DAY 20: I lose it ALL🙈 (11/04/19)
It was biking time again. This time “only” 150km to reach my next destination, Kampot.
Compared with the first 2 days, biking had become a bit less painful. Around 100km in, I laid down in an empty bamboo hut next to the road. Several local men saw me and came towards me. I thought I was in trouble but they wanted to invite me for drinks and to play karaoke with them. They didn’t accept a NO for an answer but I was not able to sing their Khmer songs either🤷🏻♂️. After a couple of hours, I told them I had to go or I wouldn’t make it to Kampot, but they were drunk and didn’t want me to go. I had to lie, promising I would visit them back on my return.
That harmless lie turned my life into Hell, as a couple of Km later the road turned into pebbles and sand making it almost impossible to ride. On top of that, cars and trucks would pass raising huge clouds of dust that swallowed me. I thought that would be over soon, but I couldn’t be more wrong. I had to go sooo slow that soon it was dark, which made it even more difficult and dangerous. I couldn’t stop dreaming of reaching the town and taking a warm shower.
When I finally made it, found a hostel, and asked them for a room, I discovered that things still could go worse. I HAD LOST MY WALLET on the road! I had no phone, no money, no cards, nothing! No money meant no room, so I could already see myself selling my body for cash. In the worst-case scenario, I had a note written in Khmer saying something like “Please, I don’t know where to sleep, let me stay in a cell tonight” that I should show to the police in case of emergency.
But before giving up, I took my dynamo flashlight and decided to ride back very slowly through the shitty and dirty road I had come by. I had to stop every few minutes to charge up my torch and all the cars were beeping at me, but after persisting for 2 hours I found the wallet.
That night I deserved a hotel room. I asked the manager to email me a picture of my dirty looks.
The rest of the days in Kampot were quite nice tho. Probably one of the nicest places in Cambodia, I wouldn’t have minded spending more time there but I had not many days to spare.