Part Eleven: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

The Travel Diary of South-east Asia

Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels two years ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part ten click here. Part eleven concerns Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Sihanoukville.

 12th of February 2019 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I woke up with a vague itch on my back, had my breakfast and walked in the scorching heat to Wat Phnom. What an incredible place. Statues stood looming on either side of the red walls that lined the staircase and I climbed marvelling once again at the religious architecture.
    As I approached the main pagoda I noticed once again the symmetricality of the scene and began to feel a palpable atmosphere rising, but one of the opposite nature of the Killing Fields. It was one of harmony. I stopped at the top of the staircase and surveyed the scene. 27 metres above ground and I still felt above everything. The capital was certainly one of the shortest I’d seen in terms of the buildings, and the city sprawled out under the religious structure upon which I found myself. I suddenly noticed the circular garden that was at the foot of the staircase, and which I must have just absent-mindedly failed to survey.
    And the statues. Of kings and of gods they were countless, and to whoever orchestrated them, surely time-consuming. It’s a task that only true piousness could achieve. Sometimes I give up after one line of writing a song, not wishing to go through the painstaking craft, revisions and commitment. For these people there was no other option, not even a thought of doing anything else but creating this tribute for their deep belief.
    Peace and tranquility washed me anew at the shore of the pagoda, and I promptly entered into an extremely delightful assault on the senses.
    My eyes perceived the incredibly colourful temple, in the centre loomed a gold and gigantic buddha statue and around him were pillars and ceilings of paintings and design. As a buddhist shrine I wasn’t sure I’d seen one more amazing, probably just in the fact too that it was a fairly tight space. There were no halls to walk down, just one high ceilinged room, in which wherever your eyes chose to dart to there was an experience for them more gratifying than the last.
    My nose smelt the sweet and fragrant scent of incense as people took turns to kneel before the buddha with their sticks, before leaving the still smoking rods at his feet and returning to their place in the hall.
    My ears listened to the group of musicians who played in the centre of the shrine. Every second the intensity built, with a mantra being repeated over and over until it felt like a bass note to life itself, the basis for which every musician bashed symbols or twanged the instruments in their hands. It was a seismic and transient thing to listen to, and seemed to combine all my senses until I could feel nothing but that smooth rhythm, cleansing me of my senses somewhat and turning me unconsciously from observer to participant.
    All felt right in the constant culmination of the music and the all-round atmosphere, so I walked to the side and took the incense, lighting it and taking my turn to kneel before the impending buddha. I pretty much meditated how I’d vaguely tried before back home, breathing deeply in and out focusing only on my breaths, trying to feel nothing. But the scene distorted completely whatever rationality I had left and all I thought of was the connection to absolutely everything. I thought of Sunday, Angkor wat, the cambodian child on the boat, Marianne, my family - you name it. We were all in this together, this rhythm. This frantic, seismic, transient rhythm bound us all. Be it some mad dream, consciousness experiencing itself, lucky matter all arriving from the minute organisms of our microscopic past. Every life before me, living unbeknownst to the path they carved for me, in tears or in joy, in heat or in bleak winter - but always under the shared sun.
    It was the most religious experience of my life, one where my rationality was cast aside with much ease and this strange sense of fulfillment, which had alluded me until now, had welcomed me then. As I left the pagoda to walk back down the stairs everything pretty much returned to the way it had been before, and I kind of laughed to myself at what had just happened. Visions of me shaving my head and running off to Tibet blinked in my mind's eye and I caught a breath and smoked a cigarette. How crazy.
    As if to freak me out even more a monk walked up directly to me as I stubbed out my cigarette. He spoke softly in the Khmer language and beckoned with his hands for me to kneel. Was he so attuned to know at that moment the way I was feeling or the almost hallucinatory experience I had just had? I knelt and received the blessing bestowed onto me. Afterwards he held his hand out and asked for money.

12th - 15th of February 2019, Phnom Penh > Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Dark days indeed. I spent one last day without consequence in Phnom Penh, where the highlight was having a nice burrito from a mexican place down the road. I couldn’t really seem to get a grip on where more culture would be for the city, and was also lethargic after what felt like non-stop walking over the past few days. So I went to bed and what should awake me in the middle of the night but the realisation that I had bed bugs!
    It was a terrible end to Phnom penh. I really thought that I would manage to escape them, but I should have known the bed begs would get me eventually. I stayed up through the night and called my Mum to check in and reassure her I wasn’t dead, before gathering every single one of my clothes and putting them in a big bin liner. As horrid luck would have it, I was actually sleeping with my bag on my bed, which meant it was likely the bugs were literally everywhere.
    The couch to Sihanoukville was simple enough and I’d decided this time to book my hostel when I got there, meaning I could go straight to a washer and dryers to get the bug situation sorted and have a look around. I found a place a mere 2 minute walk up the main road from where the bus stopped and said to the man ‘bed bugs’, which fortunately he seemed to understand. I paid $8 to have it all back in a few hours, and walked around with a light bag feeling refreshed if not still slightly itchy. I headed to the beach which was absolutely atrocious. The sand was coarse and nowhere near as nice as any of the beaches I’d seen before, and the whole place seemed void of anything worth writing home about, aside from the thriving port that was ferrying tourists off to the islands - the main reason I had come here. I read my book for a while and then took a walk up the road again, checking into ‘The Big Easy’ hostel, which looked extremely western but nonetheless was the only place here that had a bit of liveliness.
    I got checked into the place and then was moved into my dorm which was completely empty. I think I’d made a mistake here. I had three nights booked. I think for once my lonely planet guide had let me down slightly, as I’d read that it was a stop off before the islands that was worth seeing.
    Twice more that day I went for a walk around and just saw a city under construction. The sound of drills and the sight of rubble was everywhere, to the point where the streets were half paved and then gave up to dust. I looked online and read that massive chinese businesses had invested in the area to build it up and make it become an exclusive hot spot for Chinese tourists. Typical. Even the local shop I went to for a cold can of coke hosted half full stock and a hell of a lot of empty shelves, along with a hole in the roof. They were really nice people behind the desk though, and I’ve gotten to know them by name over these days of killing time. One was Bao, a Chinese woman who spoke really good English and the other was Raskmey, who spoke zero English. Bao confirmed to me my fears that the city was under construction and there wasn’t much nightlife at all, nor any temples to visit close by.
    Aside from trips to that shop and another couple of beaches, both of which were as bad as the other, I felt lost. I caught up on messages and remained glued to my phone for the most part, trying to make something happen via couchsurf, but no-one was around. I went for a couple of beers each night in the main bar and dining area of my hostel, where to be fair they actually had vegetarian meals and live music, although the covers were as terrible as you can imagine. Wonderwall every night, and of course, Country Roads. 
    I remained alone in my room for the first two nights as well. I noticed none of the same people in the bar from one day to the next, and I definitely knew I’d fucked up now, as surely everyone was staying maybe for one night before heading to the islands. I should have reduced my stay and headed out a day earlier, but I felt consigned to my fate, and semi-enjoyed wallowing in my self-pity. This was by far the worst experience I’d had travelling and I did feel terribly alone, especially as I saw online that the band I was a part of had managed to finish off a music video for our song and the release was coming in a couple of days.
    For the first time I wished to be home.
    Luckily, on the last day things picked up slightly. I milled around and had a vegetarian full english breakfast at The Big Easy (there was literally nowhere else I could find that was half decent), before heading back to the room and noticing a solitary bag on the bed, the other side of the room. I went to the beach for a couple of hours and came back to find a swiss guy by the name of Elias in the room. He had just come back from the islands and said he needed a day of rest after all the partying he had done. I told him I was going to Koh Rong tomorrow and he said I’d have fun.
    We had a good night and along with dragging him out for dinner I managed to get him to indulge in a few chilled beers as we both watched disgusted at the live music. He played bass himself and he told me about his band and I did mine. His was a metally kind of band and they played underground gigs in the basement venues of Stockholm. We talked about music and he spoke with eloquence about the writing style of the group. About how important it was for him that they practiced 4 times a week and wrote together, playing a song 100 times a week to finely tune the way parts could work and confronting each other at every turn. He said there was too much politeness in music and that as close bandmates you had to tell each other to fuck off to their face when you disagreed, for the betterment of the band and the music.
    It was really interesting and I talked of my band's story and he was enthused by the journey we’d gone on. I baited him to stay out longer but he had to go to sleep so I watched him go. I stayed with one more beer and people watched. Across my nights there another funny thing I’d noticed was the women in here. I had spotted two or three women who seemed to reappear each night and just walked about from table to table, always to men. I wondered why they never came to me, but I guess I put out a very hostile front just in my resting bitch face and diverted gaze. Still I was a lucky man really, because it finally clicked on that last night that they were obviously prostitutes. I think the main helping hand in how I obtained this information was when I went to the bar and I heard a boisterous russian man saying to one of the women ‘how much?’.
    What an unbelievable thing. I had come to a hostel where the owners obviously had some sort of deal with prostitutes, or just took the route of 'ignorance is bliss'. I laughed to myself and headed back to my room after that.
    Finally, I will be getting out of here tomorrow. I’ve gotten rid of the bed bugs, I’ve read a book and a half, and I’ve met one person who was snoring gently and leaving in the opposite direction tomorrow. My panic about meeting people which had left me for a long time came back to me now. What if I had ridden my luck and I was now destined to spend the rest of my Cambodian days never interacting with anyone, wishing I was at home. I hurried up in my head the time of Vietnam where I’d see Marianne again and travel south to north with her. I crossed my fingers and prayed for Koh Rong to save my troubles. Don’t let me be alone on the party island of Cambodia, please.