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We had become lazy. The heat was wearing us down these days. Lethargy and routine were our means of fighting it. We were hanging out on our mattresses under a ceiling fan, reading and drinking warm water. Then we were hanging out in rattan chairs in the rooftop bar of our guesthouse, reading and drinking cold beer. It was nice to be in a country where, in contrast to Thailand, you could drink cheaply again. And at 40°C and 50 Cent for a cold draft in a bar where there is a fresh breeze every now and then – who are we to argue it’s too early for drinking?

When the sun was standing low in the west it was time to get back on our feet. Time for our daily culture kick. With an audible rip we detached our backs from the chairs they were sticking to. While walking we decided which temple we would visit today. Just don’t think too far ahead. Mama said that hurts. A tuktuk was always found quickly in this town full of pains in the ass. Decampment in the light, return in the dark. Dinner. This too, the mountebanks everywhere across town took care of proficiently. As soon as it got dark, they rose as well. In the evening, the “tuktuk”-calls of the day were joined by “You want to eat something?”, “You like massaaa?” and “Happy Au!”, always accompanied by a servile “Sir”. A little later, the more dingy figures arrived, mostly in the form of tuktuk drivers promising “Mariuahana”, “Kok”, “Yaba-Meth”, opium and “Lady Massaa BoomBoom”. After dinner we realized that the temperature had decreased to a sufferable number, maybe even one beginning with a two. The nightlife was wrapping its beckoning into little cool breezes.

First, however, it was time for washing down the sweat of the day and putting on pants with two full-length legs. This was the point in time when you could encounter our hippie neighbor. Not that this couldn’t have happened by day, on the porch we ware sharing. Because that is where he sat for hours and played magically on our guitar without any knowledge of notes or chords. In this trance, however, he was hardly responsive. On the other hand, a meeting in the evening routinely meant there was a joint to be smoked. Not so bad at all, it was time for an obligatory beer in the cooling bar on the roof anyway. Maybe someone else would be joining us. Just don’t stay too long! Don’t get swallowed up by the weed and comfort.

Get going. Into Pub Street. Why exactly it’s named like this I don’t know; after all there are mostly overpriced restaurants here. Well, some of them did look quite barlike, there was even some bass and light effects coming from one establishment. Inside, people dancing on a small dancefloor. Mostly white, like everywhere in Pub Street. High prices, snobby crowd. Not really my favorite place. Still, there were at least three khmer girls here as well. Even rather cute ones. And boom! One of them was hanging on Stefan’s arm. A minute later I had one of my own. Something was wrong here. Like predators, men usually hunt their prey. If food is simply thrown at it, the animal will feel fear that it might be rotten or poisoned. It has to flounder! Stefan was ignoring the instinct. I couldn’t. Time for a change of venue.

At first I was envious about the trophy Stefan had on his hand. Then I noticed she didn’t speak a word of English. My hooker alarm was ringing loud. My envy was gone, a strange contentment was coming over me. The world and all its inhabitants were my friends. Yes, even the mountebanks were my friends, and everybody was invited to my party. So it was that Stefan came into the next club, the Hip Hop, with a cute girl on his hand; I, on the other hand, had a begging child on my arm, a ladyboy hooker on my back and a retinue of tuktuk drivers behind us. The kid had pulled on my arm, the ladyboy just jumped on me, and when I couldn’t lose the two I thought why not invite along some tuktuk drivers. As I said, a town full of pains in the ass.

While the white people were at home in Pub Street, the Hip Hip had only young Khmer. In hourly, abrupt changes, booming techno beats, dancehall, and corny Khmer pop was played. For a western guy, Khmer clubs have three defining properties: First, he is the tallest person on the dancefloor for sure. Second, all the Khmer girls he even smiles at will scream and probably run away. If they don’t, caution is of the essence, which leads us to third. The only sure way of finding out if a girl is really a ladyboy is going to the men’s room often and examining closely the giggeling, eye shadow-freshening throng in front of the mirror. The one that furtively peeps everytime somebody uses the urinals. No, in the long run this is not the way to spend your evening.

My new friends had dispersed again and left me nothing but the opener “Have you seen my friends? They are a TukTuk driver, a kid and a ladyboy”. Stefan had let his company go as well when she wanted to see money. Nothing was keeping us here, so up and away! It was late. Besides the Hip Hop, not a lot of places in this area were busy. According to the guide book, there was a certain Laundrybar a little down the road. This, however, I had tried before. On the way there my stuff had almost been stolen by a clingy ladyboy and I had been reamed by a moto driver only to be smoking and learning Khmer with him and a policeman in front of the bar, because I preferred their company to the three fat European guys sitting with overly painted young Khmer girls inside. No Sir, not today. Back to Pub Street.

Here we managed to find a busy, affordable and amusing bar. Inside the Angkor What? it was dark, loud, and the personnel’s T-shirts said “Promoting irresponsible drinking since 1998”. This was no lie: You get one of these T-shirts for free when you order two cocktail pitchers or long drink buckets. No question – we needed two of these! We really succeeded in boozing our way to two T-shirts. The harder part by far was not losing them again. So it was that four buckets of liquour and some petty bar talks later we crawled out of the bar with only one trophy left. From this point on, my memories blur.

At the food stalls there were familiar faces, this much I do remember. Our favorite tuktuk driver was sleeping in his tuktuk right there on the street. Screaming waitresses who all knew us from before. The ladyboy and the begging kid. What I can’t remember though, is why suddenly we had a team of three hookers with us, including a ladyboy of course. Just the same I can’t recall how Stefan repeated exactly the same hooker scene from the beginning of the evening with the only attractive and safely female one out of our retinue, or how I got home on the floor next to my mattress, fully dressed. But that is all fripperies. What would interest me though, is if the fleeting thought that I had stripped in front of the two hookers just to demonstrate my sheer non-arousal is based on facts or arisen from a dream. And if it should be true, did it really lead to my feeling an Adam’s apple from inside?  I guess we will never know.

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We had become lazy. The heat was wearing us down these days. Lethargy and routine were our means of fighting it. We were hanging out on our mattresses under a...