Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Cambodia Day 6: The Bedbug Debacle


By the time I got home from helping Grant look for his phone last night I was wide-awake, not good considering it was almost 3am but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I tossed and turned for about an hour before finally falling asleep only to be woken up by a group of 8 people in my room getting ready to check out at 4:30am. I fell asleep once they had left only to be woken up again by the rest of my roommates when they got up a few hours later. I figured since I wasn’t going to get any sleep I might as well start my day.

I was completely shattered and feeling slightly hungover as I made my way down to breakfast. I didn’t have a single drink last night so the hangover feeling wasn’t appreciated at all, feeling like crap when you’ve done something to deserve it is one thing but feeling like garbage after a night of drinking water is ridiculous. When I ordered my breakfast I was asked what room I was in and then approached by the hostel manager who said he wanted to have a quiet word with me. I figured I was in shit for Grant waking up my whole room last night but I wasn’t, he wanted to tell me that there had been reports of bed bugs in the room I was in and said he would be checking it out. A short while later I was told the room had been given the all clear, phew! Crisis adverted!

I spent most of the morning hanging in the bar by the pool; filling people in on the silly things they did last night as they all slowly made their way downstairs. I grew restless after a while and made my way into town on my own while the boys sulked back at the hostel. I didn’t really have any particular goals when I started my stroll I just knew I couldn’t spend the whole day laying around the hostel.

I stumbled upon a shop offering a 30-minute massage of your head and shoulders for $3 and it came with a free beer or soft-drink. I wasn’t overly confident I was going to get the best massage in the world but for that price it was worth a shot. The massage itself was pretty good until the end when the guy started slapping me in the head multiple times without a word of warning. It didn’t hurt but I had no idea what was happening and was a little afraid of what would happen next. My body felt very relaxed as I walked home with my free can of coke but the feeling faded after a few hours and I now have more aches than I did before the massage.

When I returned to the hostel I learned that the person who had complained about bedbugs in the morning actually had a picture of one so I would need to change rooms. Fantastic! Nothing like a good bedbug infestation to liven up your day. I moved all my stuff into the new dorm and shoved all of my clothes into a plastic bag, which I took downstairs for the staff to wash. I was kind of excited that I was getting my laundry done for free until I found out that I wouldn’t get my clothes back until 6pm tomorrow, meaning I am stuck in the clothes I am in now until then. It also means I don’t have any clothes that cover my knees so I can’t go back to Angkor tomorrow like I had originally planned.
Once I had my room sorted out I headed back downstairs where I lounged around for a bit before heading back into town. As hard as I try to have a lazy day I just can’t sit still all day, well at least not while I’m travelling. I checked out a temple or two and walked through the old market. I think there might be a mosque fairly close to the hostel because it sounded like Muslim prayers over a loud speaker as I crossed the bridge so I will have to check that out before I leave. I was feeling kind of hungry but wanted to see if anyone wanted to join me for dinner so I made my way back to the hostel.

When I arrived I found Grant and Mitch sharing a plate of fries and they told me they wouldn’t be going for dinner for a while. I stupidly ordered myself a snack as well but I should have just gone for dinner by myself. We sat around the hostel for hours, our group from the night before slowly reforming. The boys decided they wanted to stay until the end of happy hour, which still seemed so far away but I still sat and waited. Happy hour was about 5 minutes away from ending when a group of girls came downstairs and the boys insisted they needed to stay for one more drink. My gut was telling me to leave but I’m so sick of doing everything alone I decided to stay, I should have listened to my gut.
It was almost 9 when we finally left for dinner and we had to pass on almost every restaurant we looked at because the boys didn’t want to pay $1.25 for a beer. We ended up at a restaurant that was a little expensive for my taste but I stayed anyway and had the most expensive fried rice I have had in all my time in Southeast Asia, but hey they had cheap beers so it must have been worth it. Oh wait, I was drinking coke so that didn’t really work in my favour.

The next stop after dinner was Angkor What for some drinks. We somehow picked up a French guy along the way who was apparently staying at our hostel. I was enjoying talking to him, well at least trying to talk to him over the loud music, but he disappeared pretty early. It didn’t take long for all of the boys to find girls to talk to and completely forget I was even around. The girl we were out with the night before was back at the hostel as she was feeling sick so I was just standing in the middle of a club alone looking like an idiot. Okay, Lesson learned: listen to your gut!

I’m not a fan of looking or feeling like an idiot so I left the bar and walked home alone. I probably should have taken a tuk-tuk but I made it home alive and unscathed so all is well. I’m now lying in bed in the same sweaty clothes I wore all afternoon. God I can’t wait to get my laundry back tomorrow! 

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