The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025

From getting to bed at 2am last night, my day started a little later and slower than most. I did my normal routine, then trodded off to find a money exchange and some breakfast.

I wound up at old market, which is about a km from my hotel. Notice how there is no quotations on the word hotel? because this actually is one. The exchange rate to American is an absolute pill, I found out. After I swallowed that, I picked up some Cambodian dried beef, bananas, and an avocado. To me that sounded like a great dirtbag breakfast, and it was.

Around noon I finally had all my poop in a group and got me self a scooter for the next 4 days. Well here I was making fun of the scooters in Thailand, well they may as well be brand new Mercedes in comparison to the busted up shit box I got here. The fuel gauge doesn’t work, the speedo doesn’t work, the battery dies if you don’t shut it off immediately after stopping. The suspension is shot. Also its way to small for me so if I need to turn sharply I have to drop a knee. Needless to say its comical. I laughed when it died after dinner. Thankfully this batboy has a kick start. Oh and its a Zoomer, that’s the make. It barely putz.

After that Zoomer and I put putted to Angkor Wat and walked around the temples for a few hours. Wow just wow. That place is incredible. To imagine that a million people lived there at the height of the empire in the 12th century, is baffling. And the sheer amount of detail in everything is astounding. Even the reservoirs are all shaped and lined with big chunks of sandstone and laricite clay.

I walked through the main temple of Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm temple , and Banteay Kdei. All of which were absolutely incredible. It was about 32c today and as much as I loved it, I was cooking out there. There is only so much temple you can do until it all looks the same, so after 3 temples and 5 hours i headed back to Siem Reap for dinner.

Having never eaten Cambodian cuisine before I went to a higher scale restaurant then I normally do called Pinakpou. Google said it was known for Cambodian specialties. It was something. My meal consisted of 5 of the biggest oysters you’ve ever seen with a bunch of local spices and herbs to start, and then a marinated flank steak with fried rice, fermented sweet fish sauce, and a sour lime mint sauce. It was a big strange, I will tell no lie. In saying that it was still very much delicious. There is definitely some flavors there I am was not used too, but I am a foodie and open to try anything. It cost me $26 American which is incredibly expensive for Cambodia, but I got steak and oysters. I didn’t care, and both the beef and the oysters were Cambodian so that was cool.

All in all it was a decent day, I am absolutely knackered and cant wait to go climbing so I’m off to sleep. Till tomorrow.

P.s Driving in Cambodia is not like Thailand, In Thailand other drivers will move around you. In Cambodia they will just run you the fuck over. Its good close doesn’t count.

P.s.s I almost died from an unripe mango falling 20 meters and smashing into my table a foot from my head during dinner. It sounded like a gunshot. It scared everyone in the restaurant. Including me.