Hi there my friends,

had you given up on me? I nearly had.... but no!! I'm still here! You wont belieeeeve what happened to me today!!!! ....... Nothing!! Amazing huh?! So, rather than bitch at you about my agonising decision of what to do with my life, I thought it would be better to give you an old story I just discovered on my pc. Don't worry, it's a freshie! It's from my trip to cambodia a couple of years back. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....

I just got back from cambodia yesterday. Its a pretty crazy place. The history of the country is unbelievable. Went to visit the killing fields and the S21 Concentration camp. very disturbing. On a lighter note, weed costs about 5 quid an ounce! I didn't make it to the shooting range, but i met a guy who'd just been, and he confirmed that yes, you can play with rocket launchers, grenades, AK47's, Uzis, and even buy a live cow to blow up for $200... I cant help wondering if they give you an umbrella to protect you from all the falling cow... Angkor wat is pretty cool, although i prefered the other temples of Angkor Thom and the Bayon. Anyway, the best story is of my journey back, which was anything but smooth...

We left Sihanoukville in the south of cambodia at 8am in a small minibus and headed off towards the thai border. 20 mins later the bus pulled into an auto repair shop in a small village, and the drivers proceeded to remove various parts of the engine and hit them with a hammer and a scewdriver while all the men squatted around and watched, offering the occasional piece of technical wisdom. We asked what was going on and how long this was going to take, but the driver just shrugged us off before going back to watching the "mechanic" attacking the engine parts with a drill.

2 hours later we finally got back in the van and started driving. Whatever problem the van had had before had been clearly aggravated by the hammering and drilling, and the van sounded like it wouldn't last more than and hour.

We countinued driving into the middle of nowhere and gradually the road got worse. Pretty soon it was nothing but a mud track winding through the hills. Then we came to our first river crossing. Four fishing boats had been tied together and covered in planks to make a makeshift car-ferry, and after another long wait we boarded along with a few other cars. The other cars apperared to be part of some "wealthy" (i.e. owned more than a pair of shoes and a t-shirt) family with AK wielding security guards.

Upon reaching the other side, we jumped ashore and waitied for our van. All the other cars drove off up the dusty road, but our van remained unmoved. We had a flat battery! A few men started to gather round the van and attempted to "squat start" it. This involves getting a group of men to squat around the van and argue about the problem until it solves itself, and is not dissimilar to the method used in the auto-repair shop, although it involves less hammering and drilling.

After 30 mins of failed squat start attempts, a rather sizable queue of cars had built up trying to get back accross the river in the opposite direction. Horns were being liberally applied to the situation in an attempt to get it moving, and eventually our group of squatting men decided to push the van out of the way.

Eventually the squat starting was actually sucessful and we were back on our way.

We managed two more boat ferry crossings without too much fuss, although some of the roads we experienced in the mountains were unbeleivable. I'm amazed we made it over them. Then came the next major upset...

We were 30 mins from the border town of Ko Kong, and we had 1 hour until the border closed. No problem. Or so we thought. Suddenly the van turned off the main road and drove straight into a muddy puddle about 2 feet deep. The wheels spun, water sprayed, but the van wasn't going anywhere. The rear wheels weren't even touching the ground. we were fucked. The driver, who was about 19 and not exactly the brightest of men, continued to rev the engine and spin the wheels in the hope that it might suddenly work. I dont know, perhaps he thought if he spun the wheels enough he'd actually empty the puddle and we could drive away. Anyhow, we all got out and the squatting technique was employed once more. The local village, obviously very amused by the whole affair, came and joined the squatting. You'd think with this much squatting power it would be easy to move the van, but for some reason it just wasn't working. I tried suggesting we covert all the squatting into pushing power, but my suggestion was greeted with laughs and cries of "It cant be done!".

Then our drivers came up with the wonderfully bad idea of trying to jack the van up by placing a jack, underwater, in the mud. I tried to explain why this wouldn't work, but they continued anyway. Eventually it became apparant that the reason the villagers weren't helping us push the van was that we weren't paying them, and the reason we weren't paying them was because the drivers were trying to save money. Once I found this out we pretty much ordered the drivers to pay the villagers and they relented!

With a lot of people lifting and pushing, we eventually got the van back on the road.... for about 2 minutes.... and then came to the next ferry crossing....

The ferry was undergoing repairs, and a guy was welding away at it. Accepting that we had missed the border, I bought a beer and sat down, after all this was cambodia. Who was I to say things should run faster or smoother? Was I about to make a difference? No. So I just sat and waited.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we missed the border, stayed overnight in a grotty bordertown, travelled to bangkok the following day, and missed our flight home! Hooray!

The End.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Ahhhh, memories.......