Friday is a transfer day so I grab a taxi to the Chiang Mai airport and fly to Bangkok's old airport and then fly to Cambodia. Except for each flight being delayed 10-30 minutes, things run smoothly. The tuk tuk ride to my hotel is bad as it seems that Phnom Penh traffic is worse than the last time that I was here. I get to the hotel and start walking to the riverside for dinner. I look around and can't find anything I'm in the mood for so I turn around and start back tracking. Soon I hear somebody running up behind me and yelling my name. It is my friend Tra who is coincidentally out for his evening walk. He guides me to a restaurant and takes time out from his walk to sit with me until my food comes. We make plans to meet along with his partner Donald tomorrow. Dinner is uninspiring and I walk home and relax.
I start Saturday at 7am and have a quick breakfast. I'm on a mission to get a bicycle. I start walking to two leads but both have gone out of business since Covid. And that doesn't even count my original Grasshopper bike shop which I've rented from a few times before which is gone. But I get a lead to go try FLying Bikes and they have nice bikes! And so I've done all of that walking and walking to end up at a bicycle store close to my hotel that didn't come up on any search engines. Soon I'm riding home to get changed for a real ride. I start south towards national route 5 but there is a blockade after a few kilometers and the police won't let me through. Thus I turn around and ahead north on national route 1 - the road under continuous construction. Except that for a small overpass being built, all of the construction is finished. I make a turn onto a small road and start west to a convenient turn around point. Now is not the day for a ride to Prek Pnov. I turn back for home and really start cranking and passing motorbikes, tuk tuks, and cars. It's a good ride! After a shower I go to meet Person N_Ca but we only hang out for a short time before he is called away for something urgent. I'm tired so I go relax in the hotel for an hour until I walk to meet Tra dn Donald for Indian food. We have a good chat about everything that has happened since I last met with them in 2018 (I think). And then I walk on home to relax and get ready for a good Sunday morning ride.
After breakfast I'm out the door for cycling at 9:15am. I go south from Phnom Penh and still find the bottelenck that caused me to turn back yesterday. But I find a way around it and soon I'm cranking along national highway 22 towards Takeo province. Today is a bit warmer, but I crank along nicely and eventually get to a turn around point. On the way back home there is a nasty sidewind/headwind that slows me and there is nasty traffic getting back into the city proper. I detour around the problem and, at times, jump the curbs and ride on the sidewalk to get through bumper to bumper traffic. After a cooling shower I relax and flip through television channels. And fight off a nasty leg cramp probably from the hotter conditions and I did get a bit dehydrated during the ride. After 4pm Person N_Ca comes to visit and we spend almost four hours just talking about our lives and things. I walk Person N_Ca back to his motorbike with a sidetrip to the mini-C market for supplies for the both of us. When we're in the mini-C an attendant knocks a bottle of wine off the shelf and I can feel the glass hitting the back of my left leg. Fortunately there is no blood drawn and I help the attendant gather the glass and keep other customers from coming down the aisle until the glass is cleaned up. After an eventfull day I'm getting down for sleep near 11pm.
After breakfast I'm out the door for cycling at 9:15 am with tired legs and aa tired overall organism. I go out national highway 6 towards Siem Reap until a convenient turn around point. Then enjoy a tailwind for a majority of the ride home. It's a shorter ride than recently, but I need some slow days. After a shower I pick up lunch for eating in my room, stop in at a pharmacy, continue trying to break a $100 bill, and pick up some Coke. I received a $100 bill out of the ATM and now nobody wants it because somebody has written on it and though there is no tear, the paper is a bit weak in certain areas. Even the bank refuses to take it and claims, as a side-step maneuver, "We don't have any small bank nots". WTF, you're a bank! I tell everyone that in the USA we can have a bank note that is written on, torn, stomped on, and run over by a truck and everyone will take it. Here, nobody wants it if it has the slightest blemish. Good thing that I brought a good supply of $10 bank notes, but I'm going to keep trying with the $100 bill. Before snacks for dinner I go sit by the riverside and try to greet people in Khmer. Two college students walk by and sit down and we practice English together. They are both nice young men with both studying IT. We cover a lot of topics until I need to go grab a light dinner.
Tuesday I start the day with breakfast and get out the door for cycling before 9 am. I intend to ride to the Cambodian Genocide Museum - not to go in since I've been there twice before but just to use it as a marker. Except that I keep getting messed up on directions. So I just keep riding. At one point I stop for water and check where I'm at and I've already ridden 27 kilometers. So I turn for home and fight a headwind. After a shower I go to Tra and Donald's apartment since they volunteered to let me use their washing machine for laundry. And I get to meet their six cats. Donald is at the university so Tra nad I continue catching up on things. When the laundry is sorta dry - a sun-dried laundry on the porch - I gather everything and go back home. And have a slow evening with a little walk to the riverside to people watch.
I don't know what's going on. The first night in Phnom Penh I woke up and one side of my neck was stiff. The next night I wake up and the other side of my neck is stiff. On Tuesday night I wake up and my right lower back and right abdominal wall feel weird. I get up to go to the bathroom and when walking back to bed I bump my shin on a wooden "platform" that extends out the side of the bed. I knew when I first saw these platforms that I would bump into it, and now I did. The shin hurts and later, when I wake up, I realize that it has bled also.
Nonetheless I get out of bed at 6:45 am and grab breakfast and read the news before starting out for cycling before 9 am. I go north on national highway 6 and make the left turn onto a small road and can ride in the countryside. I get to the base of a small hill - the Cambodians call it a mountain - and I make the gradual ascent halfway up to a set of temples that I've been to before. And I don't feel like making the short but very steep ascent to the sceond temple so I skip it. On the way back home I find another small gravel road that I've been on before - how do I keep finding these small roads when I haven't been here for four years - and I ride around some small fishing villages. And then turn for home for just short of sixty kilometers. I relax with lunch and near 6pm head to a Greek restaurant to meet again with Tra and Donald. After dinner I go back to the hotel and soon Duke is at my hotel. So at 9:30 on Wednesday night, Duke, his partner, and I drive to the Meta House art gallery/bar. This is one of Duke's hangouts so he knows a lot of the people there. We have a nice conversation and catch up on all of the things going on in our lives. And Duke's friends join us at times to hang out. Finally Duke drops me off at my hotel and I get down for sleep near 12:30 on Thursday morning.
I sleep until my alarm goes off at 7:30 am and get out the door for cycling at 8:10. I've intentionally skipped breakfast to ride because their might be a thunderstorm coming in. Today I ride out to a temple and have some water and turn back for home for about 40 kilometers. After a shower I return the bicycle to the shop and have leftovers from last night's dinner for lunch.
Friday is a transfer day back to home and I will be sitting on airplanes for a long time. So I start the with a 65 minute walk along the riverside. I grab breakfast and pack my things and head to the airport - early as usual. The transfer back to Long Beach goes very smoothly. Even the 11 hour flight from Taipei to Los Angeles goes quicker than expected. I take a quick survey of the airplane during flight and there is one empty seat on the plane. And it is next to me. I get to spread out and enjoy the flight. At home I move clothes out of the suitcase one-by-one from the back porch to the laundry machine to make sure I haven't carried any ants or bugs with me. And I pick through the mail - which has not been put on hold again despite me asking the post office to hold my mail. Finally near 10pm I get down for some reading and sleep.