Please excuse the poor grammar in this post and missing letters i will try to fix it all but my keyoard is broken and i may miss some full stops.
However anyway i want to talk about some incidents i’ve had so far out here. Especially after my most recent incident. So i recently met my friend purely by accident at a festival they have out here to celebrate the water and the river, Im unsure but I get three days off, so i’m happy. Any how there I was on the river side taking pictures of the boats when all of a sudden i get a tap on the shoulder saying ‘hello Greg’ and it was my friend Rory with whom i had gone to school with. It was so nice to see a familiar face! It made me even more excited for my mum coming. So we went for something to eat and what have you and a catch up. At that time we decided we would watch the Manchester United game which started at ten p.m the next day. We met at a bar and watched the game (it was a drab affair) after which we split off and went our own ways. All was well with the world. I got about half way home and onto a street near my house when i realised i had some people following me, not just any people, two prostitutes who were ladyboys. They pulled up alongside and started asking where i was going and the like. I say ‘no i’m going home.’ Big mistake letting them know that i was soon gonna be off my bike. They followed me the rest of the way home. There I was, trying to get off my bike and they get off their moto and come up to me and (Sorry Mother) they were grabbing things that weren’t asking to be touched so i tell them in no uncertain terms to go away and stop touching me this was when they put their hand in my pocket to take my wallet. I stopped them right there and then on that one. Blood was starting to pump around my body, I was getting ready. The one whose hand i took out my pocket returned to the moto the other bigger one got off and came straight up to me to grab my phone out of my hand. It was in my hand because i was trying to get my key out of my pocket where the phone was obviously i was interupted before i could get at it. So this ladyboy grabbed the phone but years of siblings and friends snatching things out my hand meant i was prepared. This ladyboy wasn’t getting it without a fight. So as she twirled round to break my vice like grip i was pulled off my bike. That was it fight or flight kicked in. It was fight. I managed to break her grasp on the phone and pushed her away. Her friend had driven off round the corner I was now bellowing at her in less than gentlemanly terms to go away I think this is what frightened them off. That i had turned from someone saying please go away to them, to someone who had an army mans voice (years of watching and playing football) telling them to f*ck off. Which was for some reason came out in a northern accent, i think. It came out as ‘F*ck off eh?’ And off she did. Me victorious them in defeat. Of course i felt immediately shakey and weird because that isn’t me nor is it usual to have an attempted mugging. A quick call home to mum and dad to calm the nerves and i fell asleep.
Of course at the time i was angry. However now retrospectively speaking i bear no ill will to these two people they may have mouths to feed or rent to pay. They were doing it out of necessity when a country has no infrastructure in place to support these sorts of people of course this is going to happen, especially to foreigners. I just hope at some point they can get out of this hole they are in and do better for themselves but i have feeling its very difficult to do.
I have had some other close shaves in Cambodia many traffic incidents. Witnessed one fight, a few arguments, my sprained ankle, someone eating eggs in front of me that sent him to hospital to get his stomach pumped he even offered me to try them! Rather glad i wasn’t feeling brave that day!
However i am typing this as i have been given the rest of the day off to go to the hospital and get my right ear checked out as i cant hear anything out of it which is slightly worrying. I reckon its been infected with some dirty water because, when i was having a shower the water pressure was low as i had just gone to the toilet, and just as i turned my ear to the shower it suddenly went full power shower and i managed to get a straight shot into the ear hole! It hurt like hell and now i think its infected with that dirty water.
Anyway good luck to Rory on the rest of his travels and have a look at some photos i took of the water festival.
The link of the day is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwSNMibfaRg I just watched Shawshank Redemption and i think the way Morgan Freeman described this music was lovely.
‘I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.’
