Cambodia to Saigon

I arrived into Kep and only one thing popped into my mind;  If I ran the tourism for this city, my slogan would be:  Cambodia's Best Kep Secret.  You're welcome.  Kep is a really small town without much going on, so I ended up booking an afternoon ferry to Rabbit Island, which Irish Tom (Gingervitis) told me to check out.  I scoped around for the cheapest bungalow, which turned out to be $7.  Was it worth walking around aimlessly for 15 minutes to save $1?  If you were thinking "No", that means you should probably be donating some of that extra money you have to charity.

I spent my first two hours reading a book whilst lounging on a hammock, because the whole tourist section of the island is just 400 meters of beach.  I did however decide to go for a wander and found a secluded trail behind the far end of the beach.  I didn't think I would stumble upon anything exciting, but after finishing the trail and finding another beach, I noticed that the far side of the beach was covered in black rocks.  As I enjoy a little adventure, I decided to hike through the rocks and what I found on the other side was absolutely beautiful.  There were trees growing directly out of the rocks, their roots mixed amongst the rubble and stretching towards the ocean.  Never in my life would I have pictured something so amazing, but that's the most amazing thing about this planet;  No matter what you imagine, it always holds something even more wonderful.

Some views are so beautiful they are beyond imagination... not unlike the view I see when I look into a reflective body of water

My roots have grown but I don't know where they are...

This rock looks a little fishy :p

When I was eight, I was learning that you're not supposed to put popcorn seeds up your nose, this kid is climbing coconut trees with a rope attached to him

Kep is known for one thing in particular, their crab, which is supposed to be some of the best in the world.  I ordered the crab Amok and it was hands down the best crab I have ever had in my life.  I'm partially upset that I ate it, because now every time I eat crab I'll just be like meh.  I will say it was a lot of effort to eat the crab though, there were six or seven of them in the soup, all cut in half, so I had to exert a lot of effort to eat them.  The next morning I decided that one night on the island was enough for me and it was rather pricy at $7/night, so I took the ferry back to Kep.  I ended up meeting a Canadian on the boat that wanted to head to the same part of town as me, so we were able to split a tuk tuk and room to save money.  I went for a run to snag some GoPro photos of the various sites and then we checked out the crab/seafood market for dinner.  Turns out it wasn't an actual market at all, just a row of 15 restaurants that sold seafood at marked up prices.  The lady there was super nice though and gave me an extra large portion and free fruit salad for dessert.

Suffice it to say, I had seen all of Kep in a day and couldn't see myself staying there for 5 more days, which was the amount of time I had remaining before my Vietnam Visa started.  Thus I decided to head back to Kampot and see if they had any homestay options, if not, I knew there were at least ATMs, delicious food options, and guest houses along the river where I could have some peaceful downtime to reflect on where my life went wrong and why I keep putting off writing.  Perhaps it's because it's an insane bet.  No one makes it as a writer, logically I have no chance of making it; I'm destined to fail.  But then again, if I did make it...I'd never have to work in a real job again and that would be the greatest gift I've ever received.  Suffice it to say I spent my last 4 days in Cambodia in a Bungalow along the river.  I worked out everyday in my quest for a six pack, realized I only have the physical endurance to ride a bike for seven minutes and and twenty eight seconds, and subsequently realized I could only swim for 43 seconds when I hopped in the river to cool off.  

My life is shit

Best statue ever...This is basically as close as I get to a naked woman

Upon making my way to the border, I found a $100 bill on the ground, but I'm 99% sure it's fake since it has no water mark and one of Benny boy's eyes is missing.  Someday, I'll find a real one!  If it is somehow real, here's my pledge to donate it to charity.  Border crossings are usually entertaining and this one did not disappoint.  Half the people on the mini-bus didn't seem to understand how they worked, so when we grabbed our bags and walked across, two people (Americans...the stereotype of us being dumb assholes is so true) left their iPhones in the minibus.  After getting across and realizing we were taking a different vehicle from the Vietnam border to our next destinations, they started berating our new driver, who was a younger girl, about how they were told it was the same bus all the way and how much bullshit this was.  

I don't understand the confusion, because why would the same bus go across the border?  That would mean the drivers would have to constantly pass through immigration, do vehicle searches, etc.  It seems logical to assume you're switching to a bus run by a partner company in the next country.  Their phones got sent across the border via another group, thirty minutes later, so it was no big deal, but still;  When they say take all your bags across the border...why would you leave your phone?  Don't yell at someone else about how they messed up when you made a mistake, that's not cool.

We were taken to a central minibus office in Ha Tien, where everyone got transferred to their final destination.  I ended up making friends with a French couple, so we ended up at the same hostel and grabbed dinner together.  The Vietnamese people are also super nice, quite like the Khmer people, though they are a little more blunt in their business dealings versus being laid back and making a lot of jokes like their Cambodian counterparts.  

I woke up at 5 am to catch the sunrise during the floating market tour.  I was expecting some ships to be flowing in the waters, kind I like the floating villages but it was just a crap ton if boats packed with fruits and vegetables.  Smaller boats would come up and offer you sandwiches or coffee as you waded through the unknown.

Mekong Delta Sunrise

Floating petrol station!

The Floating Market

Coffee, sandwich, soup, and noodle boats are scattered about

After the market we went to a rice noodle factory to see how hey are made and grabbed some coffee.  Next we ended up taking the boat through some narrow canals that the larger tour boats couldn't fit through, which was pretty rad.  The lady driving one of the boats next to us had a giant piece of bamboo and started making stuff for the older couple in her boat ranging from bracelets to crowns to toys to flower bouquets, all while navigating the mighty Mekong.  She also made me a bracelet and a wand type of thing, probably because she could sense how magical I am.   She handed boat driver some bamboo and he worked it into a grasshopper looking thing.

I only went to can tho to see those markets, so after my boat got back at 9 am, I made my plans to take a bus to go chi Minh  (Saigon) later that afternoon.   During my downtime I did some shopping... Back in the States, when you see something is made in Vietnam, you assume it's a cheap piece of shit...well imagine buying said item in Vietnam and it's actually worse.  I purchased a memory card reader for my camera and two pairs of headphones... Out of those three items, only one pair of headphones worked and even that was partial.  $5 down the drain, once again my wallet reeling in pain.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a grasshopper or what, but it looks cool

Our boat got stuck 3 times due to the motor getting tangled up in garbage.  Asia needs a pollution revolution.

I don't know why, but I love this picture...What's this guy's story?

I'm floating down a river.  Will I ever make it back to shore or will I drift into the unknown?

Maybe we can meet again further down the river to share what we've both discovered... and revel in the view.

By the time I arrived to Saigon and caught a moto into town (during which I was certain I would die), it was already getting late.  Thus I wandered the city for a bit, grabbed some dinner, and then set up a tour to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are a vast, 220 km man-made tunnel system created during the Vietnam War.  The entire population of Cu Chi lived underground while creating those tunnels, for no less than 22 years!  They surfaced only during the night to plant crops and dispose of the "waste" that occurred below.  Well.... they surfaced for another reason, to use their phrasing, to hunt Americans.  The theme for the day was how terrible and corrupt America is, which to be fair we are self-righteous, self-absorbed, selfish bastards, but it was a little over the top.   

I was a little let down to be honest.  We had to drive over two hours to get there, with a mandatory stop at a handicapped art place, trying to pry open your wallets by preying on your pity.   Upon arriving to Cu Chi, your tour isn't actually in the tunnels, rather you walk above ground and get shown various kill traps, hiding areas, and other innovations around the tunnels.  Some of the content was pretty interesting and the tunnels were very intelligently made, but the area was just packed full of tourists and every tour guide was shouting louder than the next, so it was hard to focus.

You only go through the actual tunnels for about a minute and it's a touristy portion that has been expanded so tourists can fit through more comfortably.  The expanded section was still a tight squeeze for me and I'm pretty scrawny, so I can't even imagine how the hell they lived there for so long.  After the tour ends you get a piece of boiled tapioca and shot of tea, before being herded back to the bus. So all in all it's like 4.5 hours of travel to spend 89 minutes outside the tunnels and 1 minute in them.

Hidden opening from the tunnels

Whenever I see this I just hear Data from The Goonies yelling, "Booby Trap!"

Feeling claustrophobic?

I ended up meeting a Canadian girl on the tour, Kaitlin, so we grabbed lunch once we got back to town and met up with some Danish girls from her dorm, Kristine and Stine, to go check out Chinatown. After finishing our explorations, we grabbed dinner and drinks at an Irish pub since it was St. Patty's Day.  The party scene in Saigon wasn't as wild as I expected, the streets were bare by midnight and none of the bars were too exciting.  I was however able to indulge in some daiquiris because pitchers were the happy hour special and that's what the girls wanted to drink.  Damn you women and your delicious fruity drinks.  Meanwhile, I have to drink beer to appear manly.  It's unfair.

Not all of my views are amazing....but if everything was amazing, you wouldn't appreciate it

Vietnam's version of a mobile home

After getting my fill of hatred towards America, I made my way to Da Lat, where adventure abounds, but that's a story for another blog.

Random GoPros

Whenever I'm on a beach, I just start thinking...If I ever move somewhere without a beach again, I will kick the living shit out of me

It's absolutely amazing, all the trees growing up through the rocky shore

I'm looking to the sky to save me, looking for a sign of life, I'll make my way back home when I learn to fly...

Me and my crab...well one of them at least...Wait, what?!?!?! (Just to clarify, I'm 11% sure I don't have crabs)

The local market, imagine an entire block being inside a giant shipping container filled with cheap goods...Those are the places I can afford

chim chimney, chim chimney, chim chim cheroo, good luck will rub off when I shake hands with you... or blow me a kiss and that's lucky too ;)

All the boats have tires on the side to help ease collisions, glad to see there's proper safety measures in place

Eyes on his whittling creation, thighs controlling the direction of the boat...poo filling my pants

BOATS is the best acronym to describe my blog...Based On A True Story

Death Door Trap...Once big bro meets me in Korea I'll be tripping him into one of these...The life insurance policy I have in his name is substantial

Chinatown shopping center, where everyone is in everyone else's way

The mean streets of Saigon

Book Reviews
I've also made it through a surprising number of books in the past few months, due to all my downtime on islands.

• His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler's The Art of Happiness - The Dalai Lama's Buddhist belief is that the entire purpose of your life is to be happy.  I highly recommend it to anyone, it really is enlightening.
• John Milton's Paradise Lost - Worst book I've ever read in my life.  I'd rather spend an eternity listening to Justin Bieber on repeat than read a single page of this book ever again.
• Sunzi's The Art of War - There's some cool stories in the book, but why do people brag about reading it?  Do you really need to know how to ambush a legion of Chinese pikemen from 500 B.C.?  Unless you get thrown into some sort of Bill and Ted's excellent adventure or gun a DeLorean to 88...Probably not.
• Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth - Love the imagination, hate what a whiny bitch the protagonist is.  If I met him in real life, I'd karate chop him in the throat just so I didn't have to listen to him speak.
• Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson's - A Memory of Light - Book 14 of the nerdiest series I've ever read.  I didn't even care anymore, I just wanted it to end.
• Aesop's Fables - I wish I could memorize all of these, brilliant one paragraph stories with amazing morals. I recommend reading these on your phone whilst in the restroom.  If you don't do anything in there, that's just time you're not getting back, might as well learn something.
• Mark Twain's On the Art of Decay of Lying - Turns out this wasn't even a book, it was like two pages.  Perfect for my reading level and attention span.
• Brandon Sanderson's - Steelheart - A book based in futuristic Chicago, but some people have super powers.  Pretty good, Audible recommended it as their audiobook of the year
• Brandon Sanderson's - Warbreaker - I had credits for Audible books, so I chose this since it was like 30 hours long, which is great for long bus rides.
• Oliver Potzsch's The Dark Monk - Book two in a series about a 1600s Bavarian hangman, entertaining but a bit predictable
• Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra - One of the craziest books I've ever read, but absolutely amazing quotes and wordplay.  He's like a talented and successful version of me.  Will definitely read more Nietzsche

Currently reading:

• Homer's The Odyssey - I loved the Illiad, so hopefully this is just as good
• Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything - Probably one of the most fascinating books I've picked up.  It explains the complexities of the universe in a simple and humorous way.
• Hamilton Wright Mabie's Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know - I'm basically a big little kid, so I'm loving this.
• Henry David Thoreau's Walden - I'm three pages in and already want to stab my eyes out

What I wish I was reading, but can't afford since my family members never send me e-gift cards for Christmas or my Birthday/ Isn't available yet:

• George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) Book 6.
• Joe Nesbo's Harry Hole series - Mystery novels revolving around a genius cop
• Douglas Preston and Lee Child's Pendergast series - Mystery novels revolving around an albino Sherlock Holmes
• Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm - Pseudonym for J.K. Rowling - I will read anything that woman writes, because without her I probably wouldn't ever read or understand what it means to have an imagination.  She sued the publishers for releasing information that she was the true author of the first book and donated all the money to charity, plus she gives a portion of the book's revenue to charity as well.  Such a lovely lady, one of my heros

An Acidic Island and a Cambodian Car Crash

Upon leaving Koh Rong I was initially planning to do some volunteer work teaching English, mostly because my mother thought I should do some good for the world instead of just living for myself.  However, after doing some research, the general consensus was that it's actually bad to volunteer helping children because they just get taught the same material over and over.  In addition, some children are displaced from their homes and put into orphanages so they can be leveraged to generate more donation money from tourists.  It's apparently a very corrupt system, so I decided to keep up my journeys and bide my time for a better opportunity to do some good and hopefully redeem my diminishing soul.

After getting back to Sihanoukville, I made my way to the Vietnamese consolate, since you are required to get your visa for Vietnam in advance.  Since it took a day to get processed I had to spend two nights in town before taking a ferry to Koh Ta Kiev.  I ended up staying in an eleven bed dorm for three bucks a night, not too shabby!  I was highly anticipating Koh Ta Kiev as Max had been hyping it up as a paradise to disconnect from the world as there is no wifi and they only run power a few hours each night via generators. 

Did I give this bar my business and support the international need to make fun of Canada?  Of course!

Ten decisions shape your life, you'll be aware of five about.  So why not try it all, if you'll only remember it once?

The boat that I booked to the island doubled as a tour boat, so I got to participate in some free snorkeling on my way there.  You never really know where you're going or when you're getting there when you purchase transport in Asia, but that's half the fun.  Once I arrived, I searched for the cheapest accommodation possible, finding a hammock for $3.50 or a shared tent for $6.  The tents were already setup, whereas you could take the hammock an set it up anywhere.  I decided to go with hammock (mostly because I'm the cheapest human being alive) and found my own little private area overlooking the rocks.  In retrospect, there is also one very important factor that should go into choosing a hammock or tent.  When you meet girls and they flirtatiously ask you where you are staying, it doesn't impress them when you say, "I'm in a hammock, over some rocks".  You might as well have not tried striking up a conversation in the first place, because all conversations die upon that dire revelation.

The island was divided into two main beaches, Crusoe and Coral. I chose the former, which was having a 2 year anniversary party for 3 days/2 nights whilst I was there.  The island was one of the most amazing places I've been to in my life.  It's hard to explain, but it had a certain, unexplainable energy.  Normally I can only run for 20 minutes before wheezing and collapsing into a pile of pure uselessness and during my morning workout I struggle to get through 100 push-ups and sit-ups.  On Koh Ta Kiev I could run for 30 mins without feeling any level of fatigue and could do 150 push-ups and sit-ups...with energy to do more.  Heck, I even did the sit-ups without taking a break.  I didn't even have to poop during my first three days on the island, my body was using exactly what I was taking in with perfect efficiency.  On top of the amazing views and lack of poos, was the amazing food.  There were only three places to eat on the island, but everything I ate was fantastic.  If I was serious about writing a book, I would have stayed there for a month or two, it was exactly where I needed to be.  The only downfall of this place is that the Chinese purchased a 99 year lease to turn it into a resort island, so this paradise will soon be lost.

No roads, no tuk tuk requests, no sales pitches, just the ocean breeze and the squishy sand beneath your toes.

Look at all those fancy clothes, but these could keep us warm just like those.  And what about your soul, is it cold?  Is it straight from the mold and ready to be sold?  Cars and phones and diamond rings. Bling Bling.  Those are only removable things, so what about your mind, does it shine?  Or are there things that concern you more than your time?

On the first night of the birthday party, everyone started dropping acid (LSD).  Having never done any real drugs before I figured why not?  It was kind of a spontaneous, spur of the moment decision, but if I hadn't tried it, I would always wonder what it would have been like .  That's simply my curious nature, besides what better place to do drugs than on an island with no cops?  People were taking between 2-3 drops, but I figured if I am only doing this once in my life, i will do it proper.  Thus my tongue felt the tingle of three sweet drops.  I paid $15, but the dude could have asked for $50 and convinced me it was a great price, I have no understanding of what you are supposed to pay for these things.  At one point, my drink went down the wrong tube and I had to use every ounce of concentration just to breathe normally, as apparently I'd lost the functionality of my autonomic nervous system.  I was wheezing for air and thinking, "Holy fuck, I still have twelve hours of tripping before this stuff wears off".  

It wasn't long before the majority of people were on acid.  To put this in perspective, there were probably 100 people on this little island, with about 85 being present for this party.  I would estimate somewhere between 60-75 took LSD.  Anyone that didn't was still drinking and smoking; There was no one sober.  At some point in the night, a random group of Cambodian soldiers came over from the other side of the island and started to get drunk and smoke weed at the bar, with fully loaded AK47s dangling from their backs.  Of course if a battle broke out, you could always rent a homemade spear gun from the bar for $8.  You hear about what Asia is like, but until you are here, you really have no idea.  This place is insane.

Normally I leave my pursuits for the fairer sex out of my blog, mostly because women don't find me attractive (in fact I think most women are repulsed by my general existence), so there's not much to write about, but occasionally funny situations happen and the world deserves to mock me.  So here I am, tripping balls on acid and weed, while simultaneously rocking a nice alcohol buzz, when  I start chatting up a Swedish bird.  When she noticed I was dripping wet, she asked me if I'd gone in the water, which is famous because the plankton glow phosphorescent blue around your body when you swim at night.  I told her it was awesome and convinced her to give it a shot, but she wanted me to go with her.  After a brief swim we headed back and hung out for a little while longer and she was starting to talk about how she wished she never had to leave the island and how she should just forget about her boyfriend.  

After hanging out at the bar for a few more drinks, we eventually decided to go back for a second round of nighttime swimming.  Keep in mind, I don't have swim trunks on me, so I'm just taking off my pants and going in my underwear.  As we are swimming, we start to get a little friendlier, but she keeps freaking out about having a boyfriend, but at the same time, she was keen and kept telling me how beautiful I am (which in all fairness, I do look incredible, I think most women are entranced by my general existence). But eventually she decided that she just couldn't cheat on her boyfriend, which in all fairness was the smart decision, because she would never have seen me again after that island and at this point I still had yet to learn her name (I was impaired, give me a break...I'm only a slightly... Ok, mostly terrible person). Twas also during this time I also learned that LSD does not impair your libido, as I felt a rush of blood to both my heads.  So here I am standing this phosphorescent plankton water, with a massive erection, bringing a whole new meaning to the term, "Blue Balls".  Did I retell this entire story, just to make that one blue balls pun?  Absolutely I did.

I stayed out at the bar until about 5 AM, partially because the girl I swam with wouldn't let me leave, but I did at least finally learn her name!  And partially because I was curious if the bar would ever close, which it did not.  It's pretty crazy, you don't feel tired even slightly after taking LSD and you can drink and smoke all night without issue (Sorry mom). Once I got back to my hammock and closed my eyes, shit went crazy.  I started to see microscopic Rubik's Cubes spiraling in patterns before turning into mathematical equations of multiple colors and diving into, what appeared to be, the code used to create The Matrix.  I'm pretty sure I also saw the answers to the universe and solved Fermat's Last Theorem.  Even crazier, I only needed one hour of sleep and awoke with no hangover.  

Though I cannot hear a word that you're saying, I can still feel you, feel the warm air. It travels from your whisper as I try to decipher the undecipherable.  So I'm waiting for you to lean in again, with those faint and precious sounds, I'll turn my head halfway and I will... I will swallow each one of them down and swipe the remaining thoughts from your lips. You're face so close, everything else eclipsed...

When the moon fell in love with sun, all was golden in the sky.  All was golden when the day met the night...

I wasn't the only one who had a crazy night either...Far from it.  One kid fell out of a tree house and messed up his back.  We were also worried he might have a concussion, so he stayed awake by continuously smoking cigarettes, while simultaneously coping with the pain via marijuana and tequila shots.  One of the bartenders had to go into the woods to puke at one point, but became nervous when his puke started moving, turns out he puked on a snake...and not just any snake, but a poisonous snake whose bit kills you in 4-6 hours.  He had to yell for one of the local guys to come and kill it while he stood with his flashlight over it.  I'm not even sure it was necessary to kill the snake, it was probably hallucinating from whatever was in that vomit and was incapable of hurting anyone.  The guy that sold everyone the acid apparently spent the wee hours of the morning dry humping and fondling what was quite possibly, if not likely, a shemale in the main area of the bar...luckily I left when I did, because I heard the stories and they were quite frightening.

Day two consisted of a special dinner/movie night. The dinner: chicken ganja soup.  It's just such a different lifestyle over here, it's eye opening to say the least.  They started out with an action movie, Elysium, before switching to a Romantic Comedy, which, as my fellow travelers know, are a guilty pleasure that I'm not even ashamed of.  Rom-Coms are delightful.  The movie was titled About Time, which is about a guy that can travel back to any point of his life and essentially have a "redo".  The apple of his eye?  None other than Rom-Com veteran Rachel McAdams...Wow, I should probably start watching more action movies...  Anywho, it was a pretty good flick, definitely worth RedBoxing.  The next movie that came on was Gravity, which I'd already seen, so I ended up retiring to my hammock to catch up on some sleep.

This massive spider was chilling in the jungle, easily the size of my hand...Err the left one, my right hand hasn't been the same....since the accident

What are you afraid of?  But more importantly, what are you made of?

3 restaurants and 1 Absinthe distillery, I'm glad this island has it's priorities straight

I left the island the next day, feeling a need to drink lots of water and purify my body.  I had to stay a night in Sihanoukville before making my way to Kampot, which is famous for it's pepper.  In all fairness, twas the best pepper I've ever had in my life.  I knew the trip would go well when about five minutes in, the driver stopped and pulled a nail out of the tire, but we got it patched and went on our way.  One of the big things to do in Kampot is to check out the Bokor National Park, so I decided to make a day trip out of it. 

There were so many people in our tour group that they had to put us in two vehicles.  About 12 people in a minibus and the remaining four of us in an old, beat-up Toyota Camry.  Every time we had a stop, we were worried the car wouldn't start back up, as it typically took 2-3 attempts before the engine finally revved up.  Our driver also didn't seem so comfortable behind the wheel and was taking turns with extreme caution for the first 15 minutes before finally getting into his groove.  Once we finally made it into the national park, I was expecting to see a forest with a bunch of wildlife, with some dirt roads running between attractions, but it was nothing like that at all.  Instead it was ultra toursity, with paved roads in lieu of forests and a brand new casino/resort hotel that was built by the Chinese.  The main attractions were a giant Buddhist statue, some dilapidated old buildings, a church, an abandoned casino, and a waterfall that contained no water.  

My memory card reader no longer works, so these last two pics are from my iPhone instead of the big guy.  Apologies for the drop in quality

Everything can change in a day...And you know, another one is always on the way

After a disappointing day atop the mountain, the real adventure came upon our departure.  The road winds down the mountainside via switchbacks that are quite steep.  As we were going down, I looked out the driver side window and noticed a hub cap was rolling beside the car.  Behind us cars were honking their horns, but our driver appeared not to notice.  I probably should have seen this as an omen of death and dismemberment, but I am so used to dodgy transportation that unless a wheel fell off, I'm not going to find the moment disconcerting.  However, after a few moments, I notice we are getting really close to the car in front of us and our driver starts to swerve around it, which is definitely reason for concern as we are going around a blind turn in the lane which belonged to oncoming traffic.  He just started saying, "Problem, problem!".  Why was he saying this?   Because the brakes to the car no longer worked.  Fuck.  My.  Life.

In desperate attempts to slow the car down he started swerving from side to side, looking for things to hit that would slow us down, but when you're descending a mountain, this little thing called gravity will fight you on that.  As we weave from side to side, gaining speed and momentum, I'm certain that the car is going to roll.  A few times it looked like he was either going to hit one of the boulders on the side of the road or drive us headfirst into a ditch for an epic crash.  After thirty seconds to a minute of this, he finally eyes up a guard rail and decides he's going to crash into it, switching phrases from "Problem, problem", to "It's the best way, it's the best way".  

He lined up to the guard rail with passenger side of the car and aimed for a head on collision, so my first thought was everyone on that side of the car was going to be impaled, but at the last second he swerved at the perfect angle, allowing the side of the car to catch on the guard rail and decelerate to the point of stopping.  Perhaps the most amazing thing of all is that no one was even hurt.  The damage to the car was actually pretty minimal, with the damage being constrained to one side of the car and the engine still in perfect condition.  If the brake failure would have happened in town, someone would have died for sure, as there would be no way to avoid tourists or tuk-tuk's and we would have had to crash into something much worse to slow down.  It was an absolute miracle that it happened where no other people could get hurt. 

After the crash we all had to crawl out of the driver side door, as it was the only one that was still functional at that point.  Our driver then called the other tour guide from the mini-bus, so we could be piled in there and get a ride back to town.  The final part of our tour included a sunset cruise that wouldn't start for a few hours, so we all grabbed a drink to settle our nerves while we waited for the boat to arrive.  After the cruise a few of us grabbed dinner and I eventually picked up the laundry I had dropped off that morning.  The best part about the end of my day?  The local pants I bought a few weeks ago happened to be purple and bled in the wash, so all my light colored shirts/underwear/etc. are now pink.  What can you do but laugh?  I'm officially about to make pink the sexiest color you've ever seen on a mudblooded Eurasian.  

The next leg of my trip involved heading to the small town of Kep and taking a boat to Rabbit Island, but that's a story for another blog.

Random GoPros

For $3/night this is what you get, a foam mattress on the floor with a mosquito net.  What more do you need?

An alcoholic always takes his life on the rocks.

My only showers on the island were swimming in the ocean.  Life is so much simpler than we make it out to be.

Just a simple hammock, but it was perfect for that island.  Best accommodation of my trip so far :)

There were so many small beaches that were completely private if you were willing to hike to them...such an amazing place.  I really did fall in love with this island.

View from atop the haunted casino

Because that's not creepy.  #SeannyDarko

The waterless waterfall aka waterfail

Fucking Toyota...Apparently they didn't tell Cambodia about the brake failure recall