Ok, so this post has got nothing to do with motorcycle maintenance. Heck, it doesn’t even have anything to do with motorcycles. It is just an uncreative, uninspired play on “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, which by the way, I’ve been told is a great book.

I had booked a seat on an express bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and as promised on the website of the bus company, I was picked up from my guesthouse at 6.30 in the morning. It was actually a small bus that picked up several passengers from various guesthouses and brought them all to the main bus. I loaded my backpack into the baggage area in the bottom and got inside, just to discover that my place was already taken. There was a large Chinese family travelling in the same bus, and they also had a ticket with the same seat number.

My bus ticket with the coveted seat #20

A brief argument between me and the conductor of the bus followed (an argument that was doomed to fail from the start as there was no common language to argue in). Finally, the conductor pointed me to an aisle seat. But I didn’t want an aisle seat. I had specifically booked a window seat, because I wanted to soak in as much of this foreign land as I could in the precious few days that I had here. So I sat myself on another empty seat by the window. The conductor tried to tell me that that was not where he had pointed, but I simply shook my head, and refused to get up. I think he finally understood what I wanted. After that, nobody disturbed me all the way till Phnom Penh.

Once in Phnom Penh, I made my way to Grand View guesthouse where Talita had said she would be staying. On enquiring at the reception, they said that she had already checked out. So I shot her an email, and then found a cheap room at another guesthouse.

In the restaurant by the lake, I met a Nigerian guy called Ken and we chatted for quite a while. When I got up to leave, he asked me if I had some money for him to take a ride back home. This made me really uncomfortable. But we’d been talking for a long time, and I found it hard to refuse outright. So I reluctantly gave him whatever change I had (I think it was about 2000 Riel).

In the evening, I went to explore around a bit, and met another seemingly friendly African dude. This guy said he was from Liberia, and also asked for some change. This time I just walked away. I hate to make general assumptions, but thanks to these two guys, I think I’m going to avoid Africans in Phnom Penh :(

Colourful fountain on Monivong boulevard