I have not written full journal for some time now, so here it is.

26th

In the morning I complain and pay less for the room than agreed, the reason being there was no water at all in the bathroom. Interesting thing is the guy who is in charge is avoiding eye contact (probably a cultural thing) turning his face away, leaning his head on his hands on the table, while talking through his female assistant.

There is no sign of the tuk-tuk for the bus to Siem Reap (SR), I ask the staff to call and I am told that the ticket sales person will contact the company. The tuk-tuk driver I saw few minutes earlier up the road, resting in his vehicle, turns up to collect me, he hadnt told any one he was here for me.

I have a bad bus ride to siem reap, terribly warm and no getting away from the sun's heat despite the curtains, the air vents keep shutting too. I have paid half the price of some of the people on the bus because of where I bought the ticket, some have bought directly from the bus company or their hotels.

The hotel I am taken as per the recommendation of the ticket sales person is very quiet and about 10-15 minutes away from town center, not happy but need shower so I stay one night. The next day the tuk=tuk driver who collected me from bus station takes me round some hotels, I am not satisfied so pay him off, he is also wanting a decision now whether I would need him for my local trips, which I am not prepared to do. I find another hotel (Mitri pronounced meet-rye) using another driver and negotiate a good deal, as it turns out the hotel is too comfortable and I stay about twice as long as I had planned.

I have been listless and exhausted, unsure why but some ideas come to mind: relentless offer of tuk-tuks and motor bikes all day, offer of genuine and not so genuine massage (from tuk-tuk drivers) from men (lady-boys) and women at night, every shop owner and passing sales person wanting to have your attention, it is very hot and I have had to rest the day after every trip I have had, having to negotiate ridiculous prices for everything specially at tourist sites (prices drop by 90% sometimes, such a wast of my time but I guess if they can get away with it it is worth trying). I havent wanted to leave the hotel room a few days, too much TV or just sleep, wondering if I am going through some kind of a period of adjustment as it has now been 3 months since I started my trip. At times it is quite tiring, living from day to day from one hotel/town/country to another, little consistent social company and having to think about lots of things.

27th day off, finding new hotel, wondering round city centre

28th Angkor tour - as part of a minibus tour, this was great and we covered surprisingly lots of places. One Hungarian guy is travelling with his Thai wife and one of his customers, he has travel agency in Thailand. Creg, an Australian guy, very very quiet, Nina a Swedish girl and Denise from England. Angkor Thom (this was a city with 16 km of walls around it) consisting of various temples including Bayon, Prean-khan and Angkor Wat (the most famous). we could not climb to the top level of Angkor Wat as it was full moon (would have been nice to know this beforehand). These sites (8th wonder of the world!). These places  are truly amazing architecturally as well as spiritually, huge monuments and carvings and statues, photos do not do them justice as they are awesom and must see at least once in a life time.

Managed to find a Gym to get some exercise. Concrete floor, covered with bits of variety of house carpets, very old equipment, missing cables from the machines. The building 8x10 meters is a wooden roof supported by 10 wooden posts about 6 meters high. The walls are about 2.5 metes tall, above is open air with occasional a bmboo roller blinds, so occasionally we get sparrows visiting. There is a small fridge packed with small bottles of cold water (included in the price of 2000 r or $0.5 for one hour!, I buy these at 500 eac outside) and stream of very small ants, I guess they need to cool down too.
The Gym is near Watbo, the local temple, massive place that I wondered through on my second visit to the Gym, full of monks and nuns, there was food being served in a large open space but I did not approach! not necessarily vegetarian either. On my 3rd visit (4th March) there was a huge funeral procession for the chief monk, there were thousands of people walking through the street.

1st March day off.

2nd I get a tuk-tuk to Beatry sri,  (small but incredible, Pre-rup, East Mebon and finally Beatney somre (this was by far the most amazing and yes that is saying something considering what I have seen so far). The day finished unsatisfactorily as the ticket sales person had not explained the route to the tuk-tuk driver and he wanted to finish at 4 as he thought the route was too far for the money agreed.

3rd March lots of sleep, chilled in town, veg curry and rice was quite nice, later also had two pieces of cakes and coffee while reading through my Lonely Planet book and doing some kind of planning for travel.

4th March revisit Angkor Wat and climb to the top level (restricted number of visitors allowed at one time, for no good reason as it was quite large and we ad to queue 20 minutes in the sun), the lower galleries with hundreds of meters of wall carvings depicting wars and religious issues were far more impressive. It is also hard to have any kind of peace in these places due to the tourist with little interest other than to take photos. One off-putting thing is the smell of bats, or more precisely bat droppings as these places were abandoned for long periods allowing bat infestation as well as massive damage by trees destroying the foundations. Heat had kicked in by 9 o'clock.

I was back in the air conditioned room by 12 and did not leave till about 7 to get something to eat. I also enquired about Lao travel. As it so happened I met a German traveller in the restaurant and discovered that my earlier plan to visit some temples up North was not feasible, they were much further than I thought and prices for travel were far too high to justify it.

5th I am tired and fed up as I mentioned earlier, and partly want to get out of here, I am aware that I am becoming reclusive and spending more time asleep/watching TV than I would like. I enquire about flights to Lao (this would mean missing out on seeing more of rural Cambodia but I am not sure if I am bothered about it). It turns out that the airport I want Pakse is now closed and if I fly to Savenekha I would have to backtrack south to cover some the places I want to visit in Lao. So plan now is to go south by bus in Cambodia to Kompong Chum and then travel North visiting various sites on the way and crossing to Lao by land border. I do have some concerns as Internet search suggests that there is no visa facility at this border while the local travel agents are suggesting that there is. There may also be option of getting one through one agent at  Stoeng Treng, so some uncertainty here.

I had planned on going to Kompong Thom first but this is going to double my stops unnecessarily.

I begin to try and locate a training club for Bokator (Cambodian martial arts with major influence on Thai Boxing) but having been driven half way round town by a helpful motorbike driver I have little success. The address is pretty unclear and i found it on the net in Phenompen newspaper article. He eventually locates and takes me to a boxing club. So I train on a military base! the facilities are 4 punch bags hanging over this concrete surface, the training does not start till 2.30-3 p.m. and we are there about 1.30. So I train a while and end up with lots of red and purple marks on my shins, instep, and knees while the man sleeping in a hammock does not notice a thing. I have exhausted myself in 20 minutes! Embaressing.  i sort of remember the Bokator trainers name and they have heard of him, he is due for competition in Phenompen on Sunday, but they still dont know of his club in town. I ask the bike man to take me back to Watbo Gym , some major cardio work is required. I train hard for about 2 hours, doing maximum reps that I can and then as many on top just for fun! I also get through 2 liters of water. The regular guys are drifting in around 4. While I am training I notice something sparkling and wonder if it is a Gemstone out of a piece of jewellery (some guys come with their girlfriends here, a social event really) it turns out to be a piece of broken glass, probably off the two large broken mirrors (there are mirrors all round). This is major bad news as I am training barefoot and with just my swimming trunks, a lot of other guys train the same way. The problem with pushing some exercises specially large muscle groups like the legs is that it can strain you and I feel quite giddy so abandon the exercise eventually. I head to the toilet with the intention of wiping myself down with the bucket of water there. I discover that there is also a shower on the wall, fantastic, this saves me having to rush back to the hotel.

I find a Mexican restaurant, variety will be good (had deepfried vegetarian stuff in the market for lunch, not bad actually and will look for similar stuff again) but the portion is rather small so get some rice too, fancied rice anyway after the workout, and a beer! But only one beer and hope to resist the cake craving later, it is hard to burn the wretched calories. Oh, I am avoiding chilli which is provided with every meal as I figure it just increases the body heat as I have noticed I pour with perspiration even more. I am sitting near 3 young attractive English girls and overhear an interesting conversation. At first sight, and they may well be, college graduates, well groomed and spoken. They happen to be "dancers" in clubs and are discussing their jobs, sugar-daddies, dating, how to make most money by flirting with every one and pushing the drinks, etc. I have never had such jobs but not being perfect try to be non-judgmental.

I was feeling quite tired so headed back to the hotel, must resist getting into bed or TV. Will be heading back into town to upload this journal, get a 4 hands massage (two people massaging, should be good) and maybe some snack and get my ticket for tomorrow 7.30 a.m. It is really time to move on. It should be good to get the massage to soothe the muscles after exercise.

The massage was generally good, except for the chatter of the two girls. My attempts at asking them to do stronger massage did not stop them chatting so eventually asked them to be quiet as politely as I could. Thai massage is generally strong but these girls (like most of the girls here) were petite and despite putting their entire weight behind some movements did not generate a lot of power. The massage ended better than it started as the girls swapped places and the girl doing my legs did some work on my shoulders and upper back. She turned out to be the stronger and quieter of the two.