Free Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville by Peter Jaggs

as I walked around hunting for accomodation, I began to feel the place did possess a certain rustic charm. Due to my experiences at the border during visa runs I was anticipating being trampled by a stampede of beggars and touts on my arrival, but to my surprise, nothing of the sort happened. In fact, nobody seemed very interested in Joe Bucket at all. I walked past a handful of intriguing little bars with names like the Crazy Rabbit, the Boom Boom Room, Bonobo’s and the Shark and I began to look forward to the coming night’s entertainment with the first real twinges of excitement since I had left Pattaya.
    It soon became clear that Victory Hill was even smaller than I had first thought. In fact the town—if you could call it a town—consisted of little more than three dirt roads in the middle of nowhere that were lined with an assortment of ramshackle bars, guesthouses and restaurants. There was one bigger hotel—The Marina—hiding around the corner but I didn’t find it until I had already checked into the Crazy Monkey guesthouse. I chose the Crazy Monkey simply because there were two pretty Cambodian girls washing clothes in large plastic bowls in the yard outside. The two attractive sisters smiled at me as I walked past and I couldn’t help noticing how their T-shirts were splashed with water and pulled tight across their young breasts. So that was Joe Bucket’s accomodation sorted. Later on I noticed how the Mother of the two girls stationed her daughters outside the guesthouse with the washing every day just before the tourist boat from Koh Kong came in. In this way the girls provided an advertisement for the Crazy Monkey that was far more alluring than any attractive lobby or flashing neon sign.
    The Crazy Monkey seemed a bargain to me at four bucks a night. Admittedly, my new room was pretty basic—although very clean—and it was situated next to two other identical rooms. The doors of the three rooms were in a larger living room where there was a sofa and a TV that the friendly woman owner said I was welcome to use. She told me without a trace of embarrassment that her name was Srey-Leak, which means ‘perfect girl.’ This was the first indication I had that all Cambodian names actually mean something, and it was uncanny how often these quaint connotations suited their owners. After that, during my stay in Cambodia I always made a point of asking what anyone’s given name meant.
    Entry to the communal living room was gained through a heavy metal door with a see-through iron grill that looked out onto the yard where the two girls were busy at their washing. Srey-Leak gave me a key to fit both doors and told me I was welcome to come and go as I pleased. She asked me to make sure I always locked the metal door behind me though, because the guest in the other room was very security conscious. The two daughters—Chantavy and Chavy (‘beautiful moon girl’ and ‘little angel’)—shared the third room and always the optimist, I felt that might have definite possibilities. I splashed around for a while under a tepid shower that was heated by nothing more than sunlight, then unpacked and set out to explore Victory Hill and find something decent to eat.
    When I came out of my room my next-door-neighbour was sitting on the sofa watching the National Geographic channel on TV. He was around forty years old and had a studious look about him and his eyes blinked at me, owl-like, from behind a pair of spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottom of a bottle of Tiger beer. He was watching a documentary about the reptile and amphibian life of South America and taking notes in a little book as he did so. In my mind, I immediately nicknamed him ‘The Professor.’
    It seemed The Professor was not too delighted he had acquired a rough-looking, tattooed room-mate and when he discovered I was a Pattaya resident he was even less thrilled. This initial meeting was the first inkling I had of the difficulty I was going