happy in phnom penh

after an hour and a half on the floating customs house of the cambodian border, we finally docked in the river port of phnom penh.

a short tuk-tuk drive later and we were in the heart of the city's backpacking district.

it was here that one of our traveling traditions would be born, one that remains in practice even today:
one person from each couple would stay with the bags, while the remaining two would split up and go forth in search of our new home. this began with dan and i winning the rock-paper-scissors competition, meaning we got to sit back in the fat elephant pub and enjoy an ice cold klang beer, while Fathead and brodes were sent out into the night.

a pretty splendid setup, we both agreed.

(from this point forth, dan and i engineered it so that we were continuously useless at our investigations, and eventually had this authority revoked from our hands, which again, we both agreed, was a pretty splendid setup).

(back in phnom penh): a few beers later and dan and i had bonded over our similarities and become charmed with out differences.

i learnt that they were newly weds and had been together for over 5 years.
he learnt that we were not-yet-weds and had been together for over 6.
they too had done vietnam, and were planning the same route through cambodia and laos as we were.
they liked temples as little as we did, liked beer as much as we did, liked sheesha more than any sane people probably should, and were as daft and batty as we were.

it was a match made in heaven.


i discovered that dan is a fireman (that's right kids, we're that cool: we made friends with someone from the london fire brigade!) and brodie the driving force behind one of london's most successful pubs, Fathead got to know brodes in much the same way.

a few beers down and the room-scouts returned with triumphant news of their accomodation find. just across the road, down a small alley was a backpackers with a large wooden deck afloat on the river. a pool table and internet station occupied the one corner, while the rest was filled with lounge pockets, a big screen tv, hammocks, more hammocks and one long, cheap bar.

happy hostel thus became our new home away from home, and as the name suggested, we were soon to discover just how happy cambodia would make us.


that night we settled down to a few dozen games of cards, shared happy pizza's and mint sheesha, laughed harder than i can ever remember doing and eventually fell into bed with pure contentment: we had met the most fun and entertaining couple, had shared a really good evening with them, had done the kind of laughing that left us gasping in pain and all-in-all were about as happy as we'd ever been. yup, this was the sign of things to come ... cambodia was a truly happy experience for us, in deed.