EMOTIONAL GOODBYES AND HAPPY HELLOS

3 hours sleep is never enough. Sophia said she would come to the airport with me, but that was never going to happen, she could barely open her eyes. I packed up my stuff, and put some photos that I took onto a USB stick and gave it to her.

She gave me a set of her earings and said that maybe if a girl saw those they would know I had a lady and leave me alone, I jokingly asked her if this meant that I had a lady, she scoffed and said “well I'm not ladyboy am I?”, relief all round.

And so I left Sophia waving to me at the side of the road, I'd collected an earing and lost a key ring, Rob-Bear would be staying in Cambodia for the foreseeable future.

Saying goodbye to her was probably the most difficult goodbye I've had so far, and not just because of how much I liked her, it was more than that. With everyone else I've met during my trip they've all been travelers. and the thing about travelers is that they travel, so there's always the chance that you could end up in Norway or New Orleans or Rotterdam, or they could end up in London. Or you may find yourselves in a completely different place together. The world is getting smaller, and with things like Facebook it's easy to stay in touch and organise meet ups. But not with Sophia. She can't really leave Cambodia, and if she does she goes to Thailand for a couple of days. There was a very real possibility that I would never see her again, and if I did then it would be down to me to sort it out.

I was pretty down, and the Man Utd logos on the engines of my plane did nothing to help my mood. Thank god I was meeting up with Andy.

I got back to the guest house I'd locked my bag up in and checked the internet. I had a message from Andy saying he was in the room and I should come up and knock for him, I did, there was no answer. Knowing Andy like i do I was pretty confident that he'd be trying to bronze himself by the pool, so i went up there, out of order. Shit, losing someone in this city is really easy, and when you don't have a phone to rely on it's a very real possibility. Then I found him in a cafe.

I lived with Andy for about a year, and he'd been in australia for about 3 years. I'd seen him briefly just after new year for about 3 days, but it was really good to see him again. It's really nice to have a friendly face from back home when you're out here, it's someone you can completely trust, and you look out for each other, which everyone does anyway, but when it's a mate from back home, you're sure.

We spent the day sightseeing, saw the standing Buddha, but didn't get to see the lying Buddha. I think I'll just put the pictures of the standing Buddha on their side. we walked the back streets and got a bit lost and took a tuk tuk back to Khao San Road. After some Pad Thai and a quick nap we were out on the town.

we had a curry in one of the bars, with a couple of large beers, then hit the buckets. The red bull in this part of the world is very different and sends you a bit loopy. I had 2 vodka red bull buckets and was trolleyed. I think we went to a couple of bars after wards, I may have had an argument with Andy, but I know I sent Sophia a couple of texts, I should have kept my phone in the room.