February 1, 2015
I had a cunning plan: Yes, another one
The last few days I'd been getting into the difficult situation of feeling quite vexed - I was stressed out by all the motorcycles, all the heat, all the difficulties that come with being a lone traveler riding a bicycle across a continent for more than a year. What I needed was to get out of Asia for a few days, take a vacation from it all, and I had a cunning plan to make that happen.
But first I had to get to the town of Ban Lung, a 47 kilometre bicycle ride during which Cambodia did its very best to say 'oh come on, Asia's not so bad!' First of all I stopped at a little shop to buy some food, and the friendly woman sold me the very best fake-Oreos in all of Asia, which was pretty friggin' awesome of her.
Next I came across a modern gas station, the sign of which proudly declared that it was the home of both an ATM and wifi. I needed to find an ATM because I was almost out of cash and so I veered onto the forecourt and asked one of the attendants about it. "No ATM" was his response, but I still had my fake-Oreos and I was NOT going to let this ruin my morning. Instead I went to the restaurant behind the gas station where I stopped to eat lunch and add a little wifi to my life. It was a pretty fancy restaurant, with an extensive menu. Check out some of the exciting things I had to choose from:
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Unfortunately my vegetarianism meant I couldn't eat any NGOs, so instead I had my usual - some variety of rice and egg. After I was done eating a man came and sat with me, a very nice and friendly man indeed. He was topless, and had tattoos running up one arm, and a cap on his head turned backwards, all of which was far less intimidating than it might sound. His English was almost flawless, and he told me about how he worked in Siem Reap (the tourist town built up around Angkor Wat) but was here to help his friend with his new restaurant. "How's that going?" I asked.
"Not so well so far" he conceded, looking around at all the empty tables, "the problem is it's not a very good..." he looked for the right word.
"Location?"
"Yes! Not a good location!"
"Yes, the problem your friend has I suppose, would be in hiding his nice restaurant behind a gas station on an empty stretch of road in the woods near to a barely used border into Vietnam. But I like it."
Anyway, this guy was great and we talked for a while, he taught me some Cambodian phrases and we talked about religion and Cambodia and things. As we were talking I noticed that on each hand the nail on his little finger was grown long, while all the others were trimmed short. In some places in Asia I'd seen people with long thumb nails, because it helped them pick up food when eating by hand. I wondered if my new friend had these long nails for a similar reason, and so I asked him about it. "Oh no," he said, with complete seriousness and actions to prove it, "these are for picking my nose and cleaning my ears."
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I used the wifi connection in the restaurant to find a place to stay in Ban Lung, and the place that I chose to stay was called 'Backpacker's Pad'. Now usually a name like that would be somewhere to avoid in my book, but that's where my cunning plan steps in to explain my decision. Explain yourself my cunning plan.
My Cunning Plan: To spend a few days surrounded by backpackers so as to forget that one is in Asia.
Wow, my cunning plan, that does sound like a good idea, thanks for explaining that one. So I went the rest of the way to Ban Lung and found this Backpacker's Pad place. It looked like it was about to fall down, but that wasn't very important, what was important was forgetting I was in Asia. Unfortunately the fact that the place was also very noisy and dirty, the shower didn't work and I wasn't allowed to throw my friggin' toilet paper in the toilet bowl meant I wasn't really able to forget that I was in Asia. All I f*cking want is to be able to throw my toilet paper in the f*cking toilet bowl, just once!!! No, not really, what I want is to go to sleep without a pair of dogs barking right outside my door, or to not be woken up at four in the morning by the sound of a horny rooster, or to not have to start my day listening to the entire family that ran the place taking it in turns to clear their throats with a noise that sounded like they were competing to be the first to actually hack their entire oesophagus into the bathroom sink.
So, that went well then.
Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 36,776 km (22,838 miles)
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