I've been in Cambodia for more than a week now. Today I got back to Battambang. Back from Pailin. It's been hell of a ride on a roof of a pick-up truck, more than four hours, the road nothing more than a potholed dirt track. They say that world looks the most beautiful from a back of a camel. The roof of a pick-up truck is an easy match. After four hours on either, however, your bottocks are going to be terribly sore.
Pailin is near thai border and it is actually much easier to get there from Thailand than from anywehere in Cambodia. There used to be gemstone mines all around town just a few year ago, though nowadays almost everything has been mined out. Pailin also was one of the last Khmer Rouge's strongholds. Today it is smuggler's border town almost out of reach of central government. At the guesthouse I was staying I met Put. From India. He goes to Pialing quite often, he said. Business. Wouldn't say which kind.
Painlin's cooks must have seen David Cronenberg's Existenz and were inspired by the "Special". That chicken curry from the market stall looked exactly the same. I did not manage to assemble the teeth firing pistol from chicken bones though.
Tomorrow I am going to Siem Reap.
Few pictures from Pailin
Pailin's high street
Barber at the market
Petrol station
