driver tooted his horn. In China you drive with your ears as much as with your eyes. I mean, why use your side mirrors when you can hear the beautiful sound of a car horn? Except this was a bus horn and I'm pretty certain it was mounted inside the bus. Two hours to Gubei with the serenading sounds of a smelly, old Beijing city bus. Living the dream.

Gubei was extremely charming. It’s got the design and feel of a traditional Chinese village, while having the luxuries of new modern hotels and spas. Albeit a bit touristy, it was a welcomed break from the Beijing smog.

I did experience a notable Chinese spectacle while in Gubei. Whenever I speak to friends or family who haven’t been to China they’re all very quick in asking whether I’ve seen someone defecate in the street and I always dismiss their questions with amusement. I stress that I live In Beijing, a huge metropolitan area, not some backwards rural shanty town. Well, I wasn’t in Beijing any more. Eunju and I were strolling down by the water front, clear bue skies above us, and The Great Wall in the distance, and in the corner of my eye I see a figure squatting. My attention is drawn and I’m now observing a child shitting on a lawn. My brain is telling me stop looking at a half-naked child, but it has also disabled my neck muscles preventing me from turning away. The family are relaxing near-by without a care in the world as their child shits next to a Don’t Walk On The Grass sign. I wonder in Chinese small print whether it said Pooping Permitted.

We made our way up to the Great Wall and watched the sunset. It wasn’t as nice as I had expected as it had become cloudy and pretty chilly. Who’d have thought it gets cold on a mountain 986m above sea level when the sun goes down? 

We retired to the hotel. The following morning we went down for the complimentary breakfast. You haven’t seen mayhem until you tell Chinese people that there is an all-you-can-eat free breakfast. I’ve never seen plates piled so high and I’ve been to Toby Carvery. I was quite content with a croissant, some fruit and a coffee, yet they were piling up noodles, rice, dumplings, toast, watermelon, baked beans, it doesn’t matter whether it goes together get it on your plate. Remind me never to go to an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant here (or an all-you-can-eat restaurant as they probably call it here).

It was a great escape from Beijing and no sooner had I been back that a sandstorm had blown in from the northern deserts. It lasted about 2 days and I’m sure cycling to work in that probably took 6 months off my life expectancy.

Anyway, until next time.

Roberts Came to Visit

Life in Beijing was swell. I was starting to feel a little more adjusted to life here. Life was good, then I got a text that no one ever wants to receive...Joe Roberts is coming to Beijing. I searched for excuses, but drew a blank. I was going to have to spend 3-4 days with him. Not only that, but he was also bringing Aisling with him. Aptly nicknamed "Conor McGregor", she strikes fear into the hearts of all men. I begrudgingly accepted to show them around the city.

Once they had arrived I had the pressure of being a tour guide despite only being here for 2 months myself. I'm not even sure I could give a guided tour of my hometown of Bedford.

"That's the Bedford International Athletics Stadium, that's the River Great Ouse, and that's The Rose. Tour over. Let's go for a pint."

Added to that my lack of Chinese language skills I didn't really tick any boxes you'd expect from a tour guide. My Chinese vocabulary ranges to chicken, pork, beef, subway station, Americano, rice, noodles, hello, thank you, good bye, and what's your name? Should any of them arise on the tour then we'd be golden, but they didn't really come up. I was less of a tour guide and more of a third wheel.

I really ought to study.

First up, Tianenmen Square.

Even at 4pm there was a huge queue to get in - it's China, there are people everywhere. Joe and Aisling got to see the locals up close in the wild. They saw first hand how incapable they are of queuing orderly and just how much they like to spit. 

Next, I told them how nice the Bell and Clock Towers look at night, so we hailed a cab and I told the driver where we wanted to go (shortly after looking up online how to say Bell Tower in Chinese). Taxi drivers don't really follow the highway code here. I was always taught mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Chinese taxi drivers obviously learned a different method of spit out the window, toot the horn, manoeuvre.

When we arrived the lights weren't on. The cracks started to form in my tour guide sham. We retired to a bar and caught up.

The following day we really went for it. Starting at The Temple of Heaven, then onto The Forbidden City, Jingshan Park, and Beihei Park. I'd like to think I slightly redeemed myself on Day 2. 

We ended the day in Sanlitun for a few beers. Joe and Aisling had an early morning tour of The Great Wall the next day, but I didn't so my calls to stay out for a few more we're regrettable the following day. Their Great Wall experience would have been much better had it not been for the hangover and the accompanying Americans. I know which one I'd rather be stuck with all day.

We met up on March 17th for Joe an Aisling's final full day in Beijing. We met in the morning to see The Summer Palace, but as the days went by the pollution started to get a lot worse. 

Their trip coincided with St. Patrick's Day and finally I had a use for Aisling. She's a pedigree Irish whereas I'm more of a mongrel. When the big day comes around I have to pull out the family tree to gain any credibility to my Irish claim. But with Aisling there I no longer had to use excuses like "my brother and grandparents were born there" or "my mum lives there", if anyone questioned my accent I just pointed to Aisling and said "I'm with Conor". They were sensible enough to back down then.

It was great to see and spend time with them both even if it was only for a few days. I'm also glad they managed to see Beijing when the pollution was mild (we even had a day with blue skies!) because soon after they left the pollution got pretty bad and I even resorted to using a face mask. I'm not too keen on them though as they pull on your ears and make you look like Glen Clasper (that joke is funny to about 3 people who'll read this).

Having come from Bedfordshire where the air is clean to, according to the WHO, Beijing which is the 76th most polluted city in the world. Although, if you walk around Bedford and look at the locals you get the feeling that they don't live in the healthiest of environments. A lot of them probably had mothers who chain-smoked all through pregnancy, fed them a diet of processed meat, before they started weaning them onto protein shakes and heroin. So I suppose clean air doesn’t always result in a healthy individual.

Till next time.

Chinese New Year: The Great Wall, Clubs, and a Dead City

The Chinese New Year celebrations are coming to an end and the millions of people are flocking back to the city. I was expecting to achieve quite a lot over the week of celebrations, but that wasn’t as easy as I had planned. The city closes down for a week. It’s bizarre to see such a deserted city which is usually thriving. 75% of businesses close and the city is lit up with fireworks and firecrackers, just the noises you want to hear when you’re trying to sleep in.

So, I did what most people do when there is nothing to do – drink. Luckily, some of the few establishments open were a select few bars, and I could sniff them out a mile away.

I’ve had my first experience of a Chinese night club and they are quite the spectacle. When you picture a club in western country you imagine a bar and a dance floor, in China they sell booths and each booth is sold an expensive bottle (or bottles) of top quality alcohol and a fruit platter. Of course, a fruit platter. Most are dressed in their finest attire, while I was in a farmer shirt looking like I’d come straight from the rice paddies.

Chinese culture is built on saving face. (I’m going to define that now and any Chinese people reading this will probably scoff at my inability to grasp the “saving face” concept.) Saving face is about one’s public appearance and opinion. A Chinese person would buy a gift for someone they cannot afford to give the appearance of wealth, or order more food at an already full table while exclaiming there isn’t enough, or they'd rather borrow money from multiple parties at increasingly unsustainable interest rates than have others know that their company is broke.

This bodes well for night clubs as everyone is throwing money around. Although, not me. Again another Chinese culture I cannot get on board with. While most people were ordering bottle after bottle of high end vodka I blagged my way onto the guest list to get free entry and was waving my free drink coupons at the bar. "Another free rum and coke, please."

The competition was fierce, there were hundreds of rich Chinese guys that I couldn't compete financially with, but on the dance floor they’re as stiff as a scarecrow. This is where I come into my element. While I can shake it with best of them the difference between us is that at the end of the night the scarecrows take their ladies home in a Mercedes and I have to tell my lucky lady that we’ve got to wait until 5:30am for the subway to open.

I did manage to tick something significant off the bucket list during the week and that was visiting The Great Wall of China. It was definitely a wise idea to spend 3 hours in the Chinese mountains in a -12°C chill.

It is a very impressive wall. Originally built between 220-206BC, stretching 8,850km to keep out the Mexicans. And Qin Shi Huang even got the Mexicans to pay for it.

I went with Matt and Drew and we booked our excursion as part of a group tour. On my travels I’ve seen many Chinese tourists groups and hated every one. Always a large group of pushy tourists with a tour guide speaking incoherently into a very cheap and very loud PA system. Now I was in one of these groups. It didn’t take us long to break away from the guided tour and explore on our own.

Obviously it was to keep out the Mongolians (I was just joshing with you before) and looking at the surrounding mountains the wall seemed unnecessary. It looked pretty difficult to scale these enormous mountains, you’d think a wall would be a piece of cake. Their ability to scale mountains was trumped by their inability to build a ladder.

I do have a few criticisms of the wall and the first is the inconsistent step sizes. This tied with having a few beers on the wall made walking along it a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Criticism number two, it’s too long. I was on it for 3 hours and hardly saw any of it. An escalator or a Stannah Stairlift would improve the experience significantly.

On the way back down the mountain we had the privilege of sharing the very same cable car that Bill Clinton had used when he visited the wall. Who knows what went on in that car, but knowing what old Bill is like I didn’t want to touch anything.

The Great Wall is impressive and it shows the achievement of the human race. It’s amazing what man can achieve when there is no concern for human lives. You’ve only got to see what they’re doing in Qatar to see a modern example. And you know, all those people who have lost their lives building those stadiums would say the sacrifice of life is worth having air-conditioned sporting arenas.

Going to try my hand at skiing in a couple of days. I could play it safe with snowboarding, but the idea of trying to ski, breaking a bone, and spending a significant amount of time in a Chinese hospital is just too appealing. 

Moving to Beijing #brexit

Anthony Costa, Lee Ryan, Duncan James, and Simon Webbe are quite the philosophers. Let’s just analyse one example of their genius.

“It's kinda funny how life can change
Can flip 180 in a matter of days”

These lines of wisdom really resonate with me. It was only a matter of months ago that I was preparing to sign an extension on my contract in Korea, yet I currently find myself starting a new chapter in Beijing.

I was fully prepared for my move; I watched Big Trouble In Little China, censored all the media in my house and I dismissed everything I ever knew about global warming as we all know the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

The visa process has been more troublesome than I had hoped, but I’m here trying to adjust to a new time-zone, culture, language, and company.

Language:

It was a lonely start to life in Beijing. After I had said my goodbyes to my nearest and dearest in England I didn’t actually talk to another human being for about 48 hours. The driver, the hotel staff, the waiters and waitresses exclusively spoke Chinese, which I know isn’t strange as I’m in China.

I had planned on studying a little before I got here so that I would have the basics down, but I’m almost 3 weeks in now and I’m still a moronic tourist speaking in English and pointing at pictures. No one speaks English here. Luckily I have my Baidu translation app to get me through, but who knew the first thing I’d have to translate in China would be “I’ve blocked the toilet in my hotel room”. Most people use it to translate menus or for asking directions, I’m notifying the locals that my bowels are causing havoc to the Beijing city plumbing.

Public Toilets:

While we’re on the subject, the public toilets in Beijing are the worst I’ve encountered and I’ve been to India! My Beijing expert, Bernd, had warned me about the toilet situation, but nothing can prepare you for this encounter. The smell hits you making you recoil, closing your eyes and stopping your breathing. You assess that you need to get in and get out as soon as possible without touching anything.

There is no privacy in a Chinese public toilet, all squatters with a two-foot high divide between the holes and no door. Why would you need a door in such a circumstance? And there is always someone shitting. Always. It’s a city with a population of 23 million people, there are 1,440 minutes in a day, that means there are statistically 16,000 people going every minute – not taking into consideration peak times.

The locals seem so casual about it too. My days are planned around my movements, I don’t leave my apartment unless I’ve gone. There is no way I’m squatting in these hell holes making eye-contact with the fella next to me.

Pollution:

In the days prior to my departure all I saw in the news was how Beijing was experiencing the worst spell of pollution in recent years. Since my arrival it’s been nothing but blue skies! I haven’t seen a polluted China…yet. I’m sure when it does hit I’ll probably keel over.

Food:

Chinese food is meant to be amazing, right? Well, not the stuff I’ve been eating. I’m pretty clueless to be fair, just pointing at pictures and hoping for the best. Getting a Chinese take-away in England is a taste sensation, these local lads ought to get over to The Elephant on Bedford Road and taste some of their stuff. That’s real Chinese food.

Found a testicle in my soup. I didn’t eat it.

Even getting some simple supplies at the supermarket proved difficult. I had a basic shopping list; bread, butter, milk, and cereal. Easy enough. They had no cereal, I got margarine instead of butter, I got the bread, and this.

That looks like milk, it’s actually yoghurt. A litre-and-a-half of yoghurt. I don’t buy that much yoghurt throughout the year usually. Now I’m swigging yoghurt every time I pass the kitchen.

Chinese Hangovers:

Oh boy, they’re pretty rough. I’ve been in China for 19 days and 2 of them have been spent in bed recovering. I thought Tsingtao is meant to be pretty good. Well, I imagine the bottled exported stuff is the Chinese show beer, the local draught Tsingtao isn’t the same. I’m not sure what they’re adding to it, loads of chemicals and STIs probably, but it’s more than likely that if it remains cheap I’ll keep drinking it.

I haven’t tried any Chinese spirits yet and I hope I don’t. It’s not a promise I can make though and it will be a hangover that will probably be my death sentence.

Internet:

Using the internet takes some getting used to in China. A lot of content is blocked and many sites too. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google to name a few. I didn’t realise how much I relied on Google. Emails, maps, internet browsing, translation, my calendar all powered by Google. You can get around it, but it’s a bit of a hassle. Most of the time I tend to use other search engines. I’m using Bing like some animal. It’s such a bad search engine. You enter your search and Bing says ‘here is one link with some of the information you’re looking for and here are another 50 links with absolutely no information related to your search’.

Sightseeing:

I haven’t done an awful lot to be honest, I’ve been on a training course for my new company, I’ve been apartment hunting, but most importantly it’s too bloody cold.

I’ve been over to Tiananmen Square and had a look at Chairman Mao’s preserved body. Mental, right? Mao actually requested to be cremated, but now he’s ended up as a tourist attraction. Don’t ever do that with my body. I’m not too bothered what you do with my corpse as I’ll be dead, burn it, bury it, take it down Bedford’s tidy tip, but just don’t make me into an exhibition.

I took a wander to Beijing’s Drum Tower (or Gulou), where in ancient times it was used to announce the time. I climbed the hundreds of stairs and stayed for one of the drumming performances and it was rather underwhelming. To be fair to the lads, if you dressed me up like a Morris dancer in the middle of winter and told me to perform every half hour in an open tower I probably wouldn’t be at my best. I walked across the way to the Bell Tower, but I couldn’t be bothered to climb all those stairs again to look at an old bell. If I wanted to look at an old bell I’ll just look at a picture of Harry Redknapp.

Culture:

I don’t know much about Chinese culture, but apparently you’re meant to greet the oldest person in the group first as a sign of respect, you’re not meant to place chopsticks upright in your bowl as this represents death, and never write in red ink.

One thing that definitely isn’t in their culture is queuing. That is something that is going to give me high blood pressure over the next 12 months. I was queuing in McDonald’s the other night getting something nutritious after a few jars of lager. I was waiting and a lady stepped in front of me and ordered. As I was lacking the language skills to tell her I was first, I just started speaking to myself in English while she looked at me. It kept me sane in that moment.

“Oh, I guess my McChicken nuggets are far less important that your McBullshit Chinese shrimp burger”.

And I can hear what you’re all saying.

“But Brendan, you’re in China, shouldn’t you adhere to their culture and customs?”

No. Queuing makes sense. We live in a society. This isn’t Armageddon, it’s McDonald’s. I’m ordering chicken at 4am not scavenging the last few bottles of drinking water before one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse decapitates me. We have enough water, we have enough chicken nuggets. Now, stand behind me in an orderly queue.

All told, my short time in Beijing has been fun an interesting. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some new friends and see a new city. I’ve been pleasantly surprised, Koreans like to say negative things about the Chinese so I was expecting the worst. In reality, people have been friendly, the skies are blue, and there’s less spitting than I was expecting.

It’s also made me realise how lucky I am. A few months ago, having just returned from a long holiday in southeast Asia I just decided to move to China, that's not an opportunity most people have. A lot of people are fleeing their war-torn homelands in overcrowded rubber boats that are likely to sink. I just did an online application and boarded an Emirates flight.

Anyway, things are going well. I’ve worked 3 days in the past month and now I’ve got 6 off for Chinese New Year.

新年快乐!

Well, Thailand Was Disappointing

Cambodia came and went so quickly. It was quite the ordeal, but Wes and I had such a good time there. We took a minibus from Siem Reap to Koh Chang, a small quiet island just off the coast of the mainland near to the Cambodian border. Wes was recommended to visit this destination with a promise of it being ‘super chill’ and the ultimate place for island living. I’m not so sure about island living as it was more like Ireland living. It rained for 2 whole days.

Our plans of relaxing on the beach were scuppered and we spent two days in a bar playing pool and cards with the most boring German lads I’ve ever met. Wes and I tried to make the most of this negative situation, we found an empty beach bar and smashed it at karaoke. The Germans sat and smoked shisha. Germans are hardly known for their fun personalities, stereotypes exist for a reason.

In typical fashion the day we left there was glorious weather. This was the view from the boat.

From Koh Chang we went to visit my friend, Gav, in Pattaya. When we told other travellers that we were going to Pattaya we were met with the same reaction. We were told many times that it’s the worst place in Thailand…and they were right.

It all started well, Gav put us up in his swanky apartment, which was quite the step-up from our previous hostel which didn’t even have a lock on the door and had monkeys running around on the balcony. We headed for the go-go bar ridden Walking Street and I’ve never seen anything like it. Every bar is filled with dozens of “fun time” girls.  It’s the seediest place on earth. If Pattaya was a person it’d be Donald Trump.

The tourists were all male, 50+, and desperate. Wes, Gav and I stuck out like a sore thumb. We were probably the youngest men to ever step foot in Pattaya. The girls are very friendly, for obvious reasons, but I felt they preferred talking with us as there was only a 3 or 4 year age difference as opposed to a 30 or 40 year difference to the usual tourists.

As the night went on the abnormal just became normal. We were in a bar shooting pool with some prostitutes and they brought a few snacks round. One girl started feeding me fish fingers (no puns please, I know you’re all better than that). It was a strange night, but only when you take a step back and look at that situation you realise how bizarre the night had become.

Gav was a great host and it was great catching up with him, but one night in Pattaya is enough for me. From here we flew south to the islands.

Our first stop was in Koh Pha Ngan, an island notoriously known as a party island. We spent the day scooting around checking out the beaches, but we were pretty much killing time until the half-moon party that evening.

I’m not sure what came over Wes and I that evening, but we took it upon ourselves to organise all the drinking games for the entire hostel. The hostel staff were more than happy to let us do this as it allowed them to enjoy their evening. As a reward they ploughed us with a lot of free alcohol. Free beers, buckets, shots. The only problem with doing this is that Wes and I will drink all of it. I didn’t make it out for the half-moon party and Wes made it out for 10 minutes before getting a taxi home. Everyone else said it was good, but I can’t actually comment on the famous beach parties in Thailand.

From Koh Pha Ngan we got the boat over to the next island of Koh Tao. We did a spot of snorkelling which always sounds more fun than it actually is. You expend an awful lot of energy to see a few fish and rocks. It’s basically a day out getting sunburned and drinking sea water.

We went out on a bar crawl with some girls from Milton Keynes, Ellie and Emma, went to a ladyboy cabaret show (Wes loved it) and that wrapped up Koh Tao. 

We took one last boat to Koh Samui where we met up with some Irish girls, Laura and Ashlyn.

We’d planned a night out, but then we got the news that the King of Thailand had died. He’d been the king for 7 decades and had spent the last 7 years in hospital, I was in Thailand for 12 days and he snuffed it. The country declared an entire year of mourning and a ban on alcohol sales for a month.

A ban on alcohol?! How am I meant to enjoy Thailand without booze? How am I going to attend a ping-pong show sober? How am I going to convince Wes to get a tattoo without a few Jaeger bombs?

We had our two last days in Bangkok. Thailand seemed to put a ban on any form of fun. No music, no boxing and definitely no seedy entertainment. It rounded off a pretty disappointing 12 days in Thailand.

Some bars sold beer...in paper cups

I felt that Thailand isn’t really made for me. The type of people that usually holiday there are those who have gotten bored of going to Benidorm. I could feel my IQ dropping by the day.

I had a great time in Southeast Asia, but 6 weeks of heavy drinking with little rest is truly exhausting. I’m a broken man. I feel like Benjamin Button when he was just born. The doctor examines him and says:

“He’s nearly blind from cataracts…I’m not sure he can hear. His bones indicate severe arthritis. His skin has lost all elasticity. His hands and feet are ossified…shows all the deterioration, the infirmities, not of a newborn, but of a man well in his 80’s on the way to the grave.” 

I know exactly how that baby felt. I’m just hoping a black couple will adopt me.

Those who have been following Wes on Snapchat have enjoyed our exploits. We've had many compliments from our humorous endeavours as we're a great big man little man combination. We're up there with the greats; Schwarzenegger and De Vito, Johnson and Hart, Crouch and Defoe, Burrows and Fennell. We'll soon have the credibility we deserve.

I’m looking forward to some stability in my life again. My diet has primarily been pad Thai and Jaeger bombs, if I have any hydration and nutrition it might collapse from the shock. 

Cambodia Was Not Kind to Me

Due to the “floods” in Vietnam we got talked out of our boat trip across the border up the Mekong Delta. They told us that the boat trip into Cambodia takes a day and you don’t want to be stuck on a boat for that length of time in the rain. In typical fashion our time in Ho Chi Minh was gloriously sunny. We decided to take the 6-hour (which actually turned out to be 8 hours) bus to Pnomh Penh.

The Vietnam/Cambodia border is pretty relaxed. You walk through a huge warehouse to the only immigration counter at the other end. No checks, no questions, no inspections. They stamp your passport and send you on your way. We stopped at a restaurant on the other side. They served me up some rice and I opted for pork, which was mostly bone. My lunch on that particular day was rice and bones. I was very conscious that I hadn’t washed my hands since leaving the hostel 4 hours earlier. But the more I thought about it I was less convinced that the “chef” had taken a shower that week. It’s best not to think about those things. We arrived in Phnom Penh.

Our first day there we took in the killing fields and the S21 prison. Cambodia has a dark past of communism, mass murders, and torture. I won’t go on about it, if you want to know it’s all on the internet. It was a tough day and we needed a few beers. 

We spent out two evenings in Pnomh Penh in a club. We hardly took in the city, and with the exception of our excursion, we went from our hostel to the club and from the hostel to the club.

When the hostel emptied to go to the club I wasn’t ready and had to pop back to the room. I changed but had to make my own way to Club Love. I didn’t know the way and was walking around the darkened streets tipsy, alone and unsure of my direction. I was asking people where Club Love was, which sounds dodgy enough. People were kind and gave me directions, but advised me to be careful.

I found the club and after a few more beers I thought my luck was in. I managed to pull one of the locals. I stumbled out with her into a tuk tuk. When we stopped I realised that I wasn’t at my hostel. I was in a random, dodgy part of town. I then realised I’d in fact “pulled” a prostitute. I was dragged into the brothel and luckily enough for me I was out of money – those bastards behind the bar in the club must have mugged me. After long negotiations I told them to take me back to my hostel where I could get some more money. They agreed. I got back to the street I knew, headed inside and never emerged, leaving the prostitute with the driver. I don’t know how long they waited, but I got a free lift home. Hollaaa.

Unsurprisingly the next morning we missed our bus to Siem Reap. The only option to use was to get a taxi for the 155-mile journey at a cost of $80. Half way through the journey I finally had a sober moment of realisation – I’d forgotten my passport. Fuck! Wes was on hand to mock my misery. I was having images of begging and borrowing my way to Syria, getting a boat over to Greece, working my way to Calais and living in the “jungle”.

Luckily for me there were three girls on the same route as us only a few days behind us. We messaged them and asked them to pick it up for me. They did. I didn’t tell them that they’d have to pay my hostel bill too as I’d checked out without paying that either.

We finally had a relaxing night in Siem Reap, this was mainly because we were doing the sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. It was quite beautiful. I can’t remember the last time I’d seen stars and the sunrise. 

There's the money shot

As beautiful as it was, we had the most boring tour guide. He was droning on about the different kinds of palm trees. To be honest, mate, it’s 6am I couldn’t give a shiny shite.

We wandered around Angkor Wat. It was cool, but essentially another temple. Jesus, temples aren’t that interesting.

No passion for temples

What I didn’t realise about the tour was that we had booked the temple tour and that we had another two to look around. Do you care about them that much? I was there and couldn’t care less. One was Angkor Thom and the other one was where the movie Tomb Raider was filmed.

No passion for temples

It got to the point where the tour guide gave us a history of Buddhism and Hinduism in a temple that stunk of monkey piss. I wasn’t in the mood.

Our last night in Siem Reap and I’d told Wes that I wasn’t going on a heavy one because I had to meet the girls to pick up my passport at 6am. Well, that was the idea. We somehow got “talking” to a couple of Honkongese couples. They continued to buy us red wine and cigars. I don’t even smoke, but who was I to oblige? This was followed by a bucket of gin and tonic, beers, Jaeger, and tequila. We got home at 4am and I was up again at 5:30 to go and meet the girls off their bus. Somehow I did it. I had my passport and was good to travel on to Thailand later that day.

Cambodia was a whirlwind. It was not kind to me. I was dragged into a brothel, I’m pretty sure I broke my toe, I lost my passport for a few days, I bashed my shin, I lost Wes’ power bank (sorry, mate), got covered in cuts and bruises, and was bored to death about temples. Despite all that I had a great time here.

Anyway, off to Thailand next where I’ve heard it’s lively…