Tuesday 27th March, 2012. Don't Dream It's Over...

My time in Cambodia is coming to an end. The countdown clock shows me that I will be home in 3 days, 4 hours and 15 minutes. I can't wait, but I have to of course. I actually leave the country in less than 2 days' time, on Thursday's morning flight to Kuala Lumpur. The journey time includes a 10-hour stop in KL, and I haven't decided whether to go into the city or just pay a few dollars to slob about in the Premium lounge. I guess the former would be the ideal strategy where I can see at least a little bit of another new destination and take some snaps of the Petronas Towers or something.

The decisions have been made at high level that my services are no longer required by the Koreans here in Cambodia. I have fulfilled my role, given advice and done everything I can to help. The fighting is finished, as the PM told me, so I can pack my trusty red pen away and ride off into the sunset. Whether I've ultimately made any difference or if the fighting is actually finished is anyone's guess.

I'm feeling a lot of mixed emotions. None of this experience was as I expected, in both good and bad senses. I am sad to be leaving because I made some good friends and have had some great times. On the other hand, I don't think these good times could ever be sustained. I am incredibly tired and ready for a rest, especially so after the last weekend I had (It was almost epically messy, and there are one or two hazy parts that people struggle to remember, let's just leave it at that). I am also more than ready to remind family and friends of my physical existence.

The future is a little uncertain. I am being lined up to take a new assignment in Mongolia, of all places. I did not expect to be going there, and have a few doubts about actually going. My company are trying to allay my fears about security and medical facilities and have said I don't need to make a long-term commitment at this stage, which is really quite good of them. I could try before I buy, in a sense. I think they realise that this posting would be a completely different barrel of monkeys. The main thing is it's a job and I can get home every 9 weeks. What I will do to keep myself amused and entertained in my free time is another thing. I guess time will tell.

So the packing has started, with me fretting over how I'm going to get everything into my cases and bags. I can't rely on my wife's magical powers of folding and sorting to maximise space. I'm sure I'll manage. Tonight I am being taken for a meal at the Pyongyang North Korean restaurant, most probably followed by some K-TV. Tomorrow there will a few drinks with the boys upstairs, Dave, Ricky and Anthony and possibly Ken, the PM. I will try to enjoy in moderation, of course. I have a long journey ahead and hangovers are not the best thing to have when flying cattle class for so long...

Monday 19th March 2012 Ground Control to Guilty Tom

I’ve had another “great” weekend, but feel a little depressed now. I feel empty (not to mention tired) and keep finding myself thinking, “What are you doing?” Much as it should be great fun, it’s starting to tire me out. It’s just not sustainable given my age and health history. What annoys me is that I’m doing what I really didn’t want to do in this record of my time, which is bang on about my fucking health.

At least I know why I am feeling this way. It’s mostly because I know that I am being reckless and foolish. I am drinking far too much alcohol, eating far too much bad food and - probably worst of all – smoking again. Since I was at school I’ve smoked on occasion, mostly when having a drink. I tend to “borrow” other people’s cigarettes, figuring that buying my own would make me smoke more. And I can give up again anytime I want. Well, usually I give up when I go home and people around me don’t countenance such stupidity or give away their very expensive cigarettes, for that matter.

Enough about the cancer sticks. The thing that worries and annoys me is how easily I’m getting into the mind-set for smoking, drinking and eating, and I seem to have much-reduced levels of self-control. This weekend was a prime example of it. I went out on Friday night “for a few”, knowing that I had to go to work in the morning. All was fine until I allowed myself to be talked into going to Score Bar because they were having a birthday celebration (the bar’s birthday, not a person’s). I would have a couple of drinks then go home. The magic hour, I keep getting told, is 10.30pm. If you have stopped drinking and are in bed by that time, you are fine and don’t get a hangover. It doesn’t take into account when you actually start drinking, so I have my doubts about this formula. Nevertheless, I told myself that I would be in bed nice and early. I was quite tired after having had a few drinks on Thursday night, so surely I’d be a good boy...

At 4am, I collapsed into bed. I had to be at work 4 hours later, but never mind, eh?

In Score bar I had been roped into a game of beer pong that lasted until midnight. I was then talked into going to K-TV at the Rock venue. We tried to go to the enormous Naga World complex first, walking past huge casinos that made me think I’d suddenly teleported to Nevada, but they didn’t have a free room, so we went to Rock and drank quite a lot of Glenfiddich whisky. I spent the next few hours competing for the microphone with a Swede, a Texan, an Australian and the Kiwi ring-leader who seemed to have Jedi mind powers over the rest of us.

One remarkable part of this K-TV experience was the girl who was allocated to sit with me. Her English was very good, and she was quite friendly, and also very attractive. Her Madame was hovering around and was trying to get me to buy some additional “entertainment”, i.e. the services of this young lady. I shook my head and held my left hand up, pointing out the wedding band on my ring finger. They smiled and persisted for a while, but weren’t going to succeed in getting me to part with any more money, let alone do naughty things. I playfully suggested I might be up for a massage and nothing more, but the ladies didn’t seem interested in that. In fact they almost seemed insulted that I would only want a massage, and said that no-one ever just has a massage. The girl massaged my neck for a few seconds as we sat there, and I noticed her hands were hot and sweaty. When I remarked on this, she said it was because of all the whisky she was drinking. Immediately I felt even more awkward. Was this what her life was? Sitting with fat white blokes like me, trying to sell services and all the while getting hammered to make it easier to deal with? What kind of life is that?

I talked some more with her, finding out she was only 24 years old, lived with her mother and younger sister (who also worked here) and she worked her six days a week. I didn’t probe any further, but guessed she was probably having sex with a lot of men for not very much money. It’s really quite depressing to encounter it so close up. I’m not stupid or naive; I’ve been to the Far East before and know what goes on. The attitude seems to be “what happens in Cambodia / Thailand / wherever stays in Cambodia / Thailand / wherever”. I could have quite easily partaken in a sordid little business transaction and no-one would ever have known, but I didn’t. I’m no morally-superior, halo-headed superman – far from it – I just have a limit.

When I left, I gave the girl a decent tip. I felt guilty in several different ways – guilty for being there, guilty for being party to this exploitation – and wished the world was different. But it isn’t, and I can’t do anything about it. The older I get, the more I realise that I have little power to “change the world”. We are where we are, and as selfish as it sounds, I have problems of my own to deal with.

My own problems are probably self-inflicted, to be honest. I turned up for work an hour late on Saturday. It didn’t really matter too much as Saturdays are always quiet and none of the managers were in to see me shuffle in and slump at my desk. I kept myself occupied with this and that; simple tasks that didn’t tax the whisky-pickled mind too much. I went to the Vespa for a lunch-time Irish breakfast (seeing as it was St. Patrick’s Day), then went back to the office to slump for a few more hours.

Saturday night was a quite one. I’d been invited to play poker for local currency by some people, but decline politely and watched TV with an ordered-in curry from the Phnom Penh Indian. The curry was absolutely superb, but I ordered far too much food. I didn’t reckon for the enormous samosas.

After eating as much as I could (I threw about half of it away), I slobbed out and watched movies on the HBO and Fox channels. I found myself watching Tarantino’s “From Dusk Till Dawn” at just after midnight. I’ve seen it before, but have a habit of watching films again. I sensibly gave in to tiredness and switched it off halfway through (just after the vampires make themselves known to George Clooney and his merry band) and then went to bed.

Sunday was a chance for a well-needed lie-in. I had a lazy morning with a late breakfast, then at around 2pm went down to the Riverside for a spot of Sunday Lunch. The Paddy Rice sports bar does a nice line in traditional British/Irish food, most of which is nearly as good as the Green Vespa, but not quite as good. The notable exception is their Sunday roast, which comes with a large and impressively-crafted Yorkshire Pudding. I had the pork and a glass of red wine or two, and then toyed with the idea of having a haircut and checking out a DVD shop for a box-set or a movie to watch.

Within the time it takes to send and receive a couple of text messages, I had changed my mind and found myself on the way to Score Bar. On the way, my intentions formed in my head: have a couple of drinks, shoot the shit, get home by 6pm.

I don’t know why I bother...

To be fair, it could have been a lot worse. I was home by 10pm, but I was, once again, quite drunk. The movie drinking game added a couple of Jagermeisters to my gullet, followed by two G and Ts. Then the Jedi Kiwi suggested we should move on to another venue, but didn’t specify where. After some confusion over our destination and a disagreement with a tuk-tuk driver which culminated in us disembarking and finding another tuk-tuk (much to the annoyance of the first one) we ended up at the Champs Elysee Club. It was just getting dark, so I’d failed to keep to my intentions. Beer and food were ordered, and then some fool ordered whisky again. The girls were brought in but ignored (by me at least), and some cheesy old songs were chosen for us to murder. I soon found another good reason to stop smoking: my voice is suffering.

I managed to extricate myself before 10pm, as I said. I got home in enough time to talk to my wife and kids on Skype. They didn’t seem to cotton on to the fact that I was a little bit inebriated, but were more eagle-eyed when I playfully placed an unlit fag in my mouth. I guess I wanted them to see and I wanted them to tell me off. They did; my daughter actually got upset with me, and it is probably the kind of kick in the bollocks I need, to be honest.

So today I am tired. Just really, really tired. The other chaps I was out with are also tired, and we keep telling each other we’ll behave ourselves and stay in this week. I’m sure there will be one night when we relent and go for a beer or two. It’s the nature of this job (excuses, excuses). Seriously, though, the stress levels can get quite high, and us flawed, feckless fuckers give in and turn to the readily-avilable crutches of cigarettes and alcohol. I was handed a packet of smokes by a Korean this morning, but have given them back. I’ve also destroyed the remainder of a pack of Marlboro Gold (local version of Lights) I had in the flat, crushing the packet in my hand so I won’t be tempted to fish them out of the bin later.

Tonight, I will try to eat something healthy. I could go to the supermarket and get something to cook, but probably won’t. The kitchen is crap. If I do go to the supermarket, I’ll probably buy chocolate and the like to take the place of the cigarettes...maybe I’ll go to the Vespa and get something like the salmon fillet.

On the brighter side, I have got my countdown going. It’s down to just less than 11 whole days until I get home now. I really, really can’t wait to get home. I need the break.

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Doctor, doctor...can’t you see I’m gurning, gurning?

In my febrile little mind, I often find myself thinking that I am either cursed or just being toyed with by some higher power with too much time on their hands. The fact that I am 99% atheist doesn’t stop me thinking this. On the contrary, I find myself thinking that this is actually the reason for my continued torment.

Allow me to contextualise this mental aberration...

I have had a bad stomach problem for 10 days. When I say bad, I mean pretty awful. If you’re squeamish at all, I would suggest skipping the next paragraph or two. EDIT: Actually, best skip it all. It's not light reading at all...

It started over a week ago, after another entertaining weekend where I had taken advantage of a two-day weekend to partake in a little boat trip along the Mekong river. It was a good trip, with about eight of us on a wooden double-decker boat and a large cool box of beers. We saw some more of the real Cambodia, including cows being washed in the river by their owner and the wreck (I think it was a wreck) of a wooden fishing boat which had become a playground for local children from a local village. We watched them frolicking around the boat, jumping and somersaulting into the river with an enviable sense of freedom, some of them wearing nothing but broad smiles (I stopped taking pictures when I realised some of them were naked, much to the amusement of my trip colleagues). There were no adults watching over them, and I just couldn’t imagine such a scenario back in the UK.

On the home stretch there were some daft drinking games based on the roll of a die, and then a night of frivolity at Score bar where I won myself a few ESPN goodies by drinking bottles of beer and answering questions about Liverpool Football Club (much to the chagrin of one Scouser who contended vociferously that my correct answer was actually incorrect). When the second Skittle Bomb came out (a cocktail made with Cointreau and Red Bull that actually tastes like skittles sweets) I knew it was time to go home to bed. I'd already drank one, breaking my vow to avoid the stuff that they say gives you wings but can actually give you an arrhythmia.

I’ve had worse hangovers, to be fair. Not many, but there have been worse. My stomach, as expected, wasn’t in great shape on Sunday, but I put it down to the excesses of the day before. I ate a superb roast lamb dinner at the marvellous Green Vespa and generally just chilled for the rest of the day, ordering a sandwich from a sub place I have come to rely on once in a while.

It was on the Monday morning that the real problems began. My guts had been churning all night long, making gurgling sounds that a coffee peculator would be envious of. In the early hours I had to make a dash for the en-suite toilet, and the torrent began. It was violent and nasty and very watery, and there were multiple episodes over the next hour or two. By 7.30am, the time I usually get up to get ready for work, I was worn out and in no fit state to sit in a crowded office, so rang in saying I was unwell and would go to the doctor this time. I instinctively knew that this time wasn’t just run-of-the-mill bad stomach or Phnom Penh Poops. I wondered if it had been the sandwich from the night before. In my mind I saw the warnings I’ve read countless times about salads in this part of the world. They could be washed in anything, really.

I rang my insurance company to get details of the best and nearest clinic to go to, and was told there was one not far away owned by a major international health provider, who just happened to be part of the franchise I was talking to, happily.  I was told I could go along at any time and see a doctor and all billing would be taken care of. So off I trotted (oh dear) to the clinic, filled in the forms, waited for a few minutes, and then got called to see the nurse. She weighed and measured me like some piece of produce, asked a few questions, then led me to another room with a hospital bed to lie on where I was to wait for the doctor.

The doctor examined me, asked questions and took a stool sample. It’s always a delight to have to poo into a little bottle whilst hovering over a toilet and shuffle sheepishly outside to hand the sample to the nurse. The results took an hour to come, and they showed “mixed bacteria”, meaning I could have salmonella, e-coli or any number of bugs. The doctor prescribed antibiotics for a 3 day course and lots of rehydration sachets. I was told to come back in 2 or 3 days should the condition not improve. I took my large bag of meds home with me and took the rest of the day off. By Tuesday morning I felt a bit better and thought I was on the road to recovery. I went to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, and things did improve, but not entirely. I still had occasional episodes of diarrhoea and didn’t feel particularly well, but hoped the pills would do their work eventually. I ate lightly, trying to avoid anything spicy or greasy.

On Wednesday evening I was invited for dinner by the Korean Project Manager and we went to a nearby Swiss/Austrian/German restaurant called Tell. Tempted as I was to order a big plate of sausages, I went for potato soup and chicken, watching enviously as my colleagues tucked into their enormous sharing platter of pork knuckle, smoked bacon and assorted sausages. Still, I thought all was well and recovery was imminent and I went home thinking nice thoughts.

Oh, you fool.

Within an hour or two I felt absolutely rotten. My stomach suddenly got worse again and I seemed to have a fever. What was going on? Had these antibiotics not done their job? What was this illness? The conditions I could think of were typhoid fever and dengue fever. After feeling terrible for an hour, I rang the clinic and asked if I could see a doctor, only to be told it would cost me $125 because they only had an emergency doctor on duty. I rang the UK company and they told me I should go to the clinic, ask for tests for typhoid, dengue and even malaria, and they would take care of everything to do with billing.

The clinic was empty and it took a while for the reception staff to locate the doctor, who was a friendly Cambodian lady. She insisted on a gamut of blood tests and further stool tests. She examined my skin for rashes, finding some curious red pin-prick spots here and there. She said it could be dengue fever and advised me to be careful not to injure myself or take aspirin. It can reduce clotting factors and make people bleed from all kinds of places, even internally. The blood tests came back negative, but the doctor said it might be that the dengue wasn’t showing yet. It can take a few days to show its face in blood tests, apparently. They also didn’t have a result for the typhoid test as it had to go off to a separate lab for culture tests. As it was International Women’s Day on Thursday, the labs were going to be shut, as it had been declared a public holiday in Cambodia (not that our lot would have a day off, of course), and I was unlikely to know anything until the weekend. I was told to return on Saturday afternoon then sent home with paracetemol to control my fever.

I got home at around 2am, feeling worried about what I could potentially have. I brushed my teeth as gently as I could, checking my skin every half an hour or so for signs of more blood spots. I slept fitfully, feeling my temperature rising and falling every few hours. I found myself, the agnostic insomniac, praying. I bargained and begged, reasoned and rationalised. Why is this happening to me? Why does it always happen to me? What have I done to deserve this? Please let me get better!

Thursday and Friday were spent feeling pretty crappy. I watched a lot of movies on HBO and Fox Movies. I watched a few more than once, including that cheery little number “The Road” where a man and boy cross a dead and catastrophe-devastated America trying to find food and avoid cannibals. The book and film are both superb, but really, really depressing.

I wasn’t improving by Saturday. If anything, I was feeling worse again. The watery stuff was once again shooting from my sphincter like a jet of foul-smelling, algae-filled water, I felt nauseous and there was a sharp stabbing pain right in the middle of my lower abdomen. Something was seriously wrong in there. At least I was losing some weight, eh? I mixed and drank sachet after sachet of Royal D rehydration therapy – it’s quite tasty, but looks like fluorescent piss in all honesty.

I rolled up to the clinic as arranged and got a different doctor this time. He was from Ecuador and seemed to be quite a decent, funny guy. The typhoid cultures were not back and he insisted on yet MORE blood and stool tests and also had the nurse give me a couple of bottles of rehydration liquid through a drip. I laid there looking up at yet another clinic/hospital ceiling, wondering what it must be like to be fucking healthy. I had an ultrasound scan of my abdomen, asking what the sex was, which made the operator laugh (probably out of politeness), and then the results of today’s test came back.  The doctor told me the results wearing a surgical mask, which he hadn’t had on before. Should I have been worried?  There was no dengue, which was good, but there were still signs of bacteria. Which kind was anyone’s bloody guess. Oh, come on!

Dr Ecuador prescribed some different antibiotics and also a strong anti-parasite drug. It is usually a single-dose treatment to kill things like giardia, which is a common parasite in the developing world, but for whatever reason I would take 3 doses over 3 days. 4 tablets a time, after lunch. He said he hoped it would be the last he saw me. Charmed, I’m sure, but I hoped I wasn’t going back to the clinic for this thing either.

When I got back to my apartment I received a call from the London branch. They noted all the results and the treatments prescribed and said they hoped it would work. If there was no improvement, they said, they would consider sending me to a clinic in Bangkok or somewhere else with better facilities for diagnosing what gives one the shits. I can see that the doctors here are of a decent standard, but ain’t so sure about the facilities. The fact that testing is such rigmarole tells its own story.

After a light lunch I took my 4 anti-parasite tablets and the one big antibiotic. I tasted blood after a few minutes, but it didn’t last, so I didn’t panic. About 4 hours later I was again on the throne, and it was really bad. I guessed that the drugs were having some effect, even if it meant turning me inside out.

Sunday was a bit calmer. The symptoms abated a little bit. I didn’t venture out at all and was starting to get bored. The diarheea once again hit a few hours after the tablets, but wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Saturday. Hope was showing her face again. I prayed to God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva and Paul Daniels that night. But not a lot. 

Monday seemed to signal a breakthrough. There were still cramps and pains and one or two little episodes of green liquid, but there was light at the end of the tunnel. I was completely shattered, however, and any thought of returning to work was dismissed. I had been advised not to go back by doctors anyway, since I could quite easily spread whatever I had in the office, given the lack of personal space and the completely unsanitary toilet facilities (no soap or hot water). By Monday night the torrent had stopped.

So yesterday I returned to work. I was still tired and there was still tenderness in my abdomen, but felt I had to show my face. There’s another “big meeting” this week, and although I’ve managed to do a little bit of work here and there from the apartment, I’ve had to rely on a colleague in Hanoi to cover a few things. Last night I went out for dinner for the first time in ages, taking in a lovely shepherd’s pie at the Vespa. It was huge and came with a pile of chips and Heinz beans, but I finished it all up. I’m not touching booze though. I’m waiting until my stomach feels like it can take it. After dinner I went to a supermarket and bought some alcohol hand gel to use in the office (oh and some chocolate...giving Australian Cadbury’s a shot). I will do my utmost to avoid contagion from now on. This will mean being much more choosy about what I eat as well, I would say. Can I avoid any further illness in these last two weeks before I return to home sweet home? Anyone want to offer odds on that one?

Today I was in work again. I was still tired, but then I have been having trouble sleeping. The various noisy things in my apartment are doing my head in. A cricket or cicada seems to have taken residence above my head, the AC unit is rattling a lot, the window blinds are rustling all the time and some unspeakable creature (bird/lizard/monkey) sits round the side of the building making the weirdest call I’ve ever heard, like a duck that’s swallowed a foghorn and is trying to cough it back up. I hope I don’t meet it on a dark night. I laid there until well after 1am last night, unable to sleep and cursing the curse on my head. I may be on the mend (fingers crossed) physically, but I am sometimes convinced that someone somewhere is watching me through a camera, pressing buttons to make noises that they know will annoy me, or even give me another illness to deal with. I’m in my own, twisted version of the Truman Show where the aim seems to be to get me to go completely bonkers.

Well, you’re probably too late, mate. Probably too late...

Saturday 25th February 2012. Halfway house

I have been in Cambodia for 31 days now and plan to leave in another 32 days. That’s near enough to halfway for me.

So four and a half weeks have now passed since I landed at Phnom Penh International Airport with a blank canvas to be filled with the colours and textures of all these new experiences. It is only today that I have really thought about how many days I have left in this first stint. I suppose I am thinking more about home today, mainly because of a rugby match. My wife and son are going to Twickenham to watch England play Wales in the Six Nations rugby, and I plan to go and watch the match at a sports bar later today. Much later, actually; the game kicks off at 11pm local time.  I will be watching the match from 7,000 miles away while two of my family will be sat in the stadium itself. If I happen to spot them in the crowd I reserve the right to go ape-shit.

I am slightly worried about their journey to the match. They have to travel down to London then get down to Twickers itself, which is not a simple journey for anyone not accustomed to negotiating the underground and suburban train systems in the capital. Before I came to Cambodia I wrote extensive instructions on how to get from King’s Cross to Twickenham and back. If they follow the crowds, they should be fine, but I hope they don’t follow the red shirts on the way out or they could end up going to Paddington and heading west towards Wales...I’m sure they’ll be fine. I think my wife is actually more worried about finding somewhere to leave the car in York than anything else.

It has been nearly 2 weeks since I updated this blog. After my trip to Sihanoukville I was hoping for a week or two of peace and quiet, and the chance to catch up on sleep as the severe sunburn on my back healed and I was more able to lie in bed without discomfort. It took more than a week to heal and become pain-free, which is quite astonishing given that the burns were from less than 2 hours of exposure during my snorkelling trip. Fortunately I was able to find help in the form of the site doctor who plastered cream on my burns twice a day for a couple of days and helped the healing process. I also used almost a whole tube of aloe vera after sun gel in the first few days, keeping it in the fridge and doing the best I could to get it all over my back, enjoying the coolness it gave to my red, raw skin.

The peace and quiet wasn’t to last too long, if it ever actually started. I was persuaded to go out last Friday night, despite the fact I had to go to work on the Saturday morning. I realise that “going out” in itself isn’t such a bad thing, as long as it is only for an hour or two and “sensible” amounts of alcohol are consumed. I guess I wasn’t in the mood to be sensible.

The first downfall was starting the night at 4pm. One who is weak-willed will inevitably be even more so at 8pm when one is well on the way to inebriation, and won’t be inclined to call it a night when one really should. I was asked to attend a “meeting” by some of the chaps in the client office along with my Korean colleague Arthur, and around six of us made our way along to the Riverside in a couple of tuk-tuks to kick off the proceedings. We had our first drink at a corner bar with a narrow balcony overlooking the river. The balcony’s layout was such that we were strung along in a curved line, making interaction and conversation somewhat difficult. The beer was expensive as well, so we decided to move on swiftly. We visited a few more bars on the Riverside front itself before heading down one of the perpendicular streets towards the less tourist-orientated venues. We sat out a rainstorm and watched the impressive lightning in the distant sky from another corner bar which had a larger and more conducive balcony. Some of the group played a game of pool. We moved across the junction to another bar – a dark, neon-festooned venue with low tables and grotty toilets (most places here seem to have reasonable toilet facilities, which has been a pleasant surprise). In said facilities, I spied a circular sticker on the cistern, bearing the words “HAPPY ASSHOLE” in bold capital letters. The lack of punctuation made me wonder what the context of this statement was. It seemed to be telling, rather than asking.

At that point, at around 8.30pm (if my hazy memory of the night is correct) some of us went on to the Rock venue, which is a huge complex containing spas, massage rooms and K-TV party rooms. I took the chance to slow down the drinking. It’s quite easy to do in these settings, as the beer isn’t ordered in rounds and you can drink as slowly or as quickly as you like. I was there for the singing, anyway, and never miss the opportunity to give my vocal chords a workout. Thankfully, everyone else was in the (booze-enhanced) mood to join in with it and there were several rowdy group renditions of classic songs featuring everyone in the room.

We must have spent almost three hours in the K-TV venue before running out of steam. We paid the bills, tipped the hostesses and the group splintered once more. Arthur said he had to get up early to play golf so was going to head home. The rest of us headed to the big sports bar that acts as a “local” to a couple of the chaps from the developer. It was heading on for midnight when we got there, and there weren’t many people around, but we met the affable French-Canadian owner of the bar (he owns around six other bars and restaurants in PP) who decided we were in desperate need of Jagerbombs and promptly lined them up on the bar in front of us. I drank the Jagermeister but left the Red Bull. However drunk I was by then, I was still sensible enough to steer clear of the stuff that could bring back the dreaded AF.

Pizzas were ordered in from one of the owner’s other venues just around the corner and then it was time for bed, at least for me. I had to get into work for 8am, so had to try and get at least six hours of sleep. I also wanted to chuck a few pints of water down my neck in the vain hope that it would mitigate the worst effects of the hangover I was sure to be suffering. I counted over eight hours of drinking in eight different locations. I found myself thinking, “what are you doing?” more than once.

Saturday was not good, and I didn’t really expect it to be. I was whisked away for a breakfast mid-morning at the superb Green Vespa, and that helped. The lunchtime nap is even more of a bonus on days like this, and I struggled manfully on until 6pm and then had a bowl of noodles in the canteen. I arranged to meet one of the guys from the client at the sports bar later on and watch a bit of the FA Cup football being showed, and managed a few G&Ts before we were both feeling absolutely done in and ready for bed before it had even reached 11pm.  We arranged to meet for breakfast at the Vespa in the morning and then maybe take in some retail therapy at the biggest shopping mall in PP.

So I made what I could of Sunday morning, failing to get a very good lie-in thanks to noises from the water pump / tank above my head, and then made my way to the Vespa for breakfast. I bumped into another chap from Friday night and he said he was going to go for a few drinks later on. So after breakfast we took a tuk-tuk to the shopping mall. I had no great expectations, but was surprised as what could be bought there, with plenty of options for clothing and electronics and a supermarket on the ground floor. It’s a compact mall; nowhere near the size of the palatial, spacious meccas they have in the Middle East, but it has around 5 or 6 floors, and even has some fast food restaurants to get fatter in.

 After the retail therapy it was once again time to drink. There could be no harm in having a couple of ciders, thought I, and off we went to Paddy Rice’s Irish Sports bar. Hours later, at 6pm, I once again asked myself what the hell I was doing, made my excuses and extracted myself from what was becoming a bit of a mess. My next move was not a wise one, but hunger got the better of me. I took a tuk-tuk to the Riverside, climbed five flights of stairs to a rooftop restaurant and ordered a pizza for my dinner. I sat there sweating from the early evening humidity and the excess alcohol and wondered what the bloody hell I was thinking. Not only is this lifestyle extremely bad for my health, it isn’t really very good for the bank balance either. Cheap as it is, in general, living it large like this every weekend will soon lead to me spending more than I can afford and justify. The only redeeming factor I can see is that it is keeping me from missing my family too much. For me, boredom and loneliness is a precarious position to find myself in. An unoccupied mind takes an inevitable path to gloomy recesses where the bad feelings take seed and grow like weeds, choking the enthusiasm out of life and ultimately bringing about irrational decisions that I later regret.

The simple answer I hear repeated by friends and in fortune cookies and in my own mind is that balance is required. For someone born under the sign of the scales, I struggle to strike a sensible balance.  Astrology is a load of shite, anyway. I’m just clinging to the positives here, in that I am not dwelling on my separation from my family this time. In fact I sometimes feel a little guilty because I feel like I should be missing them more than I do. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Monday morning came and I slithered from my bed, still sweating and aching. An early night hadn’t helped a great deal. My stomach was cramping badly and I felt sick. Was it the drink? Was it something I’d eaten? The rest of the pizza was in the fridge, waiting to be consumed that evening, but my suspicion was that it was this item of food that had upset my sensitive digestive system once again.

I took the morning off and rested as much as I could, which proved to be an impossible task with all the noise from the malfunctioning water pump over my head and the noise of wardrobe doors closing next door. I surmised that they’d probably left the windows open and the wind was blowing the doors. Either that or some demonic child was playing a game of annoy the neighbour. I gave up trying to sleep any more at about 10am, deciding that I should get to a pharmacy and get something to help my guts. There is a pharmacy nearby, but across a very busy main road, and wasn’t in the mood to dodge the traffic this morning, so I hailed a tuk-tuk outside my apartment block and was despatched to the Pharmacy de la Gare, barely registering the still-present French influence or the fact that it was across the road from the railway station.

Inside, there were dozens of people just standing around. I wasn’t sure if they were staff or not, but they didn’t seem to offer help, so I shuffled up to the counter and croaked the required words to the man stood behind it. He disappeared to the back of the room and returned in a moment with two boxes of pills, one of which contained a broad-spectrum antibiotic; the other a familiar brand of over-the-counter diarrhoea medication that stops the worst of the problem. I asked for some rehydration sachets as well, and was given ten little orange packets costing a dollar in total. The whole bill was around 7 dollars.

I returned to my apartment, took the medicines and rested up for a bit more. By the end of the scheduled lunch hour, I was feeling relatively normal again, so decided I would go to work. I knew that DJ was flying back in from Hanoi to help out with preparing for the big meetings later this week, so felt that I should show some willingness and fight through the discomfort.

The medicine stopped the worst problems that day, but that night we were taken for dinner at another North Korean restuarant. I tried to explain that I wasn’t well and couldn’t eat or drink much, but that was laughed off and I was plied with more beer and soju. I managed to avoid over-indulging at least, and got to bed at a reasonable hour.

Tuesday confirmed that there was indeed something nasty in my intestines. I went most of the day feeling OK, but after eating some spicy fish in the works canteen for dinner I felt nauseous and couldn’t stop belching. I worked until 9pm then returned to my digs feeling utterly dreadful. I decided there was nothing for it: the nasty stuff had to come out. I hate vomiting, and I rarely do it, even when unwell, but it had to come out. I forced myself to be sick and instantly felt better for it.

Next morning, the diarrhoea continued, and I decided not to try stopping it with the over-the-counter medication, concluding that I would be better to let the bug purge itself from my body with the help of the antibiotics. I ate lightly, drinking a good couple of litres of water and just getting on with it. Work had to be done. There were now several big cheeses in from Korea expecting information for their big meetings, so I toiled away. Even Arthur mentioned that I looked pretty sick when I turned up that morning. What a hero, eh?

By Wednesday afternoon I was feeling better.  A bit of rice and some watery soup at lunchtime didn’t cause any bad reactions. We were taken for dinner once again with the men from Seoul to a restaurant called Le Seoul, where we ate barbecued beef and bowls of rice soup – a bland concoction made from boiling rice cakes in water. I was assured it would help my stomach to get better. After dinner we returned to the office to work for a few hours more. I succumbed to tiredness at 9pm, leaving Arthur and DJ to work on for a bit longer. Yes, I felt guilty.

On Thursday, the big meetings were held. I didn’t attend, as they wanted to keep numbers down, and probably feared I would eat all the biscuits. I took lunch at the Vespa with the newest member of the client team who had also not been invited to the meetings, and then returned to work, waiting like an expectant father for news from the meetings. Is it a boy, a girl, a move to arbitration or is everyone in love again?

The answer came mid-afternoon. DJ and Arthur returned, telling us that it had gone OK, but there were more meetings to be had and there was still a lot of potential for disputes and conflict – the kind of things that are keeping me in employment.

The senior people had another meeting later in the afternoon and the rest of the team were invited to go to yet another Korean restaurant. This one was further away than the other, and featured  marked little differences to other places I’d been to, such as the requirement to remove shoes on entry to the restaurant and slip on little raffia slippers which were far too small for my feet. The whole team of department manager turned up for this one.  We were told to wait until the senior managers had finished and came to the restaurant, but when it became apparent that their meeting was overrunning, we were told we could start eating and drinking. It was barbecue beef once again, but this time the beef was top quality stuff which really melted in the mouth. Maybe I was just enjoying it more now that I had apparently vanquished the stomach bug. I certainly enjoyed being able to drink some beer and soju again, and my colleagues didn’t hesitate in topping my glass up.

The senior men turned up and seemed to be in a good frame of mind. There was much back-slapping and hand-shaking. DJ and I were toasted and thanked for our efforts, with the big man from Korea telling me that he hoped I would stay forever. I was very flattered by it all. Then matters took an unexpected turn with the arrival of two bottles of premium whisky at the table. Shot glasses were brought by the waitresses and more toasts were made and more booze downed. Here we go again.

I was invited to sit down by a group of managers sitting at a smaller side table and they proceeded to pour soju bombs in a strange drinking game from their national service days where more bizarre ingredients are added every time, usually from the little pots of kimchi and other side dishes in the middle of the table. I got away with a sprig of lettuce in mine, but felt compelled to down a glass of beer and soju in one go, giving rise to a round of applause from my hosts. The beer and soju “bomb” is a potent weapon; with the sweet liqueur taking away the bitterness of the beer and making it taste like a soft drink.

After a couple of speeches by one or two manages (mostly in Korean, but that doesn’t stop them looking at me in the eye now and again as if I will understand what they’re saying), the meal was over and we worked our way out of the restaurant with more smiles and handshakes and little bows. The senior chaps had flights to catch back to Korea, and everyone else seemed ready to go home. It was 10.30pm and I was ready for bed, in all honesty.

It soon transpired that our Arthur had other ideas. We dropped DJ at his hotel before a phone call or two were made and we were once again on our way to a K-TV bar. I reminded Arthur that it was a Thursday night, which he genuinely seemed to have forgotten. Such had been the week we’d had, it felt like it was Friday. Unfortunately not.

I managed to avert too much in the way of alcoholic excess...well, on top of that already indulged in, of course. I ended up being photographed with fruit on my face, but got to bed by 1am and wasn’t unduly hungover on Friday. I am hoping for a relatively quiet weekend. Watch the rugby tonight, have a few beers...nothing too heavy.

I’m glad this week is over now. I have been at work today, but it’s never a stressful day on Saturday. People seem to do very little actual work as such. In fact, a few are out at the golf course. I’m starting to think that maybe I should take the game up again. I tried about 10 years ago, but was put off after trying a full round at my father’s club and not really doing very well. Now I’ve got my new hip, it might be worth a go. It is exercise, after all, and seems to be another aspect (other than drinking) of working life in this part of the world.

Roll on my next 2-day weekend. I plan to go up and have a look at Siem Reap and the temples at Angkor Wat.

Update: My body is warning me to behave, so tonight I am having an early night having had only a couple of drinks. 

Monday 13th February 2012. Sunny Side Up

Well. What can I say? Battered, burned, bitten, scratched, bit of tooth missing, scared half to death, but it was a pretty good weekend. That’s what I can say.

I’ll start on Friday night. I went for a couple of beers...not many, I add. I had a couple of beers, followed by about three or four whisky and cokes. I went to a few of the hangouts on Street 104 where they have those dodgily-named bars full of thirsty, touchy-feely ladies. Starting in the Pickled Parrot with a couple of beers and a bite to eat, I was joined by a chap who works for one of the other companies on my job who I’d met last weekend. He is British but hasn’t been in the UK since he emigrated at the age of ten or something. We went across the road to a bar or two to listen to some good music and get a nice neck massage for the price of a rum and coke.

I departed at 12am, as I had forced myself to promise. I was on a mission, with an early start. I had been allocated the services of a driver to take me over to Sihanoukville, the coastal town in the south west of Cambodia. The distance: 185km. The time to drive there: 3 to 4 hours. Really? Why? Anyway, the driver was picking me up at 7.30am, giving me time to pack my socks and pants and get my breakfast at the cafe downstairs.

I was about 5 minutes late, but managed to get up and dressed and ate my breakfast in a big hurry as I feared the driver might bugger off without me, but he didn’t. I walked out of the apartment complex and there he was in a Lexus 4X4, waiting to despatch me to the coast. I had been told to expect a crazy journey, and was expecting something along the lines of Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai.

How wrong was I?

It didn’t start too badly. I drove – sorry, was driven - along the familiar city roads of Phnom Penh, with a nice big, solid barrier in the middle of the road. I’d soon pine for that barrier. We passed the airport, took a right at what looked like a roundabout but without any rules, and headed west. There was no longer any barrier, and I started to get a taste of what was to come. Mopeds, tuk-tuks, cars and mini-buses all competing for space and prominence on the dual carriageway, but with no central divide, the overtaking could begin.

And begin it did; with reckless abandon. I started to get nervous. To make matters worse, there were mopeds, bikes and other vehicles pulling out from every angle to join the stream of traffic. My driver stuck steadfastly to the fast, middle lane, honking his horn now and then to warn an errant moped driver and swerving once or twice to go round slow-moving tuk-tuks.

We were still in the city after an hour. I started to understand why the journey takes so long. We reached a toll gate where I had to cough up my dollar and 1500 riels to the toll booth operator, and off we went again. I assumed that a toll road might be in decent condition, but assumptions are the mother of stupidity, and the road actually got worse. The mass of disparate vehicles was joined by trucks moving at varying speeds, between about 10mph and 60mph. They rarely stuck to the slow lane, forcing everyone to overtake the crawly ones.

It was getting hairier by the minute. My driver drove without comment, even as cars, bikes and lorries whizzed by on each side (often on the wrong side), flashing their lights and sounding their horns. It was mayhem.  I saw my first accident aftermath: two mopeds had hit each other head on and were laid on the road, their drivers standing with heads in hands, looking dazed but at least alive. I was almost watching through the fingers of my hand as this went on for another half hour or so.

Then we were out of the city. Green fields opened up beside me, lined with palm trees and dotted with tin shacks and wooden huts. There were white, emaciated cows here and there, and no stock fencing to keep them in their fields. The double lane “highway” became a single-carriageway road, with a wide, red-soiled shoulder at either side. Thank God for that shoulder, say I. The pattern for the next hour or two was one of coming up behind a line of cars waiting to overtake a lorry or bus. The indicators went on. When it was possible, we overtook. When it was probably unwise, we overtook. We drove on the clay shoulder to avoid other overtakers. I had words. Four-letter words were quite popular, as it happens.

We came to another toll booth after about two hours total travel time. The driver handed over part of the ticket he’d been given earlier. I told my driver I needed to go pee-pee, so he just pulled over about 250 yards past the toll booth and we peed into the line of trees. I was surprised to see how much litter there was by the road. I thought the UK was bad, but this was just terrible, with all kinds of bags, cans, bottles and other things slung to the side of the road.

We continued our trip after the stretching of legs. Hills and mountains appeared in the previously-flat landscape to give me something to look at other than the back of another lorry. We were soon on a relatively quiet stretch, and the road started to meander as we climbed and descended hills. There were fewer motorbikes out here, but still plenty of wagons and buses. We spotted the aftermaths of two other accidents; one where a lorry-load of sand was on its side and another where a truck had completely gone off the road and hit a tree.

The more “quiet” stretch lasted half an hour at best. We soon came across another settlement, which seemed to be stretched along several miles of tree-lined road. Bikes and tuk-tuks reappeared, along with tractors and home-made machines that looked like elongated go-karts with lawn-mower engines on. There were also mini-vans or buses laden with the worldly belongings of entire villages hanging from the back, but also containing the population of the village towards the front. The words over-laden just don’t do them justice. There were mopeds and bikes laden with everything from trees to barrels of beer and large bottles of gas as well. There was often a baby squeezed in there somewhere as well. To add to the fun, there were loose cows everywhere, sometimes just stood in the middle of the road, imploring the traffic to come and have a go if it thinks it’s hard enough.

Finally, we approached Sihanoukville after just over 3 hours of driving. I sighed with relief, but was wrong to assume anything. We were still on manically busy roads, and there were still all manner of vehicles joining the wacky race to the coast. I spotted the sea and felt excited. We came to the back of a long line of container lorries waiting for the port I could see down the road. We nipped between two lorries and headed left, up a hill and into the town itself. It’s more basic and “rustic” than PP, it has to be said. Mostly shacks, some with the ubiquitous red signs for beer (Angkor or Anchor, pronounced An-chaw to prevent confusion) and the odd modern building. We seemed to be driving round in circles and passed a strip of tourist-targeted restaurants and bars, down another hill then we were pulling into the OTT hotel entrance. Finally, finally. I was just glad to be alive. The three and a half hour game of chicken was over. I didn’t want to think about the return journey. I noticed there is an airport in Sihanoukville. I might even chance my arm with local airlines than this shit in future, let me tell you.

They let me check in early, which was nice. I had a shower and a chill, had a spot of lunch and decided to head for the beach. This hotel had its own beach, thankfully, so I hoped it would be free from hawkers and other nuisances. It was pleasant enough, I noticed; narrow but sandy, with shade-giving trees along the landward edge. There were plenty of loungers available, too.  

So I lounged under some shade then had a look at the water. It looked nice and blue from a distance, but then I noticed something floating in there. And something else. I was gutted. It was garbage...detritus...trash. There was loads of it. Plastic bags, cans, bottles, even rubber gloves. This wasn’t the tropical paradise I’d imagined. Where was it all coming from? Further down the beach I noticed an overall-wearing man sweeping the sand for rubbish. I guessed it must come in on the tide here. The beach itself was in a natural, wide alcove, so it’s possible it gets trapped here. I looked to my right and in the distance saw a ramshackle collection of coloured huts right on the edge of the water. Maybe it was coming from there. It was somewhat disappointing, but then not too surprising, when I consider the state of some of the side streets I’ve seen in PP and the litter by the road on the way to this place. It’s a very throw-away society. I would have hoped that people here would take more care of a country with so much natural beauty. Is the poverty some kind of excuse for it? I hate being judgemental about things when I’m just a visitor, especially one earning more in an hour than most people here earn in a week.

I spent a lazy hour or two more lounging on the beach under the shade of coconut palms. The cool sea breeze took the edge off the heat, and I listened to the rising whoosh and falling whisper of the waves lapping on the beach. I forgot about the litter and thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t freezing my bum off back in the UK. The only thing I would have changed was to have my family with me. The two rubber ducks my kids gave me were my only companions. I took a photo of them on the lounger and hoped nobody could hear me talk to them...

As the sun started to fall towards the horizon I went along the beach towards the Sunset Bar. It sits on the promenade area just above the beach and you get a view of the sun setting just behind where the western edge of the alcove juts into the sea. I ordered a gin and tonic to sip on as I sat on a bar stool and watched the sun gradually sink and redden as it approached the horizon, casting a rose-gold glow on the sea. I pulled my camera out and took about twenty shots of the sunset, taking turns with a German man who had the same idea. I tried to strike up conversation but he pretty much ignored me, so I took sips of my long cocktail between shots and waited for the sun to disappear behind the trees in the distance. This simple moment was probably one of the highlights of the weekend.

When I returned to the hotel I decided to book a snorkelling safari with the company who run them from the beach near the hotel. I figured that it was a chance that I might not get again anytime soon. I would really love to try scuba diving some day as well, but haven’t had any training, so snorkelling would have to do for now.

That evening I bumped into a British chap from the project who happened to be staying in the same hotel. He was there with his Cambodian wife and insisted we meet up to go for a spot of dinner in the town. I decided that company was going to be better than sitting in my room or at the bar on my ownsome, so agreed and we met up a while later to take the short ride back up the hill to the strip I’d seen before. We went to a restaurant-cum-guesthouse (there are many here) with a large outdoor terrace and ordered food and drinks. I was bitten a couple of times by mosquitoes, despite having sprayed the insect repellent on, and the lights went out once or twice whilst we sat eating, but it didn’t spoil the enjoyment of the meal. It was cheap as the proverbial chips and really good quality. The fish I had for my main course was fresh and tasty. What did threaten enjoyment was a bit of one of my back teeth coming away when I bit into some bread. Looks like I'm going to need to find a dentist.

After eating we had a drink in a bar just up the hill, where I had to explain three times what a whisky and ginger was, before we set off back to the hotel, walking casually between the stray dogs who seemed to be wandering around but not really bothering anyone. I’m a dog-lover generally, but have this fear of getting bitten or licked by some rabid mutt here and having to find somewhere to get rabies shots, so it wasn’t altogether comfortable seeing them. I’ve seen dogs in PP, but not as many and not as openly stray.

Back at the hotel, my companion and his wife turned in early, leaving me to nurse a Long Island Iced Tea at the bar. It was a strong one and when I’d finished meandered back up to my room at just after 10.30, switched on the TV and watched some ridiculous film about Jack Nicholson turning into a wolf before going to sleep at about 12.30am. I had an earlyish start for my snorkelling trip, with the boat leaving at 10am. I wanted a good breakfast in me beforehand.

Breakfast was an unspectacular buffet affair with over-cooked bacon and bitter, burnt coffee from a metal cylinder. I ate plenty of carbs, knowing I shouldn’t, but I’m on me holidays, so didn’t care too much. I changed into my swimming shorts and an old t-shirt, and stuck my rubber-soled, slip-on deck shoes. I packed all my bits and bobs into my rucksack – camera, sun cream, sunglasses - and headed downstairs to get the complimentary transport to the beach where the trip was departing from.

At the beach I spotted the boat I was going out on. It was a little yellow speedboat with a sun canopy over the middle section, tethered by a rope to the wooden struts of a beach-side restuarant. It seated about six to eight people at a push and was bobbing up and down quite a lot on the decent-sized waves that were coming off the sea. I signed a waiver form at the travel company’s kiosk; feeling slightly alarmed at how many times it mentioned possible death, and then met the young Cambodian man who would be my guide. I was the only one doing the trip today, it seemed.

He guided me down to the boat and clambered aboard with consummate ease, timing his climb up the back end with the movement in the water. I managed to get on board without making too much of an arse of myself, planting my feet on the blue, non-slip stepping areas and squeezing under the canopy. The guide then untied the boat from the wooden strut, weighed anchor, and started his engine. After pointing out the lifejackets and big orange box containing the life-raft, he asked me if I wanted a beer before we set off, pointing to a polystyrene hamper on the deck, but I opted for a bottle of water and took my seat on the port side of the boat, opposite the guide’s driving position. The sea looked a bit choppy out there and I didn’t want to unsettle my stomach with gassy, canned beer just now.

With that we set off. We skipped over the waves at a good rate of knots, sometimes slapping back down with a good bang. I made a couple of suitably-impressed noises then got accustomed to the ride. I actually don’t mind little boats. I feel a lot safer in them than I do in big ferries and so on. I guess being close to the water helps as well as being able to see an easy escape route if there is a major malfunction.

We headed towards the green humps of some islands in the distance. The sun was getting higher in the sky, making the sun and sea glorious in colour. I turned round to see the beach, the hotels and the town shrinking into the distance. The sea breeze blew in my face and I felt at peace with the universe. Well, maybe just this part of the world, but it was thoroughly pleasant.

After maybe 25 minutes we were nearly at the first small island. It was completely covered in dense foliage, but I could see the odd wooden hut at the water’s edge. I inquired as to our destination and the guide said we’d be going past this first island. As we entered the next stretch of water, the guide suddenly dropped the power and came almost to a stop. We couldn’t be near a dive spot, I thought, and I was right. He had slowed down to negotiate a large floating mass of garbage, evidently brought together by the tides and now floating here in the sea a mile or two from the coast. Again, I felt a little disheartened to see such foul grubbiness. The guide steered us round it as well as he could, making sure we didn’t get something stuck in the speedboat’s propellers.

We came up to another island; this one was a little bigger than the first. As we drew near I saw a few huts on a sandy beach and a long white jetty. The guide aimed the boat for the area between the jetty and the beach and stopped us maybe 300 metres from each. He pointed to the darker patches visible in the water between us and the shore and told me that there was a coral reef there with fish galore to look at. He dropped anchor, and then pulled out a large plastic bag containing flippers, masks and breathing tubes and handed me one set of each. I pulled my t-shirt off, slapped a bit of sun cream on my neck, arms and shoulders, thinking that would do the job, and then followed the guide’s lead. He moved to the back of the boat, sat on the edge and pulled his flippers on. He then slipped his mask over his head and slid off the boat into the sea. I followed suit, edging out onto the rear deck, dangling my legs over the edge and then pulling my big, black flippers on. They weren’t easy to get on, being rubbery, tight and quite unwieldy, but got them on I did and felt like a bit of a berk. My guide beckoned me to jump in, so I pulled my mask onto my head and flopped into the water like a big, white walrus.

Thankfully the water was warm to me. It felt nice, actually. I followed my guide as he swam around the boat towards the area he’d earlier indicated, and was eager to see some fish. He told me about using sea water to rinse my mask, and then proceeded to snorkel, swimming around with his face down in the water. I rinsed and pulled my mask down, put my breathing tube into my mouth and looked down into the water. There were some amazing and colourful coral shapes down there, and quite a few black spiky objects (sea orchids, I think). There weren’t many fish at that early juncture. I guessed they’d been scared away by the boat’s engine and our splashing, so was patient in waiting to see what might venture out once things calmed down.

The water wasn’t crystal clear, to be honest. It was a little murky, but I could make out quite a lot of detail. The reef was so complex and made up of all different kinds of shapes and colours. My guide called for me, saying he’d found a big group of fish, so I swam slowly towards him, rinsed my mask again and looked down. There were now fish here, in shoals that darted to and fro or which moved with the gentle waves. I spotted several different types of fish, including bright yellow and zebra-patterned ones. When I found big groups I just stayed as still as I could, looking down into this amazing alien world. I had to rinse my mask and blow salty water from my tube every so often, but I was happy to stay there for a good while, even after my guide had complained he was cold and climbed back onto the boat to dry off. Cold? It was lovely in here.

After something like an hour I decided it was time to get back aboard the boat, so swam back to it. I didn’t reckon for the problems that I would have in getting on. There was no ladder into the water, just a single, low rung that was about level with the water when lowered. I took my flippers off and started to try and climb on, but with my metal hip and my not-inconsiderable bulk, I soon realised that I was going to struggle. My guide tried to assist me, mainly by showing me a variety of ways to stand on the outboard motor with one foot, the rung with the other and pull myself up. I just couldn’t do it, and the slippery handrails were no use whatsoever. I did manage to haul myself half up onto the boat, but felt like a floundering fat fish of some kind and slipped back into the drink. I got quite annoyed and was getting tired now, and felt cramping in the back of my thigh. My guide seemed to have little notion of what to do, and offered no suggestions. Would he have to tow me back to land? I guessed that would be dangerous with an outboard motor near me.

I suggested that I could swim to the beach that was only a few hundred yards away and he could come and pick me up there. He agreed to that and I put my flippers back on (not an easy task in itself when in the water) and swam very slowly to the shore. It seemed to take me forever, although it was probably less than five minutes. As I neared the beach I saw there was a family gathered in front of a hut. Did they live there? As they had (rather barky) dogs with them, I guessed so. I couldn’t see a boat, maybe some of their contingent were out fishing on one of the old boats I’d seen on the way here. The guide was talking to them, probably telling them that he’d rescued a strange breed of pale-skinned narwhale and had to get it back to shore before sundown.

I finally slumped back into my seat on the boat with a towel round me and felt completely done in. I wondered what would have happened if we’d been further out to sea.  There was always the life-raft, I suppose. I guess it’s best not to think too much about this stuff. I was fine. I noticed a few nasty scratches on my leg, and the guide dabbed some iodine on them with cotton wool before setting off once again.

We took a little tour round another nearby island, stopping so I could take some photos of the beaches and holiday huts on the shore. People come here for day trips from the mainland, or so I’m told. I spotted a big diving boat with nice ladders and other, easier access means like that. Much as I enjoyed the experience of snorkelling,  I have learned my lesson in terms of boats that I can use for such things.

The trip back to shore was quick, thankfully. I felt a bit sickly for a while, probably due to the salty water I’d swallowed. I sipped at some water and soon felt fine again. The weather above us was changing as we neared the mainland. Large clouds were moving across from the east towards the land, but at least the swells of before weren’t so big. When we arrived back near the restaurant I half-dreaded having some other ordeal with getting off the boat, but a man on the shore helped my guide tether the boat up and I managed to time my jump down quite well and staggered ashore, rucksack and shoes clutched to my chest. I thanked my guide for the trip and told him I had enjoyed it, then turned on my heel and marched towards the stairs up to the beach-side restaurant.  We had been out nearly 3 hours, and I had worked up an appetite.

I had a very nice lunch of some tempura prawns, calamari and chips before heading back to the hotel lobby where my driver was due to meet me at 2pm. I used the spa facilities to shower and change, but found myself sweating profusely in the warm tropical air as I waited for the car to arrive. He was as punctual as could be, if not a few minutes early and we were soon on our way back to Phnom Penh. I relived the wacky races / game of chicken a second time, and I guess I must have been slightly less fraught on the return. I think finding some distraction with games on my mobile phone helped a bit, even if I had to look up now and again to make sure we were still on the road and not upside down in a field.

The drive back took 4 hours, and by the time we got back I was starting to feel the sunburn on my back. I hadn’t done a very thorough job with the sun block, and just that hour and a bit of snorkelling had cooked my back. I asked the driver to take me to a pharmacy before taking me to the apartment and I bought some aloe vera gel to apply when I got back. It was very angry and red when I finally got to bed, and today has been quite a struggle with the pain from it. Another lesson learned, I guess.

So that was the weekend in Snooky, as it’s known. I have two more 1-day weekends now, and then another long one. I might head up to Siem Reap next time to see the temples at Angkor Wat. The roads up there are even worse, allegedly, so I may well just bite the bullet and take the 45-minute flight. There are several flights each way a day so could conceivably do it in one day.

When I got back from work tonight I saw the hugest gecko on the wall near my door. It must have been two feet long. I edged towards my door, hoping that old adage of “it’s more scared of you” would hold true, and it did. The gecko scuttled off round the corner when I moved closer. I don’t mind having little ones in my apartment, but not something that size, thank you very much. It might just mistake me for a very big bluebottle...

Thursday 9th February 2012. Weak to Week.

All I can say in my defence is: I’m not a scout anyway.

So on Tuesday night I drank. Not a great amount, but enough. I got to bed by 11.30pm and wasn’t too hungover in the morning.

I was invited out again, so it’s not completely my fault. A new chap joined our team from Korea, so as is customary, we went out for a meal and few beverages. We were driven to a North Korean restaurant by the driver. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but there weren’t any large pictures of dictatorial types waving. There were pictures of the ocean, quite a few of them, with crashing waves, strange, stormy skies and towering, craggy cliffs. The paintings were huge. The restaurant itself was brightly lit, with lots of whites and yellows in the decor. There were large tables running the length of the large room and a few round tables at the wings. At the front of the room was a stage, complete with keyboards, a drum kit and TV screens. There was obviously going to be some entertainment. Arthur confirmed this was the case, and told me I was definitely going to be impressed. I wanted to be the judge of that.

We sat at one of the round tables and the menus were delivered by the all-female waiting staff. They wore their hair in tight ponytails and wore frilly dresses in white, yellow or pink. They poured us glasses of a yellow liquid as we read the menus. I wasn’t completely surprised to find they had dog on the menu, with a dog broth and some dog steaks on offer. I told Arthur that I would try most things, but not dog. It’s just not something I want to do. Call me a narrow-minded Westerner, but I just can’t see the attraction of eating man’s best friend. Besides, I am yet to find an animal that offers the range of tastes and cuts that a pig can, and I doubt I will.

Then the soju and beer came out. I decided to drink slowly and not be drawn in to the regular gumbay shenanigans of the Koreans, but they weren’t as bad as I’ve seen before, to be fair. Although to start with they insisted on drinking “bombs” made by pouring a shot of soju into their Tiger beer. I misheard at first, thinking it was some Korean word that sounded like “bum”, but soon got what they were trying to say.

The food came and I have to admit I was impressed. There was lots of seafood, a few random but tasty kimchi dishes and beef skewers. The best thing was the sausage-like meaty dish they brought out. It was pretty much a mix of haggis and black pudding with a little kick of spice. I really liked it, but forget what it’s called. Finally, some honey-drenched rice pancakes came out, which were sticky and stodgy and rather delicious.

After half an hour of eating and drinking, a selection of the waiting staff moved to the stage area and some typical oriental pop music started. The girls grabbed microphones then began to sing along, the words to their song on the screen behind them. I took my mobile phone out and got ready to take a picture, but before I knew it another waitress was beside me saying, “no cameras!” I didn't think we were actually in Pyongyang, but there you go. I put my phone away.

As the singing continued, some girls brought plastic bunches of flowers to each table. They picked me out, for some reason, and I was handed one. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but Arthur said I should just watch and see what happened. The singing gave way to dancing, and I started to realise that these young ladies were actually very talented. The dancing was extremely well-drilled and choreographed, and some of the spins they performed brought rounds of applause from the audience.

More singing next, and as one of the performers sang solo, I watched a Chinese man sitting at one of the long tables take his bunch up to her and receive his own round of applause. A minute later he joined the lady on stage with a microphone and started singing the song along with her. Oh, crumbs. I hoped I wasn’t expected to sing after taking my flowers up.

The next song was an English–language song, something from the ‘60s about rain, I think. It was a duet this time. I plucked up the courage to stand up and take the flowers to the nearest girl, and then skulked back to my seat as the people around me smiled and clapped. I tried to hide as well as a man of my size can, and wasn’t beckoned up to sing, thankfully.

I went to answer a call of nature and on my return I was greeted by the sight of five ladies performing music with rock instruments. One of them was playing an accordion, but we’ll let that pass. They sang into headset microphones and played with no little talent and a great amount of enthusiasm, smiling all the while. The lady on the drums performed a quite incredible drum solo and I looked at Arthur with mouth agape. He just smiled back at me. He was right: I was impressed.

A couple of songs were performed with traditional Korean instruments and the show was over. We finished our drinks and made our way out, thanking all our amazing hosts for the evening. It was still before 9pm, so of course we headed to another K-TV joint to warble and drink for another hour or two. I left Arthur with the new guy at about 11pm and was driven home. Well, not home exactly. It’s a serviced apartment where I sleep, but not really home.

So now it’s Thursday and I’ve got a 2 day weekend to look forward to. I’ve decided to go and see some more of Cambodia. I am going to Sinahoukville, a town on the coast for the weekend, staying one night at a mid-range hotel (got me a good deal on the internet, as you do) and just having a bit of R&R. And maybe some booze and nice food. I have been told there is some amazing water for snorkelling in there, so might just have to have a go at that as well. The Koreans folks are setting up a driver to take me there and bring me back, which is awfully decent of them.

It will be good to see some more of the country. I only see a very small slice of the place, but it is so varied. Even in the 100-yard walk from apartment to site office I see many sides of this city and country. I see the colonial influence in the apartment building, and then walk around the corner to see what could be classed as your typical non-tourist street here with basically-furnished local cafes and street vendors selling their wares from their little bicycle-propelled carts topped with parasols. Mopeds pick their way between the people, occasionally honking their horns to get attention. As I near the site entrance there are labourers coming to and fro, all wearing hard hats and many wearing the light blue surgical masks that seem very popular in the Far East. There are often groups of young men playing a Cambodian version of hacky-sack with some kind of plastic shuttle-cock, and I have to say, they have some skills, these guys.

Work itself is manic. Things are getting quite involved and “interesting”. The good thing is, the days are flying by. I’m not bored, there’s no time to be bored. I just need to control the stress levels. I have been swimming a few more times, probably three times in a row this week now, and was given some goggles by the lovely chap at the front desk. A previous guest had abandoned them pool-side, so thanks to whomever that was. They’re a bit scratched up and old, but are a good make and do the job of keeping the water out of my eyes.

I’m doing my best to stay in most nights now. I have found a book with restaurant phone numbers in so I can order food delivered to my door now. It’s just a case of making reasonably healthy choices. There are one or two decent films on TV and plenty of English football to see, and I have watched about 18 out of 176 episodes of my Family Guy collection. Then there’s keeping this little record up to date. All in all, I’m keeping myself busy. If I keep myself healthy, I’m laughing. Ha ha, he he, ho ho!

Saturday 4th February 2012. Green in the gills.

Oof.

That’s all I can say. I hope this turns out not to be a regular thing. If they expect me to keep up with this and go out more than once a week, they’ve got another thing coming. It’s just not sustainable. My fragile health (which I am loathe to go on about too much, my Dubai book resembles a medical journal at times) really can’t take this punishment, so I have to be sensible and restrict myself to the occasional night out, or I will regret it in the long term.

Still, I know what I need today, and that’s a good old English fry-up. A guy called Mike who works for one of the subbies was out with us last night and mentioned a cafe called the Green Vespa down at the Riverside, so I have arranged to meet up with him at the site then go for a breakfast. They tell me they’re the best in PP.

Mike is right. The breakfast is spot on. We have the Half Monty, which is more than adequate. There’s bacon, eggs, sausage, beans and toast, and it comes with bottomless coffee and orange juice for the princely sum of seven dollars. There is actually a Full Monty on the menu, but that is monstrous, by all accounts. The Half does me fine, and I go home feeling reasonably OK. I forget that I get delayed hangovers in my 40s, and an hour after I get home I am laid on the sofa feeling pretty gruesome. I have got a bad case of the runs once again, and can’t be sure if it’s something I ate or just the excesses of last night. By 6pm things have settled down a touch, and I manage to cook myself some food. By cooking I mean I fry an omelette and boil some water to put into a pot of instant noodles. It does what it needs to do, which is to quell my hunger, and I spend the rest of the night watching my freaking sweet Family Guy DVDs, only stopping to have a quick chat with the wife and kids on skype.

It’s back to work tomorrow, and I won’t be touching a drop of alcohol until next weekend. Scout’s honour. 

Friday 3rd February 2012. The Social Buttefly.

Oh me, oh my. What am I doing? I've been invited for drinks again, this time by the guys who work upstairs for the development client. It should be interesting, to say the least. I am looking forward to getting to know the client PM a bit more. He’s English and from the North East, and has a couple of other Brits working with him who will be joining us no doubt, so it will be good to mix with people I have a more complete culture understanding of.

 Shame that British culture is even more focussed around evil alcohol, eh?

I am tired all day Friday, and am recovering from a soju hangover. They are known to be quite bad.This week has been a tough one. I’ve been working hard and playing hard, and at my age, I feel it more. I am reminded of my time in Taiwan nearly 10 years ago. The culture there was similar in terms of regular nights out; in fact I think I cooked for myself about four times in the nine months I was there, and spent many an hour in pubs and clubs. I don’t think I will be able to tolerate that kind of lifestyle now. I can’t, really.

Still, it’s early days, and everyone’s helping me settle in and making me feel welcome. Hopefully things will settle down, and I should be able to restrict the nights out to once a week. My body will thank me, not to mention my wallet. It is cheap here, depending what you do and where you go, as I am finding out. So far, I have had people with me who insist on paying for everything, so I haven’t had to dip into my funds too much. I can’t expect them to do it for my whole time here, though.

I still feel tired at the end of the working day, but the chaps upstairs have told me that tonight is definitely on. The Korean PM says he think Arthur should come with me to make sure I don’t get into too much bother or say the wrong thing to the wrong person. As if! Arthur doesn’t seem keen at first; he says his wife is on the warpath about all these late nights. I tell him that we don’t have to go out for long and can always leave at about 9 or 10pm. We’re big boys after all, and can control ourselves, can’t we?

Hmm.

Roll on to 1.30am and I am on my way home in a tuk-tuk and can barely stand. I have been in several strange venues with names like The Rose Bar and Die Bunny Die or something, where you are compelled to buy drinks for the ladies who sit with you (you really have no choice in the matter). Some massaged my neck while I sat and drank, but they were not too pushy or bothersome, thankfully. The other blokes seemed to take it all in their stride and watched my trepidation with growing amusement. I did relax after a while when I realised it was all harmless fun and that we weren’t going to go anywhere really dodgy or put into compromising situations. Most of us are married men, after all. We went to a different K-TV bar for a bit and this time there was whisky flowing freely, food was brought out, and I again showed off my voice to the surprise of the Brits present. My Tom Jones impression went down a storm.  Arthur got separated from our group after the Karaoke and went home to face the Korean equivalent of the rolling pin, I think.

The last venue I ended up at was a much more sensible and less scary place, being a huge, modern sports bar with big screens on every wall. There were no ladies to buy drinks for and the staff were really friendly and pleasant, particularly the bar manager. One of the Brit guys called Ricky lives near there, or should I say he practically lives in the bar. We sat there and talked for a good while, drinking blue margaritas for nightcaps. The manager, a young guy with a heavy American twang to his accent, put any music on that we wanted. There was hardly anyone in at the time. They have decently-priced beer and good food, and show all the big sporting events, so I can see myself coming here often.  Ricky and I are the last two standing from the whole group that went out tonight. Everyone else has gone home.  I am quite impressed with myself, although it really isn’t big or clever.

So the night is over and the tuk-tuk ride is taking a while to get home. He took a while to understand my destination, which seems to be at the other end of town. He’s still only going to charge 3 bucks for the ride, so I can’t complain. I just hope he does actually know where he’s going I just wish there was a nice bar like this near me where I could go every few nights after work for a chill and a drink of the mood took me.

I get home then and drop into bed like a drunken stone. I hear some strange noises upstairs again. I thought I was on the top floor, but apparently I’m not. There is another floor, and there are new residents above me now. When they turn the water on there is a weird thumping and whistling noise, which can be quite irritating. Never mind, I’ve drunk enough to pass out soon enough...I’m going to feel this in the morning!

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Careful now...

I think I need to be careful here. There is much more to Cambodia than I thought, and the Korean crew here are not shy about having a good time when the mood takes them. I came here to save money and use the structure of a set routine to get myself fit. One school night transgression this week is bad enough, two is bordering on irresponsible.

Wednesday wasn’t as bad as I imagined it. I squeezed as much sleep as I could in until 7.30, showered in record time then turned up for breakfast at the canteen just before 8am. There were still people eating then, and others joined after 8am, so I was in good company. They are more relaxed than I expected. I was at my desk for just after 8, so no harm done.  It seems that the Koreans actually work until 9pm most nights (with a break at 6pm for dinner). It’s not in their contracts, but they do it out of some sense of duty. I guess it’s kind of expected. They do bend these expectations on occasion, of course, none more so than on Tuesday night. It could be argued that they see socialising with colleagues as work of some kind anyway.

Shame it all went boobs vertical on Thursday night again...

I even get back to my apartment, having left at 6pm as usual (I’m under no obligation to work until 9pm, thankfully), and am just about to strip off to get ready for my evening swim – I am actually looking forward to it – when my mobile phone rings. It’s Arthur.

“Hey, Chris. Come back to the canteen for dinner tonight. It’s barbecue pork tonight!” he says enthusiastically.  

I know what that means. In Abu Dhabi, one of the few highlights had been the barbecue pork nights where they cook slices of pork at the table, often having a few glasses of the Korean spirit called soju with it. I guess it would be seen as rude to refuse, so stop getting undressed and go back round the corner to the site. In the canteen the sounds and smells of sizzling pork fill the air. I sit down with Arthur , DC and a couple of other guys and get stuck in.

I had spotted the green bottles of soju in the fridge before, and have already surmised that it would be cracked open once in a while. My guess turns out to be correct, and they crack not one, but about six bottles of the stuff open. They are impressed with my knowledge of how to hold the little glass when having drink poured, and there are lots of “gumbays” and emptying of glasses. When it’s like this, is it’s hard to know how much one is actually consuming. I lose track of time, too, and soon start to feel the effects. DC is starting to look a bit worse for wear again as well. The pork is a sideshow, to be honest, but it is very tasty.

We finish drinking just after 8pm and I invite Arthur back to my apartment to drink the beers I acquired the other night.  He tells me he should stay in the office until the PM leaves, probably at around 9pm. What the point is of sitting at one’s desk is when you’re somewhat sozzled is beyond me, quite frankly, but I leave him to get on with it. I roll back to my apartment, regretting my weakness and cursing the soju. I hope I have the willpower to avoid another late night.

Arthur drops by as expected, just after 9pm, but as I only have the four cans I was given the other night, we don’t compound our folly, and are even more sensible when we decide that we should call it a night at about 10.30pm after we put the world to rights and I show him some photos of home on my laptop. Arthur actually has his wife and kids in Cambodia with him, so I hope they are understanding about his regular late nights. I get to bed at a reasonable hour, but still feel quite inebriated. Again.

Tuesday 31st January 2012 It’s Karaoke Jim, but not as we know it...

I am settling into a routine now, but I probably need to look at revising it. I work from 8am to 6pm with that lovely 90-minute lunch break, then have a swim (every other night, I want to do it EVERY night) then go and find something to eat. I really, really should get some proper food into my apartment so I can cook for myself. There’s even the option of eating dinner / tea in the works canteen, but first of all, I wouldn’t be able to swim for at least another hour, preferring to eat AFTER swimming, and secondly, I like variety in my diet. Much as I am impressed by the culinary skills of the Korean lady who cooks for us on site, I don’t know if I can stomach fish, kimshi and rice twice a day, every day.  I could go swimming at lunch time, of course. I need to consider what the most efficient and cheapest option is.

I have just about finished reading through the contract documents for this job and have a good sense of what is going on. I get the feeling my client wants me to get stuck in and start writing letters to their client. The Project Manager invited me into his office for a cup of coffee and we spend half an hour going through the main issues of the job and what he thinks I should look at. His English is decent, but heavy-accented, so I struggle to understand everything he tells me. I think I get the gist of it, and will be able to double-check with the main guy I work with, who has very good English and understands the Western mindset, having studied in Australia. He has even given himself a Western name, which he uses when talking to use round-eyed white folk. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll call him Arthur.

 I often feel embarrassed that we Brits have it so easy when it comes to language. We get away with using our mother tongue in most cases, whilst other nationalities make more effort to learn at least one other language. I know a bit of French, a little German and a tiny bit of Arabic and Mandarin, but I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in a foreign language at all.

At the end of the coffee meeting, the PM asks me if I want to go for dinner tonight. Of course, say I. I won’t get to go swimming, but it saves me having to worry about how I’m going to feed myself this evening. The rest of the afternoon is spent starting a few drafts of letters, and before long it’s nearly 6pm. I pop back to my apartment to slip into something more comfortable (a more spacious pair of trousers is always useful when going to dinner) and then we are off. Tonight we are joined by Arthur and another department manager, who has one of the two very common names in Korean society, but is known by his other initials. Let’s call him DC. We are driven in one of the pool cars to the Phnom Penh hotel where I stayed my first night and make our way through the lobby, past the bar and into a Japanese restaurant. There are no little private booths here, but some of the tables are sunken into a recess with the legless chairs to sit on again.

I let the PM do the ordering for us, although I get to choose which kind of fish I want, so I plump for the fried salmon. Sake is requested as well, and the waiters bring a huge brown bottle of the stuff to show us. I hope we aren’t going to be drinking a full one.

So we eat and drink and the sake doesn’t take long to get us all talking freely. DC is a very talkative man who talks slowly and deliberately with some impressive knowledge of English vocabulary. We talk about our families, our situations, the different cultures of the UK and Korea, the Koreans’ love of golf, and of course the job we are working on. I realise that the PM is making an effort to get me integrated with his team of managers and engineers. I’m sure it’s useful for everyone involved.

The bento box-style meals aren’t as substantial as the meals we had last week, but they do the job. There is definitely more sake flowing tonight, however, and the chatty man DC startles me when he starts swearing expansively and quite loudly.  Apparently he watches a lot of UK TV programmes and has learned some choice words and phrases. There are a few “wankers”, “bastards” and “fuck offs” echoing round the room and I am thankful that there aren’t many in the restaurant. I laugh along with the other guys.

The meal is finished by just after 8pm, and there seems to be desire to carry on with the socialising, so we head for a Swiss/Austrian/German restaurant not far from where the project and my apartment is. It is quite a pricey place, so any ideas I had of coming here on a regular basis are soon discounted. We take a table on the covered patio area at the front of the restaurant and bottles of German beer are ordered along with a portion of snails and apple strudel.

DC, the man I am now calling the chatty man, now asks us all what we think the best thing in the world is. I say my kids are to me, and even manage not to choke up when I mention them. The other two guys don’t answer his question. They seem to know what’s coming. DC stands up, raises his arms and shouts, “Cunt! The best thing in the world!”

I don’t know where to put myself. I think I must at least be blushing, but can’t help laughing. I try to tell DC that this word is the worst in the English language for most people, but it doesn’t deter him. I am once again thankful that there isn’t anyone else in our immediate vicinity to hear this astonishing verbal assault.

We leave the Swiss restaurant after one or two drinks and the PM says it is time for him to head home. The rest of us head back to my apartment complex, where I assume I will be dropped off and that will be that. I am wrong. Arthur says we could go and visit one of the other Korean chaps who is staying in the complex and have a couple of drinks with them, and gets on his mobile to arrange it. Who am I to argue?

Within a few minutes we are in one of the other apartments (on the same floor as mine, as it happens), and I am invited to sit down and given a can of beer. There are maybe three other Koreans and a Chinese man (I think) in there with me, along with DC and Arthur. Some Nick Faldo Shiraz appears as if by magic and DC proceeds to put it down his neck at an impressive rate. Some very strange snack items appear on the table within a few more moments, including what look like dried octopus tentacles. I try one out of curiosity, and take about half an hour to finish it. Rubber is less rubbery than this stuff. I stick to the more recognisable corn/potato-based snackage from that point.

DC is now quite, quite drunk. He is knocking things over as he waves his arms around and lolling his head about. He keeps butting in on conversations when I ask questions or other people ask me something, so he keeps getting told to be quiet and he shuts up for ten seconds before launching into another tirade or playing some loud music in his i-Phone. Some of the other guys are shier than the ones I went for dinner with, and sit away from the table, observing the bizarre group dynamics that are developing.

With the wine, beer and a last dreg of vodka vanquished, our host claps his hands, indicating it’s time to break up the party. I am just starting to get into it as well. Again I assume that the night is over and it’s time to head for bed. Well, it is around 10.30pm, so it makes sense. Ah, sense. Where did you go when I needed you?

As we leave, the host hands me a carrier bag with a few cans of locally-brewed beer in. I feel slightly awkward, since this is completely the opposite of what I’d expect. I’m used to bringing drinks to a social occasion at someone else’s place, not taking them away when I leave. Anyway, DC is pretty much carried to the lifts and presumably to the waiting car outside and, just as I start to make my way towards my apartment, Arthur asks me if I fancy one more drink. I agree, on the proviso that it’s just the one drink, and we are joined by one of the other quieter Korean chaps called LC who was in the apartment with us and head off in a company car to add another new experience to my catalogue.

We arrive at a K-TV club. It’s basically a Karaoke club, with small rooms for private parties. I have seen similar before when I was in Taiwan, but there was something different this time. This time we all sat down in our allotted room on the bench sofas along three sides of the room, facing the TV and Karaoke machine at the front. I wait for drinks orders to be taken and start looking at the song lists that are placed on the coffee tables in front of us, but then the door opens and a long line of about 12 young ladies snakes into the room. They’re all dressed up to the nines, some smiling and some looking distinctly nervous, and my stomach lurches as my mind takes me to scary places. Where is this all leading?

Arthur smiles and nods and tells me I have to choose. Choose what now? For what? I tell him to go first, and he points at one of the ladies in the line. She smiles before moving forward and taking a seat next to Arthur. I blush and look as confused as I can.

“Choose a lady, Chris,” says Arthur.

“Er...OK. What is she going to do?” say I.

“She just sit with you and pour your drink, if that’s what you want,” he smiles.

“Oh. Right,” I reply. I feel slightly better. I’m hoping that this is true and that she won’t do anything else I don’t want. I am in control of what I do, and that’s comforting.

I look at the line and try and pick out the least frightened-looking girl. When I choose, the other girls all laugh and smile at each other. Who knows what that means. She meanders over to sit next to me, smiling all the while, obviously aware of my own nervousness. She sits close, but not uncomfortably so, opens a can of beer and pours it into a waiting glass with ice cubes in it.

LC chooses his lady companion and the other ladies file back out. For an awkward moment we all look at each other, and then I take a gulp of iced beer and proclaim that it must be time to sing. Arthur takes the honour of going first, choosing some awful dirge of a ballad I’ve never heard in my life. It is in English at least, and he gives it a good lusty go, warbling in that well-established drunken Karaoke way.  When he finishes we all clap, our lady companions clapping as enthusiastically as they can. I start to relax some more. They’re just here to keep us company and applaud our terrible singing, that’s all.

LC goes next, signing a Korean pop song in a slightly under-powered but in-tune voice. He gets an even bigger round of applause. Now it’s my turn. I choose U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, hoping it’s tuned to be in my range (always a gamble at Karaoke) and as the music starts, I wait to deliver my customary Karaoke surprise. When I start to sing, the Koreans look at each other and whoop with delight. The girls look impressed as well. I’m not going to play it down here; I can sing. It’s one of the few things I’ve always been good at. That and eating.

It is sometimes a quandary for me, though. Karaoke isn’t always the place for good singing. It’s more about the tacky music, the sing-alongs and even the tuneless warbling. When someone who can hold a tune and who has a good set of lungs (I had the best lung capacity in my class at school - we measured it in a science lesson) lets rip it can sometimes kill a Karaoke session. It puts the less proficient people off having a go. I try to mitigate this by never going first, hamming it up and by singing well-known songs others can sing along to. Of course, if the mood is right, as it is tonight, and you’re in a small group, you can get away with a bit of self-indulgence. It’s nice to see the surprise on people’s faces when they realise you can sing.

Arthur joins me for a brotherly, shouty duet of “Bohemian Rhapsody” (I know my limits and don’t even try and hit the notes properly) and then I sing one or two classics by the Beatles and such like. I impress myself with a passable Louis Armstrong impression, and then get a bit melancholy when I sing U2’s “One”. The song is one my favourites and gets me emotional at the best of times, but in this situation it brings my life into sharp focus and I think of my family back home, completely unaware of the shenanigans I’m indulging in, and I feel my throat closing up with the emotion. I feel that I’ve sang enough now, and after we finish our beers, Arthur tells us it’s nearly 1am and time to get home. We have work in the morning.

As we leave one of the front desk ladies says something to Arthur that I don’t quite catch about the girls who were with us, and he shakes his head. As we get into the car he confirms my suspicions: she asked if we wanted to take the girls home. I feel myself blushing again. I’m not naive, I know what can be on offer in this part of the world, but I assumed that this particular K-TV was just for entertainment and not offering that kind of “service”. I guess that ultimately the choice is the individual's, but I’m glad I wasn’t exposed to what could have been a more awkward situation.

I finally get to bed at 1.30am. I think tomorrow could be a bit of a struggle. What a curious night this was...