Quickie in phnom penh

I'm stuck in phnom Penh for qa little while. trying to sort out a new visa. i'm not going to bang on about the beauracracy of it all, though i will say that controlling the movement of people is contradictory to implicit human rights.

so we arrived in phnom penh on... wednesday i think, it was a reasonable journey if hot and dusty. i don't really remember the 1st day or 2- i didn't go out or anything i was just wiped out.


Friday night was the Elsewhwere party, it's a monthly event at some former french colonial mansion. it seemed very much like a place to be seen. i wasn't very comfortable with the atmosphere and decided I had 3 choices a)be anti-social, leave early abandoning my friends b) stick around and try not to let my misewry affect others c) get fucking drunk.... So every time i went to the bar i ordered 2 drinks - Gin and Pineapple juice goes down so very well on a warm evening. Eventually I tagged along with some poeple i barely knew to The Heart Of Darkness- this place is renowned by everyone who has been through Phnom Penh. it was alright but sort of reminded me a of a no-holds barred school disco. I sort of broke up a fight between 2 prostitutes. I told them that if they wanted to beat shit out of each other they should at least wait til i'd gotten my drink from the bar, no need for me to spill booze just cos they want to tear each other apart.

next day i was feeling the burn. severely. FAR TOO MUCH DRINK. i went to visit jack at his guesthouse where i fell asleep on a sofa, the guesthouse has a deck oonto the lake and i was EATEN ALIVE by mosquitos, i', covered in baits and look like i either have severe exzma or a severe smack habbit. either way, not V. attractive.

today i am waiyting for my visa and should hopefully be opff to SenMonorom early tomorrow morning, i'm really not lookinmg forward to the journey packed into a truck with a load of randoms. gah.

on the plus side i bought 2 new shirts today- mainl;y because i have run out of clean shirts and have no time for laundry. thery cost me $1.25 for both. not bad at all.

I was gfoing to send people postcards n shit but i forgot to bring addresses to town with me. and there's no post back in mondulkiri. so no one's getting anything

OH! ODD THING! i was browsing some CD stores in the Sorya Centre (the sole shopping mall in central Phnom Penh) and found a double CD of the new Camera Obscura album! i was dead excited cos i only have it on vinyl and hence couldn't copy it to my laptop. i was extra excited cos there's twice as many tracvks on the cd1 as there are on the vinyl album PLUS a whole other cd. i asked how much and the woman said two dollars. she must've seen the shock on my face cos she went on to explain that the readon it was $2 was because it was 2 cds... she was sorry it was expensive.... double album for a quid???! yes please! then when i listened to the 1st ced, it turns out the 2nd half is a fucking snow patrol album!! fucking snow patrol! i have no idea why. i saw all the song titles i didn't know and thought i had a load of b-sides or something but no, pissing snow patrol. i haven't had the3 heart to try the 2nd cd yet...

right, i'm not sure what i'm doing for the rest of the day but i think i'm going to try to find someone to share the back seat of a car to phnom penh with...